Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • 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 :)

Soft, Noisy and lots of Artifacts

M

Michael McCaffrey

Well-known member
Joined
May 10, 2012
Messages
118
Reaction score
0
Points
16
Got the Scarlet last week and am getting poor results all the way around. Can't get any shots with nice crisp focus. I see noticeable noise in shadows, even when shooting outside at mid-day at 4K & 3k at 5600k and 800ISO at 24fps, 8:1.

Been shooting with the EX1 for the last three years and my EX1 footage looks cleaner than what I'm getting with the Scarlet. I look at .R3D and .JPG stills others have been posting in these threads from various projects and I'm getting nothing anywhere close to as clean or sharp, (even comparing the raw .R3D's without any sharpness added). I'm viewing the footage full screen on a 1920x1080 LCD monitor. My 4k and 3k footage at 1920x1080 looks lower resolution than the EX1's 1080p footage.

I've either got a bad camera or a bad backfocus. Using a 17-55 f3.5-5.6 Canon IS EF lens and an 18-135 of the same kind. I've tried to do everything I can as far as treating the image goes. I'm importing .R3D's into Premiere CS6 on a MacPro. I've set the sharpness to "Maximum" inside Premiere's "source settings" for the .R3D file. I've also added unsharp mask which helps, but is still far from sharp and if anything makes the noise and artifacts more noticeable. In the image below you'll see I have absolutely NO detail in the shadows (like in the bushes on the lower left). You can see the artifacts and noise really only when its in motion.


Here are some images:
http://66.147.244.90/~laymenmi/red/blurry_shot_still.R3D

http://66.147.244.90/~laymenmi/red/Scarlet_blurry_shot.jpg
http://66.147.244.90/~laymenmi/red/noise_artifacts_in_motion.mp4

 
you could try to put a canon 70-200 F2.8 II lens on it, and see if the images are sharp then, because that lens is insane sharp. I never worked with the lenses you described, but they are not the the high end canon zooms, so probably won't give the sharpest result to start with, that could be a something that causes your problem...
 
+1 that glass is definitely not the best.

Scarlet has scads of resolution. But of you out inferior glass in front of it don't expect it to magically make your shots looks great.
 
I can't imagine that the 17-55 is to blame here. We're talking about a lens that people use on 20 Megapixel still cameras and get off crisp shots.
 
I would contact Red.
This looks like gone through a bad diffusion filter. I've seen much better stills from Scarlet.
Have you tried shooting the same frame with the same lens with Nikon camera?
 
well, your overall depth of field looks really deep to me, have you been shooting with iris closed down really far by any chance? cause that totally compromises the performance.
to alleviate noise in the blacks, make sure to do a proper black shade according to the resolution you shoot in. I would cancel out the thought of faulty back focus, seriously sure these lenses should produce somewhat of a sharp image, but investing in quality glass when investing this amount on a camera isn't totally out of the question. The lack of resolving power comes out in a lens when shooting 4k. If you want to be sure about these lens issues, put on some fast 50mm prime, and expose around f4-5.6, then you'll know if you should be looking further, or the used lenses are your culprit.
 
Hello -- just to check on the some details: (disclaimer, I'm quite new to this myself, so I may have some of this off-kilter)

What firmware are you running ?

Have you done blackshading & if so, did you do it with your Scarlet 'warmed up' for 10 - 15 minutes & with the RED body cap installed & in a fairly dark room ?
When blackshading, I take it 'Project' is set to the same as your frame rate. That is, Settings --> Project --> Time Base .. should point to a frame rate, and this frame rate should match the frame rate you will be shooting [ (thanks to Phil Holland for setting me straight on this)]
Depending on the firmware, you'll need to watch out for which option you 'black shade' against <default> or the <frame rate you're going to use> looks like you're doing the default frame rate.

Your image looks to be a bit dark. I've found that Scarlet seems to LOVE a lot of light -- expose to the right (ETTR). You might try ISO 320 if indoors or in shadows. Otherwise 800.

Good luck -- hope this helps .. if you find any of this has misdirected you, please advise, as I'm still building up my Scarlet 'best practices' notebook --
Serge
 
I may be wrong but I've had some problems on Epic with shots that have lots of details. For me, the softness on the road and the foliage looks to come from a compression that is too strong. In these situations, if possible on the Scarlet, try using 6:1 or less.
 
Michael McCaffrey said:
Got the Scarlet last week and am getting poor results all the way around. Can't get any shots with nice crisp focus. I see noticeable noise in shadows, even when shooting outside at mid-day at 4K & 3k at 5600k and 800ISO at 24fps, 8:1.

Been shooting with the EX1 for the last three years and my EX1 footage looks cleaner than what I'm getting with the Scarlet. I look at .R3D and .JPG stills others have been posting in these threads from various projects and I'm getting nothing anywhere close to as clean or sharp, (even comparing the raw .R3D's without any sharpness added). I'm viewing the footage full screen on a 1920x1080 LCD monitor. My 4k and 3k footage at 1920x1080 looks lower resolution than the EX1's 1080p footage.

I've either got a bad camera or a bad backfocus. Using a 17-55 f3.5-5.6 Canon IS EF lens and an 18-135 of the same kind. I've tried to do everything I can as far as treating the image goes. I'm importing .R3D's into Premiere CS6 on a MacPro. I've set the sharpness to "Maximum" inside Premiere's "source settings" for the .R3D file. I've also added unsharp mask which helps, but is still far from sharp and if anything makes the noise and artifacts more noticeable. In the image below you'll see I have absolutely NO detail in the shadows (like in the bushes on the lower left). You can see the artifacts and noise really only when its in motion.


Here are some images:
http://66.147.244.90/~laymenmi/red/blurry_shot_still.R3D

http://66.147.244.90/~laymenmi/red/Scarlet_blurry_shot.jpg
http://66.147.244.90/~laymenmi/red/noise_artifacts_in_motion.mp4
Click to expand...

yikes that looks awful
 
Back-focus could be off too.

Whenever we see these sorts of posts, to me the basic question is "compared to what?" You have to have a frame of reference to compare to rather than vague feelings of a lack of sharpness or too much noise, etc.

Borrow another Scarlet and borrow a decent prime lens and shoot your lens and that prime lens on your camera and the other Scarlet as well, at the optimal f-stop (like f/5.6) or a range of f-stops, and then compare. Then you'll be able to reduce the variables, i.e. is it the camera or is it the lens?
 
Aaron Holmes said:
I can't imagine that the 17-55 is to blame here. We're talking about a lens that people use on 20 Megapixel still cameras and get off crisp shots.
Click to expand...

+1

It's honestly mostly ego these filmmakers that think they need $20,000 master primes to shoot 1080p (or even 4K) when a $1700 lens is somehow good enough for a 36MP D800E.

William Albertini said:
Ah, but you are not factoring in that 20 megapixel is achieved with a full frame sensor, not a super 35 sensor...
Click to expand...

A.) 20MP FF35 isn't massively lower pixel density than 11.6MP (4K) S35. And the pixel density of the aforementioned D800E is higher thank Scarlet 4K.

B.) Even with slightly higher pixel density S35 arguably still stresses the lens less because it's not utilizing the extreme corners where quality degrades most.
 
Keep playing with it. I've had mine for a few months now and every time I shoot the footage looks better. I'm not a master photographer by any means, but I do know my way around a camera and I speak their language pretty well. Red cams are like nothing else. The entire workflow in unique. Dial in different settings for the same shot, different compression ratios and different export settings. You will eventually get the look you want, I promise. There is a perfect combo of setting for almost every shot. The better you know your Scarlet workflow, the better your footage will look.
 
Adam Michael Carr said:
Keep playing with it. I've had mine for a few months now and every time I shoot the footage looks better. I'm not a master photographer by any means, but I do know my way around a camera and I speak their language pretty well. Red cams are like nothing else. The entire workflow in unique. Dial in different settings for the same shot, different compression ratios and different export settings. You will eventually get the look you want, I promise. There is a perfect combo of setting for almost every shot. The better you know your Scarlet workflow, the better your footage will look.
Click to expand...

I agree.
 
How are you setting focus? EVF? 5" monitor? Tape measure? Is the lens accurately marked? Don't rule out operator error. Set the lens at it's hyperfocal distance and see what happens. It's easy to miss focus with a wide lens, particularly if it's a still lens with a tiny focus throw and marks that are less than accurate.

Nick
 
Scarlet is definitely not soft. I just shot on it for the first time Friday having shot with Red One MX and Epic before. It has the same image as the others. These shots are from CP.2's at 800ISO and 24fps with no cc yet. Anyone who disagrees really needs to check their eyes. Lighting, exposure, compression ratio, focus, lenses all have an effect on the camera and the image it produces, but point them all at the same setup simultaneously with the same settings, lenses, exposure, compression ratio, and you will get the same image. In other words, check that your backfocus is correct and once thats done, it's something other than the camera at work if your images are soft. Compression is one thing, complete softness is another.
1-copy.jpg

4-copy.jpg


I will say that it is more difficult getting accurate focus by using the touch lcd as the low resolution leaves you a little unsure of what is perfectly sharp. If this is the problem for you get a higher resolution monitor to pull focus with.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top