skintone

[Mark Toia]

In your opinion Mark, has knowledge of RAW workflows (grading in particular) been improving at all over time? I feel like it's been a continual frustration for many of us that people don't understand how or why they should be working with RAW files in the grade if possible.

Hi Brad...
The simple fact is this, grading directly from the R3D's will give your the best results. thats fact. That means you have full Kelvin, tint, contrast, gamma control...
If you convert to DPX , Tiif or PRO RES or DNXHD using the same colour settings you shot with on set... then you have effectively created a colour baked image... this is now your new base. You have technically thrown away the full range of the original R3D and have left RED land.

You don't need to work in RAW if you dont want too.. it does give you the best flexibility, but please don't think you have to. I quite often work in PRORES myself... (if Im stuck with a job I need to turn out quickly) But I never use the colour settings I shot with. What I do is I create PRORES files (or DNXHD files) that have been re-white balanced to perfect white and exposure and then export everything out as REDLOGFILM.
Doing it this way I at least I don't get stuck with a contrast I cannot get information from and odd colours that I struggle to grade out.
This is what people should be doing with there DPX, TIFF workflows as well.... and Im sure a lot of people do.

But my preference is RAW grading as its quicker... faster... easier. (for me) but once again, there is know need to stay in RAW or grade from RAW if you dont want too... just make sure you end up with a properly balanced 'one-light' in a decent container (tif, dpx, exr...) like paulherrin & Björn Benckert spoke of.

Hope this helps.

 

[Björn Benckert]

I think as there are different sides to everything. As no doubt RAW is great but I also think promoting it to heavily is probably the one thing that made the most RED offenders. As it is, not everyone can use it and if you do not know how, then you will have quite a struggle. But there are, as stated here, quite a few that does understand how it works and I'm sure that if the RED ONE would have had a Log C proress HD recording option next to the 4k stuff when it came out. (kind of like the meizler) Then Arri would have taken a much bigger hit than they actually did...

 

[paulherrin]

by the way... i love r3d raw. thank ye graeme

 

[Mark Toia]

I think as there are different sides to everything. As no doubt RAW is great but I also think promoting it to heavily is probably the one thing that made the most RED offenders. As it is, not everyone can use it and if you do not know how, then you will have quite a struggle. But there are, as stated here, quite a few that does understand how it works and I'm sure that if the RED ONE would have had a Log C proress HD recording option next to the 4k stuff when it came out. (kind of like the meizler) Then Arri would have taken a much bigger hit than they actually did...

Agreed.

 

[Bruce Allen]

All I can say is this:

Go and shoot a bunch of portraits under varying lighting conditions using a 5D Mk2 (in stills mode, shooting raw) and an EPIC.

Why does the 5D Mk2 still often look a lot better using out of the box settings?
More important: why is it often difficult or impossible to make the EPIC still match the 5D Mk2 still?
I'm not talking about just pushing the overall skin tone to the same value or adjusting overall saturation (this seems to confuse Toia?). The question is why the 5D Mk2 captures richer subtle details and just a more organically pleasing image.

Both are digital cameras, both are shooting raw. What's the difference? Well: the color filters in front of the sensor, the sensor itself, and the raw development algorithm.

I think that the choice of color filters in front of the sensor is actually an extremely important decision and I hope RED makes great choices for Dragon. My only 2c.

Come on, the 5D Mk2 is ancient. Let's beat that. And then let's move on to beating analog film!

I care very little about capturing a world in 4K or 6K if I'm not capturing the colors right. End my personal 2c. I'm sure RED are on it.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

 

[Dan Kanes]

All I can say is this:

Go and shoot a bunch of portraits under varying lighting conditions using a 5D Mk2 (in stills mode, shooting raw) and an EPIC.

Why does the 5D Mk2 still often look a lot better using out of the box settings?

Uhhh... Just a matter of opinion I guess, but I tend to hate the results of the 5DMark II stills out of the camera in Raw.

I was actually shocked when I recently compared what I can do with a Raw still with a Canon and the R3D files of the Epic...

Maybe its me or my eyes or something, but I actually find that I like working with the Epic R3ds better than Canon Raw stills - believe me I was shocked to discover this, as I thought results would not end up favoring the epic here.

I suppose its all subjective, and certainly a lot of it has to do with your white balance on the camera and in your "lightroom" or "redcineX"

I was shocked at how bad I thought the 5D results were actually.

Blackshade your Epic, and make sure you are white balancing in a way that works for you - i.e. the 5600 and 3200 presets often won't do justice to the scene you are shooting...you need to find a recipe that works for your scene.

Also, if you guys have not tried the RedColor3/RedLogfilm combo with a "correct" scene whitebalance you are missing out on some magic.

 

[Stephen Matthews]

All I can say is this:

Go and shoot a bunch of portraits under varying lighting conditions using a 5D Mk2 (in stills mode, shooting raw) and an EPIC.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

Bruce could you get access to an epic and a 5D and produce the comparison similar to what Steve mentioned, it would be interesting to see some real world comparisons, especially coming from you I would be very interested.

All info on lens lighting, RAW files for each etc....

 

[paulherrin]

Uhhh... Just a matter of opinion I guess, but I tend to hate the results of the 5DMark II stills out of the camera in Raw.

I was actually shocked when I recently compared what I can do with a Raw still with a Canon and the R3D files of the Epic...

Maybe its me or my eyes or something, but I actually find that I like working with the Epic R3ds better than Canon Raw stills - believe me I was shocked to discover this, as I thought results would not end up favoring the epic here.

I suppose its all subjective, and certainly a lot of it has to do with your white balance on the camera and in your "lightroom" or "redcineX"

I was shocked at how bad I thought the 5D results were actually.

Blackshade your Epic, and make sure you are white balancing in a way that works for you - i.e. the 5600 and 3200 presets often won't do justice to the scene you are shooting...you need to find a recipe that works for your scene.

Also, if you guys have not tried the RedColor3/RedLogfilm combo with a "correct" scene whitebalance you are missing out on some magic.

bruce is extra sensitive to skintones... haven't done that comparison, but it does tend to take some tweaking most of the time to get skintones where you want them... with any camera. always room for improvement, eh?

 

[Björn Benckert]

Uhhh... Just a matter of opinion I guess, but I tend to hate the results of the 5DMark II stills out of the camera in Raw.

I was actually shocked when I recently compared what I can do with a Raw still with a Canon and the R3D files of the Epic...

Maybe its me or my eyes or something, but I actually find that I like working with the Epic R3ds better than Canon Raw stills - believe me I was shocked to discover this, as I thought results would not end up favoring the epic here.

I suppose its all subjective, and certainly a lot of it has to do with your white balance on the camera and in your "lightroom" or "redcineX"

I was shocked at how bad I thought the 5D results were actually.

Blackshade your Epic, and make sure you are white balancing in a way that works for you - i.e. the 5600 and 3200 presets often won't do justice to the scene you are shooting...you need to find a recipe that works for your scene.

Also, if you guys have not tried the RedColor3/RedLogfilm combo with a "correct" scene whitebalance you are missing out on some magic.

If you want magic, try those: http://www.syndicate.se/Files/~usr/lut/conversion.zip

First do a white balance and iso in RCXP with redgamma2 and redlogfilm and try out the 3DLuts from kodak or Fuji in the LOGtoVideoHD folder... Thats how Kodak and fuji thinks a r3d should look, to me thats the best base light I ever had.

If your colors are all off you adjust your raw imput to the 3D lut and things should look splendid.

 

[Matt Ryan]

If you want magic, try those: http://www.syndicate.se/Files/~usr/lut/conversion.zip

First do a white balance and iso in RCXP with redgamma2 and redlogfilm and try out the 3DLuts from kodak or Fuji in the LOGtoVideoHD folder... Thats how Kodak and fuji thinks a r3d should look, to me thats the best base light I ever had.

If your colors are all off you adjust your raw imput to the 3D lut and things should look splendid.

Hey Bjorn, How do you convert these LUT's for use in Resolve? Would love to try them out.

 

[Zakaree Sandberg]

Zakaree, if you remember at the time we posted on that issue and it was to do with the colour casts through the 3d mirrors not the camera itself. That said, we always look to improve things. I've been working consistently on improving all aspects of our image, and I hope you enjoy the forthcoming results of that research.

Graeme

Missed that post.. that makes sense though

 

[Bruce Allen]

If you want magic, try those: http://www.syndicate.se/Files/~usr/lut/conversion.zip

First do a white balance and iso in RCXP with redgamma2 and redlogfilm and try out the 3DLuts from kodak or Fuji in the LOGtoVideoHD folder... Thats how Kodak and fuji thinks a r3d should look, to me thats the best base light I ever had.

If your colors are all off you adjust your raw imput to the 3D lut and things should look splendid.

Bjorn, you frikkin' rock for posting that. Thank you! Will check out.

Bruce could you get access to an epic and a 5D and produce the comparison similar to what Steve mentioned, it would be interesting to see some real world comparisons, especially coming from you I would be very interested.

All info on lens lighting, RAW files for each etc....

Stephen, you are totally right that I should just shut up and post images. The thing is that REDUSER is such a hostile environment for this. Remember what happened to Claudio Miranda when he dared to post comparisons? If you do a test and RED doesn't win, people behave like rude assholes. Your testing has to be absolutely faultless... and then when RED comes out with another color science everyone screams at you to re-do anyway.

I will see what I can do though. The thing is that we're going to have to re-do everything in 2013/2014 when we have Dragon, new Alexa, F55, F5, 4K DSLRs, heck maybe even Apertus, updated Blackmagic, a GoPro, new Panasonic, etc...?

Either that or come up with a test chart that is like an actual living human ear or something, frozen in time somehow. That's not disgusting at all!

To be honest, I would like RED to win and that sure ain't happening with the current sensor so the timing will work out anyway. So... anyone want to join me in late 2013 / early 2014? Dragon should be safely out of Beta by then. Hopefully it will win. Only issue with this is that Fuji stock gets discontinued in early 2013...

Anyway... will organize and post all details publicly and in a very open fashion. If I can. It's pretty tempting to use the money I would spend on a test just shooting a short though! Hmmm...

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

 

[Zakaree Sandberg]

wow this thread went big..

gotta clear up some stuff.. i know you can get good looking tones after grading.. I was talking about more out of the box skin tone stuff, similar to what you get with alexa out of the box.

I had just watched that hobbit bts stuff and was shocked at the whole adding red to the makeup thing.. I had not seen the previous threads about it being the fault of the 3d rig glass.. my bad.. i rarely get on this board much anymore

 

[paulherrin]

It's pretty tempting to use the money I would spend on a test just shooting a short though! Hmmm...

i second that motion.

zak... 'point and shoot' and raw are opposite ends of the spectrum. i think red is trying to find the difficult balance between longterm flexibility and immediate feedback. bjorn makes a good point that perhaps alexa's sensor doesn't necessarily see skintones better, it just has a specifically tailored LUT for insurance. bruce makes a good point that red's sensor could fundamentally see those skintones better AND have color science more specifically tailored towards skintone rendition. and it sounds like that's what graeme's been up to in the bunker, and everything else he's released has been exponential. big thank you, graeme (et al).

professional jobs get graded. fwiw, the lower pricepoint and higher volume makes it a lot harder to get hands on an alexa and easier to get hands on a red. hence the less than 'professional-grade' imagery that pops up here and there.

 

[Mark Toia]

Why does the 5D Mk2 still often look a lot better using out of the box settings?
More important: why is it often difficult or impossible to make the EPIC still match the 5D Mk2 still?
I'm not talking about just pushing the overall skin tone to the same value or adjusting overall saturation (this seems to confuse Toia?). The question is why the 5D Mk2 captures richer subtle details and just a more organically pleasing image.

Both are digital cameras, both are shooting raw.

Confused you say... I never took you for an obnoxious presumptuous type Bruce... however, I do agree with you regarding Canon (and Nikon RAW) files being better than RED... proving that not all RAW files, sensors and colour sciences from different manufactures are same.

At the same time there has to be some give and take... As we still dont see canons cameras shooting 5k @120fps RAW... What we do see is a highly compressed line skipping HD 8bit h264 quicktime @30fps or small bursts of about 10 frames per second RAW.

 

[Patrick Tresch]

I'm not going to claim that RED has the best skin tones of all camera formats, it's subjective based on a number of factors anyway. But I would like to see people's comparisons with Alexa, RED, and Sony. And I need RAW files, not DPX (like on cinematography.net) so that it's a fair comparison. So of all the people who feel that these other cameras make better skin tones, please do post your tests. Again, need ArriRaw, R3Ds, and Sony RAW files. Also will need details on lighting and color charts should be included in the files. It's not enough to say that one show looks better than another because you again have a number of factors that go into creating the final look. Since the "Alexa has better skin tones" is stated so many times, I suspect that many people have these tests handy to prove this. Some of the tests I have seen have rendered RED images that look foreign to me. I am not declaring RED a winner here. I just have not seen many people post real comparative tests that include the RAW samples. And one of the reasons I'm asking for ArriRAW is that I believe that if you are going to make it a fair test, you put the camera's best foot forward, so give us ArriRAW.

Anyone have a test like this? Anyone want to go on the record with evidence? Calling Mr. Cioni. Let's get scientific about this. Maybe even let Graeme have a shot at it, to play around with the files and shed some light. This and highlight rolloff are the two things I hear most often about the Alexa's advantages when I'm out in the field, aside from the usual workflow statements.

http://www.freestudios.ch/freemedia/workshop2012

Feel Free to comment

Pat

 

[Bruce Allen]

Confused you say... I never took you for an obnoxious presumptuous type Bruce... however, I do agree with you regarding Canon (and Nikon RAW) files being better than RED... proving that not all RAW files, sensors and colour sciences from different manufactures are same.

Sorry if this caused offense. Just want to clear up any confusion so you don't bash me again, saying "Bruce: it's RAW, you can make it look any way you like."

eg like you said in this post:
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showth...t-and-5D-mkiii&p=970213&viewfull=1#post970213

I want to make it clear that I'm not talking about just overall skin color (which is easy to adjust).

You're a talented fellow and I'm actually interested in your insight. Just tired of us talking at cross-purposes. I do try to be clear but am making extra sure this time because things keep going wrong. Much respect, OK?

I'm concerned with the way that RED just seems to have less depth and detail and beautiful subtle color variations than film or a good DSLR shooting stills.

"Skin tone" is a really terrible phrase I think. "Skin color detail capturing feeling of life and warmth and depth which RED has a tendency not to capture under certain lighting conditions" seems better?

I'm just learning this stuff... I had no idea that everything was so complicated. None of the manufacturers (Sony, Canon, Arri, RED) talk about things like crosstalk between the color filters. But it's there. Check out this:
http://www.maxmax.com/spectral_response.htm
Sony wants you to think that because the F65 can capture a wide range of colors it can also get subtle tones right... I'm not 100% sure. Canon wants you to think the C500 is their best cinema camera but I'm not convinced with the skin tones there either. Believe it or not their weird 1D C seems to get skin looking a little better to me!

It's a whole world that I wish the manufacturers were addressing head on instead of shouting about K and ISO and dynamic range only...

At the same time there has to be some give and take... As we still dont see canons cameras shooting 5k @120fps RAW... What we do see is a highly compressed line skipping HD 8bit h264 quicktime @30fps or small bursts of about 10 frames per second RAW.

For sure! But hey, Jim is talking about Dragon beating 65mm film... all I am asking is that RED try to beat film and DSLR stills in just basic color rendition. Not unreasonable, no?

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

 

[Bruce Allen]

http://www.freestudios.ch/freemedia/workshop2012

Feel Free to comment

Pat

Well, we owe you a beer. That's for sure. Awesome test!

I will download the originals since I can't realy see 100% what is going on in the color. The look is very glamorous and awesome but personally I'd like to try pushing a more saturated look and see what's there.

Only further 2 questions would be: light source (5600K is stated but is it HMI?) and makeup used.

Oh - and how much do we need to bribe you to do another test just like this with tungsten lighting?

Thanks again!

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

 

[Mark Toia]

I didn't bash you Bruce... I cringed when you siad: "I'll go on record as saying that skin tones aren't attractive thus far on most Red footage"..
I'm trying to educate people (not bash them).

Ive shot and tested all cameras and compared one against the other in some very tough conditions . And honestly i liked them all and being more honest... Sony's images look better to me as straight out of the camera look goes. And I agree with that the 1Dc looks good as well. But do these cameras out shine the EPIC as it is. ...... No. they don't. Especially when you grade RED from a RAW log base.

One thing I found out quickly in the early days is when I went to DPX or similar codecs or stayed in the original redcolour settings I shot on the day, I would agree with your claims. But since grading directly from RAW files, Ive never seen the problems you talk of... and quite often had Arri and Sony and Canon files mixed in with my Epic shoots with minimal difference once I squeeze 4k RED down to HD.

Being such a purist with colour and flexibility, if RED EPIC did not stack up against the others, I'd drop it like a hot potato and swing to the most dominate.

I didn't go RED because they were cheap.

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

To me this whole alexa color debate is quite odd.

As it's very easy to shoot a color palette in ARRI RAW turn it to dpx LOG C, then swap camera and shoot it r3d and make that into a redlog film dpx all using with the same lens etc and then use a proper color matching tool where you sample a few pixels of each grayscale and color square of the palette and then create a lookup table from it.
.

That may work in same shooting conditions. In different ones cameras respond differently.