Sensor Issue at 1fps - Epic Dragon DSMC1 Body

[Mike Krumlauf]

I went to try to shoot the northern lights from my patio last night here in Denver with my Epic Dragon that I recently got and when i switched the camera over to 1fps the blue channel dropped, the blacks crushed and i was left with an unusable high contrast sickly orange/green image. I was told by someone I know who also owns the camera that I need to do a Seprate sensor calibration for 1fps 180degrees? I've owned my share of MX reds (RED ONE, Scarlet and Epic) and never had to do any special calibration maps when changing the frame rate around.

Is the DRAGON Sensor more finikey than the MX or is there another issue going on with my camera? I will note that the issue goes away when I bring the camera back to 24fps and does not have this problem at frame rates higher than 24fps (that i am able to see at least yet).

R3D Screenshot of issue *I've attached an R3D screenshot to all interested*

 

[Les Hillis]

It's normal.

Changing the frame-rate that much (from 24fps down to 1fps for example) will have an effect on your exposure that isn't covered by the 24fps calibration.

 

[Brian Timmons]

Mike,
Congrats on your RED Epic Dragon.
Yes you definitely need to do Black shading whenever dropping to lower frame rates and longer shutter times with the MX sensor. The shadows would easily get a bit funky looking without it and you would have stuck pixels in the image that are hard to remove in post.
After calibration the image would look and behave as expected.

Check this RED tech video (presented by the great, knowledgable, and my one time RED rep Nate Heart) at the 6:00 mark where it explains Black shading specific to Dragon.

On another note, I noticed you have owned several classic digital cinema cameras from the RED One, F900, I believe the Varicam, the RED Scarlet, Epic and now an Epic Dragon.

You ever consider doing a video series where you talk about your observations with each camera complete with some of your footage?

I would definitely be interested in watching.

Happy shooting with the RED Epic Dragon.

Brian Timmons
BRITIM/MEDIA

 

[Mike Krumlauf]

I did a calibration for 1fps and it cleared up the issue on my DRAGON.