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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Scarlet-W footage and what I learned about the camera

Nick Morrison said:
Yes this is true. We did some tests at Small Giant, and found that shooting with even 80C filters on Epic Dragon's really helped with Tungsten/3400k.

We did some tests for our colorist, and he noticed an improvement in the blue channels (the waveform was more balanced) and noticeably better skintones - not just richer, but noticeably smoother and less splotchy.
Click to expand...

I definitely use daylight sources when it's called for (obviously daylight looking situations or blue color sources), but for me personally and the look I like to get, I prefer Tungsten because it gives skin tones a richer, more glowing look, and this holds true for all cameras that I've personally owned.

Here's a side-by-side from some light tests on the Scarlet-W using Cool Lights Flo (90+ High CRI) vs. a Lowel DP Light (Tungsten). The Tungsten skin-tones just looks better on the Scarlet-W, IMO. The noiser blue channel does not really bother me, but I can see where it comes into play on key pulling jobs - green / blue screen.

DAMN! I need to loose some weight. I'm getting a double chin! I hate seeing myself on camera, LOL.

LightTest.jpg
 
Gene Sung said:
I definitely use daylight sources when it's called for (obviously daylight looking situations or blue color sources), but for me personally and the look I like to get, I prefer Tungsten because it gives skin tones a richer, more glowing look, and this holds true for all cameras that I've personally owned.

Here's a side-by-side from some light tests on the Scarlet-W using Cool Lights Flo (90+ High CRI) vs. a Lowel DP Light (Tungsten). The Tungsten skin-tones just looks better on the Scarlet-W, IMO. The noiser blue channel does not really bother me, but I can see where it comes into play on key pulling jobs - green / blue screen.

DAMN! I need to loose some weight. I'm getting a double chin! I hate seeing myself on camera, LOL.

LightTest.jpg
Click to expand...

I think the better skintones here have less todo with color temp, and more todo with the source. My guess is those Cool Light Flo's are just not friendly on skintones (regardless of CRI). Im almost positive if you'd shot this same test with a Joker 400 or 800 you'd be seeing much healthier/improved skintones.

Tungsten units starve the blue channel yes, but the QUALITY of the light is often superb, so your test here doesnt surprise me at all!
 
Nick Morrison said:
I think the better skintones here have less todo with color temp, and more todo with the source. My guess is those Cool Light Flo's are just not friendly on skintones (regardless of CRI). Im almost positive if you'd shot this same test with a Joker 400 or 800 you'd be seeing much healthier/improved skintones.

Tungsten units starve the blue channel yes, but the QUALITY of the light is often superb, so your test here doesnt surprise me at all!
Click to expand...

I would have to do a side by side, but I've worked with all sorts of daylight sources - HMIs, LEDs, genuine Kino's etc.... and at least for my tastes, I always like Tungsten skin better in the right situations (But this is completely PERSONAL preference as everyone has different tastes). I've compared the Cool Lights Bulbs to my genuine Kinos and my high CRI LED and they're all very white; at least compared to my lower CRI LED which I stopped using because it had a green spike to it.

I think that's the thing with Daylight sources is that it's less consistent depending on the company. You can have several different daylight sources and they are all white / no green spike / high CRI, but they have a different white quality (if that makes sense). For example, I can't remember which lights they were, but one of my daylight sources tends to be a warmer white while the other source is more of a clinical white, both are high CRIs, but they're just different.

Tungsten from any good manufacturer is just tungsten and it generally always makes skin look good because it's so much warmer to begin with.

Interestingly, on my Sony FS7, the blue channel is noticeably cleaner / less noisy, but I like the look of Tungsten on the Scarlet-W better than the FS7. Red seems to have better color separation under tungsten than the Sonys.
 
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jordan levy said:
really? then why do people say the white balance has no relevance and can just be switched in post?
i remember with the MX i had to light entire green screens with HMIS, but so many people here are adamant that the white balance doesnt do anything to the raw image.
Click to expand...

That's a great idea Jordan since that should fix the noisy blue channel for the key. Then I'm assuming it's safe to light the talent with 3200K source if called for?
 
i also prefer a good ol' tungsten source. since the dragon sensor tungsten has never bothered me, even on green screen. i just did a week of green screen on the raven with no issues. but id like to see what the 80c does for me on larger scenes. thanks gene and nick!
 
Nick Morrison said:
Yes this is true. We did some tests at Small Giant, and found that shooting with even 80C filters on Epic Dragon's really helped with Tungsten/3400k.

We did some tests for our colorist, and he noticed an improvement in the blue channels (the waveform was more balanced) and noticeably better skintones - not just richer, but noticeably smoother and less splotchy.

We bring 80Cs to every job now.

The reason for this is simple - yes you can drop the camera to 3400 in post - but that won't change the fact the camera is DESIGNED for Daylight, and performs optimally in the 5000k area. Almost all CMOS cameras behave this way. If you look back at Geoff Boyle's camera tests from a year or two, you'll notice almost ALL cameras have less DR when shooting Tungsten, and the Epic Dragon in particular showed this. Obv you can still shoot great stuff Tungsten on Dragon, but I HIGHLY recommend the 80Cs! They put you at 4900K, and cost you one stop of light - but totally worth it!
Click to expand...

Wow! Unbelievable, I was always told this but didn't know how big of an impact it had on the image. Thanks a lot for sharing, really good to know!
 
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Bob Gundu said:
What OLPF were you using?
Click to expand...

Standard OLPF


Gene Sung said:
I definitely use daylight sources when it's called for (obviously daylight looking situations or blue color sources), but for me personally and the look I like to get, I prefer Tungsten because it gives skin tones a richer, more glowing look, and this holds true for all cameras that I've personally owned.

Here's a side-by-side from some light tests on the Scarlet-W using Cool Lights Flo (90+ High CRI) vs. a Lowel DP Light (Tungsten). The Tungsten skin-tones just looks better on the Scarlet-W, IMO. The noiser blue channel does not really bother me, but I can see where it comes into play on key pulling jobs - green / blue screen.

DAMN! I need to loose some weight. I'm getting a double chin! I hate seeing myself on camera, LOL.
Click to expand...

Nice test Gene, you look great :)
I also prefer tungsten over daylight sources, but I think Nick is right on the source of light being a factor. I really want to test this for myself
 
Nick. Would u say u get the same results with CTB filters on the tungstens? A lot of the time I use my more powerful HMI's along side my Tungsten Fresnels. An 80C on my lens would mess with those HMI's.
 
Brody_B said:
Nick. Would u say u get the same results with CTB filters on the tungstens? A lot of the time I use my more powerful HMI's along side my Tungsten Fresnels. An 80C on my lens would mess with those HMI's.
Click to expand...

I would assume so - you're introducing more blue into those lights, so I'd have to assume yes.
 
Jason Han said:
https://vimeo.com/169046976
Shot on RED Scarlet-W + Cooke S4i panchros - 5K WS 4:1 / 9:1 for 60p - Edited/Graded on Davinci 12

Hey guys, just wanted to share some of my footage along with my insights/experience with the new camera. I've compiled some clips from a commercial I shot recently. I pushed this camera really hard, I was very curious about it's DR limits and ISO/noise ratios. The image is outstanding! The dynamic range is actually above 16, you can see from the first shot which is barely lit with the windows blown over 7-8 stops but still retaining information. There's still more detail that I could have extracted. ISO went up to 1600 in grand central, and it came out relatively clean.

One thing I learned about HDMI outputs: if you use the side pogo as your LCD, and you try to output HDMI, your LCD will go black. The side pogo and HDMI outputs through the same ports, so if you use HDMI for whatever reasons (extra monitor etc), you'd have to use your LCD through the top pogo output. No issues with SDI output with either ports.

Comparing to Epic Dragon: the biggest thing that sold me was the auto calibration of the sensor. My sensor stayed stable throughout temp/exposure changes with just the auto calib, saving over an hour of shooting time. Cooling system improved drastically, which makes the S-W a lot more quieter as well. Less noise on the S-W footage even at higher ISO. I plan on doing a side by side Epic Dragon VS S-W test when I get some free time, but the image seemed relatively similar. Body is so light and compact, it's really well designed. Loving the new Base I/O V-lock pack.

Grain is nice looking, but sometimes, especially when you work with log, you will see a lot more of the chroma noise. I found that the best way to reduce noise with S-W while retaining the most detail is to add subtle NR to specific chroma channels. I love neat video for heavy noise, but I hate what it does to the footage, even when turned down/sharpened, always gets a little muddy. I found that S-W has the most noise in the blue channel (60-70% all noise), then red channel (20-30% all noise), and then green channel, which is the least noisiest most of the time. You can check this by using the splitter combiner node on Davinci. If I needed a subtle NR, I used spatial NR to the blue and red channels, mostly to the blue and it worked well.
http://i.imgur.com/esX3mQC.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/fkbqUE8.jpg

Overall loving the camera very much, I can't wait to shoot some of my next projects!
Click to expand...

BTW Jason this looks great!!!
 
Thanks guys glad you enjoyed it!
 
I also prefered tungsten over daylight sources, but now i have hive plasma lights and i have one more stop of light and i can choose between 4600K – 7000K
 
Jason, how did you light or control natural light in the outside shots? Everything feels very balanced but still good contrast.
 
Gene Sung said:
I would have to do a side by side, but I've worked with all sorts of daylight sources - HMIs, LEDs, genuine Kino's etc.... and at least for my tastes, I always like Tungsten skin better in the right situations (But this is completely PERSONAL preference as everyone has different tastes). I've compared the Cool Lights Bulbs to my genuine Kinos and my high CRI LED and they're all very white; at least compared to my lower CRI LED which I stopped using because it had a green spike to it.

I think that's the thing with Daylight sources is that it's less consistent depending on the company. You can have several different daylight sources and they are all white / no green spike / high CRI, but they have a different white quality (if that makes sense). For example, I can't remember which lights they were, but one of my daylight sources tends to be a warmer white while the other source is more of a clinical white, both are high CRIs, but they're just different.

Tungsten from any good manufacturer is just tungsten and it generally always makes skin look good because it's so much warmer to begin with.

Interestingly, on my Sony FS7, the blue channel is noticeably cleaner / less noisy, but I like the look of Tungsten on the Scarlet-W better than the FS7. Red seems to have better color separation under tungsten than the Sonys.
Click to expand...


There is a huge difference between 5600k fluorescent/LED and HMI/ for skin tone reproduction. Its the difference between sickly looking skin and healthy skin. Can you make someone look good with LED/fluorescent, sure its possible with the right blend gels and good make up, but its often simpler and better looking to use HMI or the 80C with tungsten like Nick mentioned. I wouldn't place such a big emphasis on CRI.

On weapon, 3200 lit by tungsten isn't bad at all but it looks very clinical, a little too white sometimes, usually you have to warm the tungsten a little to breath life back into the image. The skin tones do look nice on tungsten though.
 
Maciej Zauszkiewicz said:
I also prefered tungsten over daylight sources, but now i have hive plasma lights and i have one more stop of light and i can choose between 4600K – 7000K
Click to expand...
This is how I've gone too, zero grain. Another nice thing is with the parabolics with practical light, is I can have the parabolic & ellipsoidal way off frame and still fill in for darks (i.e. Expensive to completely light a train station, so use natural lighting primarily and then the hive as fill for the actors face/clothes with the light placement almost like spot lights). I got a lot of these ideas from looking at David Mullens comments on using source four & parabolics. https://youtu.be/DHBwZT06zR8
 
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