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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 :)

Sci Fi short on CF Dragon

Kemalettin Sert said:
12800 ISO.Exported as tiff and i crushed the blacks on PS CC.looks better than my 5D mk3.What im doing wrong?
Click to expand...

This amount of shadow information and noise level makes me curious about the best exposure strategy on the Dragon.

Would be nice to do this simple test on a sunny day:

- expose to the left / boost shadows in post
- expose for fullest histogram / recover shadows and highlights
- expose to the right / recover highlight information

And see which has the cleanest/widest dr image.
Wonder if the highlight protection and minimal noise in post shadow recovery from the expose to the left strategy would be beneficial

very nice images Luke
 
Karim_Nassar said:
This amount of shadow information and noise level makes me curious about the best exposure strategy on the Dragon.

Would be nice to do this simple test on a sunny day:

- expose to the left / boost shadows in post
- expose for fullest histogram / recover shadows and highlights
- expose to the right / recover highlight information

And see which has the cleanest/widest dr image.
Wonder if the highlight protection and minimal noise in post shadow recovery from the expose to the left strategy would be beneficial

very nice images Luke
Click to expand...
Cleanest and best response for post is still the tried and true, 'keep it between the goal posts'. Once you do that, Dragon's sensor gives you all of the latitude you could want for driving your grade.
 
ohhhh a grading challenge huh. im in xx
 
Karim_Nassar said:
This amount of shadow information and noise level makes me curious about the best exposure strategy on the Dragon.

Would be nice to do this simple test on a sunny day:

- expose to the left / boost shadows in post
- expose for fullest histogram / recover shadows and highlights
- expose to the right / recover highlight information

And see which has the cleanest/widest dr image.
Wonder if the highlight protection and minimal noise in post shadow recovery from the expose to the left strategy would be beneficial

very nice images Luke
Click to expand...

For whatever it's worth, Toia has been shooting at 250 iso for cleanest image possible. And as a way of using less ND. Dragon absorbs so much light. However he also says that 2000 iso is comparable to 800 on MX (which blows my mind).

From some of the Offhollywood tests, even higher isos in the 3000 and up look very usable too...which is pretty crazy.

But in terms of approach, I agree...there isn't a consensus yet. But it does appear that some of the MX strategies may not be as necessary anymore. To quote Toia again, he's just checking his histograms to make sure nothing clips...and that's about it (from what I can tell).

Curious myself how best to shoot Dragon...
 
Some basic adjustments in REDCINE-X.


Unadjusted -





Adjusted -











Unadjusted -





Adjusted -








Thanks for the images Luke.
 
Nick Morrison said:
But in terms of approach, I agree...there isn't a consensus yet. But it does appear that some of the MX strategies may not be as necessary anymore. To quote Toia again, he's just checking his histograms to make sure nothing clips...and that's about it (from what I can tell).
Click to expand...

it does make sense, as the dynamic range increases and shadow noises diminishes, the less you have to resort to exposure strategies to obtain the best image.
just get the fullest histogram without clipping like you said
thanks for the feedback
 
How is the fitting adjusted to 1.3x in the .r3d embedded metadata? Is that a Dragon thing, or could that always be done?
 
That's a Dragon thing. You can set it to either 1.3x or 2x. I think it's mostly for monitoring purposes. The stuff I shot came out at 6144x3160.
 
You can't juge noise in a flat (gray) image. You need deep darks to see the noise floor and to juge how the camera behave at 12000 Asa

Pat
 
Patrick Tresch said:
You can't juge noise in a flat (gray) image. You need deep darks to see the noise floor and to juge how the camera behave at 12000 Asa

Pat
Click to expand...

This is 100% correct. Moreover, you can boost properly exposed ISO800 MX footage to 12800 and it still looks acceptable.

That said, Gunliek's candle test shows some pretty promising results. Still not the best I've seen, but with noise reduction and 6k, you can probably get quite a bit more (unfortunately it'd take forever to render).
 
Nick Morrison said:
For whatever it's worth, Toia has been shooting at 250 iso for cleanest image possible. And as a way of using less ND. Dragon absorbs so much light. However he also says that 2000 iso is comparable to 800 on MX (which blows my mind).

From some of the Offhollywood tests, even higher isos in the 3000 and up look very usable too...which is pretty crazy.

But in terms of approach, I agree...there isn't a consensus yet. But it does appear that some of the MX strategies may not be as necessary anymore. To quote Toia again, he's just checking his histograms to make sure nothing clips...and that's about it (from what I can tell).

Curious myself how best to shoot Dragon...
Click to expand...

Per my comments on exposing in the OFFHOLLYWOOD DRAGON R3D thread - I really feel like the histogram is too limited on the Dragon to use as a primary exposure tool. For example, on the MX you could often just "expose to right" - crank the iris open and then stop down until you did not show any clipping on the stop light indicators. Then ND if you want a more shallow depth of field.

But on Dragon .... if you open the iris and then stop down until the stop lights indicate that there is no clipping - you end up 5 stops over an incident reading taken at subject!

So ... being between the goal posts means you can adjust in post and you are "okay" - but now the goal posts are so much wider .... you might want to re-think your approach to get the very best from the Dragon in various situations.

Here's an R3D to show just that - 5 stops over incident reading rated at 800 - histogram as far to right as possible without clipping. So ... this shot is 100% recoverable - but obviously not optimal way to expose for 90% of most situations.
https://copy.com/S7WyZ3laYLmb
 
No, that is as clean as heaven!
...you even cranked the color temp to max

Kemalettin Sert said:
you dont get it :D i tweaked to 12800 ISO and expected see damn noise! looks clean as hell
This footage is answer to people asking Alexa vs Dragon test :)
Click to expand...
 
Where's the "like" button?

Mark L. Pederson said:
.... if you open the iris and then stop down until the stop lights indicate that there is no clipping - you end up 5 stops over an incident reading taken at subject!

So ... being between the goal posts means you can adjust in post and you are "okay" - but now the goal posts are so much wider .... you might want to re-think your approach to get the very best from the Dragon in various situations.

Here's an R3D to show just that - 5 stops over incident reading rated at 800 - histogram as far to right as possible without clipping. So ... this shot is 100% recoverable - but obviously not optimal way to expose for 90% of most situations.
https://copy.com/S7WyZ3laYLmb
Click to expand...
 
Luke... Great Shots!!

Mark... I have stopped using the 758 Cine Digital Master since the R1 days, and never looked back on Epic MX, I still fill the same within a guard limit in respect to what you said, yet I'll have to give it a second tought and do some shooting with it again and see were my fillings will be after that.
 
KETCH ROSSi said:
Mark... I have stopped using the 758 Cine Digital Master since the R1 days, and never looked back on Epic MX, I still fill the same within a guard limit in respect to what you said, yet I'll have to give it a second tought and do some shooting with it again and see were my fillings will be after that.
Click to expand...

I'm not saying one MUST use a light meter - I'm just really want to drive home the point that using the histogram on the Dragon IMO is WAY, WAY too limiting as a primary exposure tool.

I've been begging for the ability to keep the LCD in RAW mode (and use False Color) while having the SDI sending out RC3/RG3 - but so far this is not a firmware option.
 
I've got to agree, the histogram is kinda difficult with Dragon... weirdly because its possible to produce a workable image in most cases in such a variety of ways.

Do share your profile for the Sekonic if you can, I'd be interested to compare on our setup :)
 
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