SO... How many are actually using HDRx?

[John Marchant]

HDRx's biggest issue is that you capture too much dynamic range (what a thing to complain of!) , meaning that mapping the image effectively for the limited dynamic range of your output medium is really tough. The standard RCX tools will give you a very technically accurate, flat, low-contrast image with enormous DR. Grading that pleasingly is a whole other challenge.

The places I've used it most successfully have often been either easy to mask, for the equivalent of sky replacement, or where there may otherwise have been a need to rack iris. Using the streams separately you can go some way to racking iris in a controlled fashion. I use reelsmart to reinstate motion blur in the X if necessary too.

 

[Frazier Nivens]

Used it quite a few times with very good results, especially underwater shooting up towards the sun. Looking forward to being able to grade the a-track and x-tracks independently in RCX though as it is tricky to grade currently.

Interesting Russ, I shoot UW also and have been thinking of trying HDRX UW. I sometimes find hot spots here and there on very reflective things, sometimes tanks go hot on me and shooting upwards towards the sun, that's crazy even when stopped down all the way. Interested to hear more, seems like the grading in RCX Pro and being able to control the individual tracks separately would be a must for HDRX filming.

Best,
Frazier

 

[Daniel Dávila]

The ideal for me would be a tone mapping that enhances the redlogfilm curve, emulating the way film compresses highlights in the response curve shoulder, and this process executed inside the debayering step (and included in the red SDK) so it could happen in the red interpretation step in Resolve, so you can start your grading with a 100% filmic image.
This video is from a feature we are ending, it was shot with s16mm in a very sunny area near the desert in Chile, the car inside shots were done with no light filling or reflections, and the windows had no ND filtering (at the start of the shoot they used ND's on the windows, but were dropped after checking there was no need). I would really love have such DR in my Epic's footage easily done inside resolve. At this moment you have to figure it out how to do it in each shot, and still no MagicMotion to fix the shutter artifacts.

https://vimeo.com/30517583

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

The ideal for me would be a tone mapping that enhances the redlogfilm curve, emulating the way film compresses highlights in the response curve shoulder, and this process executed inside the debayering step (and included in the red SDK) so it could happen in the red interpretation step in Resolve, so you can start your grading with a 100% filmic image.
This video is from a feature we are ending, it was shot with s16mm in a very sunny area near the desert in Chile, the car inside shots were done with no light filling or reflections, and the windows had no ND filtering (at the start of the shoot they used ND's on the windows, but were dropped after checking there was no need). I would really love have such DR in my Epic's footage easily done inside resolve. At this moment you have to figure it out how to do it in each shot, and still no MagicMotion to fix the shutter artifacts.

https://vimeo.com/30517583

HDRX -> Linear -> Lin2Log = HDRx in REDLogFilm.

 

[Paul Ellington]

I love HDRX... You can always get rid of your X track. Magic Motion is great for splitting the difference but like others I mess with things a little in post to get it right. I would rather make sure I have all of my highlights when shooting outside in places like Miami etc... It saved one shoot entirely.

That said I guess I would love to hear reasons for not using it. I am not being sarcastic but on a summer day without a large silk or ND's what do you do... It's brilliant.

Best Paul.

 

[Sergio Perez]

I have to be sincere and say I still haven't learned or understood how to use this feature fully. I tried it in 2 situation, a stage show in an open area that had huge dynamic range issues, and couldn't pul it off, the other was at a sunset kind of situation, and it came out very underexposed. Don't know how to properly use it and manipulate it in post, either. I've been plenty happy with the current native dynamic range, though, that's why using it hardly crossed my mind. However, if red could make one of those excellent video tutorials they have been cooking, that would definitely help!!

 

[Rob Ruffo]

HDRx has a lot of promise but hasn't panned out too much in actual practice. I had high hopes for several HDRx shots we shot for our casino commercials recently, but they were difficult to make work. Even our colorist, who is one of the best in the biz, wasn't set up for HDRx in his Resolve - which means the biggest TV spots and music videos aren't using it either.

Blending in RedCineX just darkens the overall image. Using After Effects and pulling a luma key kinda works, but still makes things look weird. I ended up rotoscoping the A-track out to use the highlights from the X-track in one shot in a hotel room where the window was blowing out. I wish RedCineX was more intelligent about the blending between the two. Like a video version of the Nik software plugin HDR Efx Pro.

Uh what do you mean he "wasn't set up"? How can he not be set-up? It's a feature in Resolve - right there in the interface.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

Lots of nice info in here!

Bring on some images and case studies!

Cheers

G

 

[steve green]

I love HDRX... You can always get rid of your X track. Magic Motion is great for splitting the difference but like others I mess with things a little in post to get it right. I would rather make sure I have all of my highlights when shooting outside in places like Miami etc... It saved one shoot entirely.

That said I guess I would love to hear reasons for not using it. I am not being sarcastic but on a summer day without a large silk or ND's what do you do... It's brilliant.

Best Paul.

Recently I used HDRx on a night crane shot with a lamp post in the foreground which we armed through. With one stop of HDRx on the monitor and then in RCX the light portion of the lamp was jittery. I'd like to just "get rid" of the X track as we really don't need it, how is this accomplished or is it as simple as only using the A track. If that's the case, will this jitter go away because I can still see it on my laptop in RCX (just looking at the A track).

 

[Justin O'Neill]

I'd like to just "get rid" of the X track as we really don't need it, how is this accomplished or is it as simple as only using the A track.

Yes, if you select "A Track" in REDcine-X, the X track is ignored and it is as if you didn't shoot with HDRx at all. HDRx is two separate tracks of video and if you discard one the other is not effected.

Motion is an optical illusion and many factors can cause our brains to reject the illusion and see the individual frames or "jitter". If you had the shutter set to 1/48th in the main menu than it is probably the speed of the motion and the contrast of the scene that causes you to see jitter.

 

[steve green]

Yes, if you select "A Track" in REDcine-X, the X track is ignored and it is as if you didn't shoot with HDRx at all. HDRx is two separate tracks of video and if you discard one the other is not effected.

Motion is an optical illusion and many factors can cause our brains to reject the illusion and see the individual frames or "jitter". If you had the shutter set to 1/48th in the main menu than it is probably the speed of the motion and the contrast of the scene that causes you to see jitter.

Yes the shuttler in the A frame was at 1/48th, so the jitter has more to do with movement and contrast then with HDRx? Anyway to minimize it and make the shot usable?

 

[Justin O'Neill]

There may be but I don't have any suggestions myself. A bright light against a dark background is about as high contrast as it gets so that will be tricky. I'm sure VFX could smooth it out pretty easily but I'm not sure if there is anything you can do in REDcine-X.

 

[Rob Ruffo]

I love HDRX... You can always get rid of your X track. Magic Motion is great for splitting the difference but like others I mess with things a little in post to get it right. I would rather make sure I have all of my highlights when shooting outside in places like Miami etc... It saved one shoot entirely.

That said I guess I would love to hear reasons for not using it. I am not being sarcastic but on a summer day without a large silk or ND's what do you do... It's brilliant.

Best Paul.

Compression quality seems to go down a bit when using HDRX - it seems to switch algorithms - not sure, not a huge difference anyway, but Gunleik seems to have noticed this too so I know I'm likely not totally crazy in seeing this. Then there's the whole data thing, for the same data you could score yourself half the compression. Mostly an issue in low light though, which is rarely when you'd be using it anyway (although I tried once, and saw this small difference in compression quality which might have been related to subject material, but I'm pretty, though not totally, sure it was not subject-related.

 

[Curt Pair]

I use HDRx quite often and for different reasons. Sometimes in really run n' gun situations I just don't want to have to use a mattebox with ND! I think I most often use it for pulling sharp stills while still having a 1/48 shutter for motion. Here are a couple HDRx stills from our Salt Flats shoot last weekend. X track was set to 1/192 shutter. This is a big part of why I can't wait for Dragon...with 2+ more stops of sensitivity we can set the X track to 1/500 or even higher.

Justin, those shots look KILLER! Nice stuff. Thanks for sharing! Did you fly your Epic to get those?