Sensors...

[Jeremy Torrie]

All this talk about the Epic sensor not having good skin tones....well, I dunno:

 

[Thibaut de Chemellier]

Dragon better than film...well, Film don't have rolling shutter issues...Is dragon solving this ?
I really hope so.

 

[Brian Boyer]

This will be Dragon's acid test. If its DR is that good, you can underexpose the crap out of it (relatively speaking!) and get very good shadow detail. If that's the case, problem solved.

Here's hoping...

 

[Michael Epple]

All I've heard about is resolution and lattitude. Color is very important to me, more than lattitude and especially more than resolution. I would like to hear that it is being improved as well. The only company that seems to care about color at this point is Sony. Prove me wrong.

 

[Noah Yuan-Vogel]

All I've heard about is resolution and lattitude. Color is very important to me, more than lattitude and especially more than resolution. I would like to hear that it is being improved as well. The only company that seems to care about color at this point is Sony. Prove me wrong.

Yeah, I'd be interested to hear if RED is doing anything differently with Dragon in their approach with the bayer CFA dyes and then if that affects far red in any way. Also I'd wonder if Dragon will have better a better IR-cut filter than MX since MX seems to be quite a bit more sensitive to IR than most other manufacturers' sensors.

Personally I'm not totally sold on Sony's approach, they really seem to be pushing for the widest gamut specs, but I'm not totally sure that really means the best color. Maybe someone who knows more about that subject can explain it. Sometimes it seems like Sony is trying too hard to get saturated colors, not natural colors...

 

[Brian Self]

Great metaphor! And aren't you the same poster who said (something) made you want to jump into a wood chipper? Fun reading. '-)

lol, yep thats me!

 

[C.H.Haskell]

Has it been 7 years already?

 

[Marc Wielage]

Personally I'm not totally sold on Sony's approach, they really seem to be pushing for the widest gamut specs, but I'm not totally sure that really means the best color. Maybe someone who knows more about that subject can explain it. Sometimes it seems like Sony is trying too hard to get saturated colors, not natural colors...

Yes, there's always the possibility that while the entire gamut is captured, each specific frequency isn't precisely equal in terms of response. For example, for years, I found that color negative was very blue-sensitive: if a scene was well-balanced, but somebody walked by the lens with a bright blue jacket, it completely overwhelmed the negative. My theory was this happened because the yellow emulsion was the top layer (most sensitive to blue), and it got overloaded first. Similar things can and do happen with CMOS pickups, where they don't always react linearly to different colors, particularly at different light levels.

I believe Peter Jackson discovered the same thing when they did their tests on Epic last year for The Hobbit and wound up making specific adjustments to paint and make-up on set, just so the picture they wound up with was what he wanted to see on screen. But to the naked eye on set, the images were very different.

 

[Björn Benckert]

Yes, there's always the possibility that while the entire gamut is captured, each specific frequency isn't precisely equal in terms of response. For example, for years, I found that color negative was very blue-sensitive: if a scene was well-balanced, but somebody walked by the lens with a bright blue jacket, it completely overwhelmed the negative. My theory was this happened because the yellow emulsion was the top layer (most sensitive to blue), and it got overloaded first. Similar things can and do happen with CMOS pickups, where they don't always react linearly to different colors, particularly at different light levels.

I believe Peter Jackson discovered the same thing when they did their tests on Epic last year for The Hobbit and wound up making specific adjustments to paint and make-up on set, just so the picture they wound up with was what he wanted to see on screen. But to the naked eye on set, the images were very different.

Peter Approach with extra makeup was du to the loss in colors from shooting trough transparent mirrors in his 3D rigs. I guess also he's blue and greenscreen work benefit from having "red faces etc".

 

[Coburn Erskine]

"Side note... film is officially dead"

When I first started working in this industry (which was only a few years ago), I excitedly repeated the same thing, "Film is dead!" right around when the original RED One was released. I myself would not say that today.

I love digital acquisition. Available, convenient, affordable-I've been able to put together a humble dslr kit and shoot on my own with amazing result compared to 8 years ago when I first was getting into the art of production. RED manufactures a helluva product and has brought the cost of cinema camera ownership down considerably. I've enjoyed and been excited working with the One, Epic and Scarlet.

I've yet to even shoot film. Everything up to this point has been digital. I've started down the 1st/2nd AC path in the last year. All the habits as an AC I've learn that I greatly value, have come from working with "old-school film guys". With the advent of digital, I'm afraid if my generation doesn't shoot film or have the chance to work with the old school guys, the habits that come with shooting film will begin to fade away.

Film stock cost money. A harddrive, ssd, sd card, cf card, p2 card you can simply format and keep going, delete a shot, keep going...compared to film, digital magazines are CHEAP. They also allow for sloppier workmanship. You can spray fire while shooting digitally, with film, that's not an option. With the older guys I've had the opportunity to work with, more time is spent setting up a shot. Their work has a consistency to it.

The older AC's I've been around rarely relied on a monitor. Marks, bartech, know hyperfocal distance, good at estimating distance...it's incredibly easy now just to punch in and get your mark on a follow focus especially since photography lenses are so widely used for motion now. There are skills that are incredibly useful, nigh essential as an AC that you don't learn by relying on a monitor.

So if film is dead why are so many DPs still choosing it as their format? Is there no worth in learning how to shoot film anymore? Are those techniques a thing of the past? Will digital be able to replicate the gorgeous organic image you get from film stocks? I've yet to see that on any movie shot digitally.

I'm excited for where digital cinema is going, bring on the Dragon! But only when I start hearing from a resounding number of established DPs that film is dead will I give that statement any merit whatsoever. Let those who are intimate with film as a medium declare it's death. Not camera manufacturers.

 

[Phil Holland]

Dragon better than film...well, Film don't have rolling shutter issues...Is dragon solving this ?
I really hope so.

Film does indeed cause mild-ish rolling shutter artifacts. If you shot from a car, train, or whip panned you likely saw it.

I would describe the Epic and Scarlet cameras as a very "film-like" rolling shutter.

It's nowhere near where older CMOS sensor tech struggled with that effect.

Global shutter is very nice. No artifacts from strobes and lightning.

 

[Max Nguyen]

I've yet to even shoot film. Everything up to this point has been digital. I've started down the 1st/2nd AC path in the last year. All the habits as an AC I've learn that I greatly value, have come from working with "old-school film guys". With the advent of digital, I'm afraid if my generation doesn't shoot film or have the chance to work with the old school guys, the habits that come with shooting film will begin to fade away.

Good points. You should actually shoot on film as a personal experiment if you have not done it. Loading the film into the magazine blind was always a fun one if you are indie. You will appreciate being able to stick an ssd card into a camera in two seconds on a whole new level.

You are right, though. It's like a sniper when you shoot on film. You better get it right on the first shot and it takes a whole lot of skill and work to be that deliberate.

 

[Filip Orlandic]

I'm waiting for the Dragon's samples and upgrade informations... Christmas is around the corner. arty:

 

[Mestizo Devon]

Yes,

Where are those dragon samples?????

 

[Terry VerHaar]

Dragon better than film...well, Film don't have rolling shutter issues...Is dragon solving this ?
I really hope so.

Jim discussed this a long time ago. Film has an effective read-reset time of 4ms (the time it takes the shutter to move from top to bottom of the frame). Epic is, I believe, under 10 ms. (Not exactly sure if Scarlet meets it.) In any case, we are close. And global shutter is not the answer.

 

[Shervin Mandgaryan]

Global shutter would be ideal for Dragon but it does take a toll on captured dynamic range. A faster read/reset will help avoid the skewing effect when panning or the jittery issues when handheld but won't have much of an impact on capturing flash frames in full... we'll see though... RED always surprises.

 

[Filip Orlandic]

Jim discussed this a long time ago. Film has an effective read-reset time of 4ms (the time it takes the shutter to move from top to bottom of the frame). Epic is, I believe, under 10 ms. (Not exactly sure if Scarlet meets it.) In any case, we are close. And global shutter is not the answer.

I think that EPIC is 5 ms and RED ONE 9 ms.

 

[Craig W. Bickerstaff]

With all this talk of rolling and global shutter and people being so confident that Epics rolling shutter is "Film-like" why is it no one has grabbed their Red Epic stuck it on a tripod found a straight line somewhere done some aggressive whip pans and posted a screenshot or 2, I imagine at least a few people on this forum own Red Epics, If I had an Epic I'd have done it.

 

[Bruce Allen]

All this talk about the Epic sensor not having good skin tones....well, I dunno:

Nice example! Great job, man!

Overall:
1. It's quite desaturated, which is hiding potential issues (great aesthetic choice... I just can't quite see stuff critically)
2. It has a soft contrast effect (again, looks great but hides potential issues)
3. You can see that the makeup is off. It is significantly bluer from the eyebrows down. Maybe it was like that in real life or maybe it is because the makeup is being read differently by RED's sensor than the human eye does (IR issues?). These RED + makeup issues happen a lot.
4. There is also like a weird blotch on the neck. Actually the highlights on the left of the neck look a little yellowish and kinda all-the-same-color. I think the highlights on the right hand side are OK but it's hard to tell because they are so desaturated.
5. If you can get similar results in tungsten with RED I will buy you a beer. If RED is truly going to replace film, it needs to perform as well as film in lighting conditions other than lots of soft full-spectrum daylight.

Is that helpful?

All I've heard about is resolution and lattitude. Color is very important to me, more than lattitude and especially more than resolution. I would like to hear that it is being improved as well. The only company that seems to care about color at this point is Sony. Prove me wrong.

Agree!

BTW if you look at Arri's site you'll see that they push color quite a lot too... and personally I think that the colors on Canon's 1D C DSLR are quite nice! Not fantastic but hey, if we have colors as good as a current high-end DSLR I would not be complaining. Now they just need to add shutter sync, higher fps and less compression and lower the price

Yeah, I'd be interested to hear if RED is doing anything differently with Dragon in their approach with the bayer CFA dyes and then if that affects far red in any way. Also I'd wonder if Dragon will have better a better IR-cut filter than MX since MX seems to be quite a bit more sensitive to IR than most other manufacturers' sensors.

Personally I'm not totally sold on Sony's approach, they really seem to be pushing for the widest gamut specs, but I'm not totally sure that really means the best color. Maybe someone who knows more about that subject can explain it. Sometimes it seems like Sony is trying too hard to get saturated colors, not natural colors...

Yep, agree. I would love to see more natural skin tones in their demos and less emphasis on accurately reproducing the color of neon lighting in Vegas.

Film does indeed cause mild-ish rolling shutter artifacts. If you shot from a car, train, or whip panned you likely saw it.

I would describe the Epic and Scarlet cameras as a very "film-like" rolling shutter.

To me, a "film-like" rolling shutter doesn't have this horrible half-split frame BS when you have flashes of light covering half the frame with an abrupt cut-off.

If RED's rolling shutter sensor had a soft effect like film... that would be a totally different matter.

So, no, I don't see this effect as film-like at all.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

 

[Marc Wielage]

To me, a "film-like" rolling shutter doesn't have this horrible half-split frame BS when you have flashes of light covering half the frame with an abrupt cut-off.

There were some great shots in Hitchcock (shot on Epic) that had flashbulb cameras going off, and I was very pleased that it was a full-frame flash. I have no idea if they faked it in post or just fixed it as a visual effect, but it looked totally real and 100% great. Beautiful pictures, and no evidence of rolling shutter anywhere that I could see.