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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 :)

Sensors...

MX sensor could have been global. There are still reasons to have a scanning reset, just as there are reasons to have global. A global shutter has a very sterile and rigid appearance to each frame -- very much unlike film. The mechanical shutter motion as the mirror moves across the film plane creates a scanning effect and introduces skew. While it can still introduce rolling and split exposure artifacts, it's different than the scanning of digital sensors because the mechanical shutter wipe has a soft, defocused edge.

It's come up here before in these discussions, but I think the ultimate solution would be to have a dynamic sensor that would allow the camera user to dial-in whether they want a global shutter or not. And to even take it one step further, for scanning reset options, what if we could specify the wipe direction? Or even specify reset and wipe patterns and timings? ...Just a thought.

I'm willing to bet Dragon is global or will have that option -- a global shutter makes the most sense for HFR 3D and a lot of other emerging practices.
 
Id agree with Jeff, if a sensor is Global then it needs to be done well. There is something about shutter rotation that is helpful to motion artefacts or lack of. There are times where Global is ideal and others when Id prefer not to use it.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
It's come up here before in these discussions, but I think the ultimate solution would be to have a dynamic sensor that would allow the camera user to dial-in whether they want a global shutter or not. And to even take it one step further, for scanning reset options, what if we could specify the wipe direction? Or even specify reset and wipe patterns and timings? ...Just a thought.
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A few years ago, Jim Jannard had even suggested that Monstro (or some future Red sensor) might even have an adjustable read-reset time, from zero (effectively global shutter) on up.
 
Elsie N said:
That's odd, I've shot night shots of those red lights on the big wind farm windmills from a distance and they show up a beautiful red, as they do to the naked eye.
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From a distance and/or out of focus, all is well. I've got a USB dongle attached to my keyboard and there's no way I can get that to come out red without shooting it in bright lighting conditions, backing off or underexposing by like 5 or 6 stops (without the use of ND gels, as mentioned below).

If you have access to it, check out The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Fincher) when Lisbeth peels out on her motorcycle to chase after Martin (I think it's in the trailer). You see a white tail light (which should be red) with a pink halo and red cast on the ground.

Same thing with Skyfall when Bond is tied up in the chair on the island. The red LED's are all white with a pink halo.

Marc Wielage said:
I have fixed these clipping problems in color correction before. And there are things you can do to add an ND gell or dimmer to the light source to minimize these problems.
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I'd be interested to know how you accomplished this using color correction.

ND's would easily solve the problem for some cases but might be harder to pull off for others, especially in the case of hanging traffic lights (then the city has to get involved). Perhaps that's how it's always been done when shooting on film and I assumed film just held the color better than digital does.

I'm thinking if you've got a production where the accurate color rendering of lights is integral to the story, you'd run into a major problem on the low budget end of filmmaking.

It would be nice to hear from someone who's shot film under these conditions for some insight.
 
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Brian Boyer said:
I'd be interested to know how you accomplished this using color correction.
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I have had many, many, many cases where DPs inadvertently overexposed images, forcing us to resort to a lot of tricks to try to coax a little detail back into (say) blown-out whites. At the worst, a good colorist can take the curse out of it.

The alternative would be to approach it like a VFX shot, and just do separate exposures on the highlights and the lowlights, even go in and replace the lights with VFX after the fact. I've seen far more complicated things done, given enough time and money. On no budget, I'd just grab a highlight key on the blown-out light and then color correct the key to at least put it in the right direction. I've done that with car headlights many times.

ND's would easily solve the problem for some cases but might be harder to pull off for others, especially in the case of hanging traffic lights (then the city has to get involved). Perhaps that's how it's always been done when shooting on film and I assumed film just held the color better than digital does.
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Then the idea would be, expose for the highlights and add more fill for the mids and blacks. This requires a ton of light, but it can be done. On film, the shoulder of the exposure is soft enough that we can usually recover some detail in the highlights without a lot of effort. As a colorist, you wind up chasing the highlights and then compensating with the mids to make up for some kind of reasonable exposure.

I just saw an episode of Boardwalk Empire the other day -- a beautiful show, one of the last still shot on film -- and I was astounded that they were able to photograph a bare light bulb in a room in such a way that we could still see the filament inside the bulb, while the room itself was very well-exposed and looked completely real. That would take a lot of work to do in digital, but I'm positive a great DP could pull it off.
 
Marc Wielage said:
I just saw an episode of Boardwalk Empire the other day -- a beautiful show, one of the last still shot on film -- and I was astounded that they were able to photograph a bare light bulb in a room in such a way that we could still see the filament inside the bulb, while the room itself was very well-exposed and looked completely real. That would take a lot of work to do in digital, but I'm positive a great DP could pull it off.
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Not that hard, as you just stated, use a lot of fill and a not so strong light bulb...
 
Jannard said:
It all starts with the sensor…

How is it that RED could enter the cinema camera market 7 years ago and now about 50% of the released features are "Shot on RED"?

How is it that Canon owned the professional stills market 3 years ago and now Nikon is handing them their @ss?

How did Arri convert all the old-school film guys to the Alexa?

Sensors, baby. Sensors.

Apparently Canon is married to old sensor fab technology. The Nikon D800 scores 95 on the DXO sensor scale. The brand new Canon 5D MKIII… 82. Really? That can't be good.

Arri has a great sensor program… although a bit down on resolution from our point of view. :-)

Enter the RED Dragon. This is sensor technology that makes all the big guys want to put on their helmets.

So how did Canon get so lost? Who are the camera companies that recognize that sensors are 90+% of a digital camera? Who is investing in sensor technology?

In order...

RED
Arri
Sony
the rest…

Of course there are other factors that matter in this highly competitive and fast changing market. Who will upgrade the sensor in your existing camera instead of making you buy a new camera?

No matter what your answers are to these questions… it is all coming down to who has the best sensor program. Sensors matter. Side note... film is officially dead.

Jim
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REALLY looking forward to Dragon!!! Jim, can you tell us if there are improvements in skin tone and color rendition? I think we are all expecting increases in dynamic range. I think color reproduction (along with dynamic range) is what really attracts people to at least one of the competitors on your list...
 
Marc Wielage said:
I have had many, many, many cases where DPs inadvertently overexposed images, forcing us to resort to a lot of tricks to try to coax a little detail back into (say) blown-out whites. At the worst, a good colorist can take the curse out of it.

The alternative would be to approach it like a VFX shot, and just do separate exposures on the highlights and the lowlights, even go in and replace the lights with VFX after the fact. I've seen far more complicated things done, given enough time and money. On no budget, I'd just grab a highlight key on the blown-out light and then color correct the key to at least put it in the right direction. I've done that with car headlights many times.

Then the idea would be, expose for the highlights and add more fill for the mids and blacks. This requires a ton of light, but it can be done. On film, the shoulder of the exposure is soft enough that we can usually recover some detail in the highlights without a lot of effort. As a colorist, you wind up chasing the highlights and then compensating with the mids to make up for some kind of reasonable exposure.
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Thanks for sharing Marc. As for this statement:

Perhaps that's how it's always been done when shooting on film and I assumed film just held the color better than digital does.
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Although I'm quite certain film crews probably have used ND gels to knock down the intensity of colored lights when shooting on film in some instances, I'm still convinced film simply does a better job at intense color reproduction when it comes to light sources.

Besides, if gelling was the fix for those situations in the film-only days, there'd be no reason to stop the practice now that digital acquisition has taken over. But that's clearly not happening on digitally shot films. So, it was a silly conclusion on my part.

We'll see what Dragon offers but I think film may still have a few tricks up its sleeve when it comes to holding color.
 
Marc.. I have seen some of these light bulbs in person recently.. I think Vampire Diaries (Alexa show) uses them from time to time.. My wife was a prop person an a feature that used them. They are popular in restaurant decor and shop lighting design at present.

http://www.houseofantiquehardware.c...&partner=gpc&gclid=CKTr0e_ihLQCFQu0nQodonoAYg

I would run them on a dimmer as well.. since they could be backed down to 7-15 watts... again.. you'll want to color correct them as they will be extremely warm temped..

I do not know if they will read on an MX chip as showing the filament or not.. but I hope to find out soon.
 
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Noel Sterrett said:
I have heard from a number of sources that the D800 is a Sony sensor.

Cheers.
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That is no secret, which makes Sony the most prolific sensor maker in the world bar none. I predict they will unleash a full frame RAW camera based on the D800 sensor next year.
 
The trick ins't having the best stills sensor... it is having the best motion sensor. Good luck to the others...

Jim
 
fortunately for me I'm RED to the core.
(and dying to know how will my scarlet turn into dragon, hopefully, epic dragon)
 
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