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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 :)

Soft, Noisy and lots of Artifacts

A few things:

1- How did you do a backfocus if you didn't have a proper backfocusing device to do it with? Generally if you don't have some type of infinity focus type unit, the way I have seen many achieve a backfocus without the collimator is to set your widest prime at open then focus at infinity and get it to match. Then of course stop it down and see what happens.

2 - To eliminate software fault due to compression abnormalities, you can reinstall the camera firmware. Try a non beta firmware.

3 - The only possible hardware flaws I can think of are a) the olpf is funky. Too strong, improperly placed etc. or b) the canon EF mount is wonky giving you bizzare focus issues.

If it is a) then the fix is easy. Red will swimply replace the OLPF for you.

To test if it is b - get access to any other canon mount and test the lens. Even a pl mount will do if an EF mount is proving hard to borrow. Just to eliminate the fact that it could be the camera body.

These images are certainly disturbingly soft. I have seen some bad/old lenses perform the same way when fully open at 1.3/1.4... also the lenses you have do have rather poor MTF performance. Though the 2.8 should be marginally better, I cannot say I have had good experiences with those lenses, in terms of sharpness.

But still at 5.6-8 it should be pretty sharp. Noticeably more than the images you posted.

HTH

Ivan
 
Robert Hart said:
In absence of proper focus charts and test setups, my personal preference would be to set the zoom lens at its widest view, set the lens barrel witness mark to infinity, point to a distant sharply defined object like a utility tower or transmission tower on a distant hilltop about a half mile or threequarter kilometre away. Now adjust the camera backfocus to bring the distant object into sharpest focus. You should do this with the lens aperture wide and ND filters on the front to restore sensible light levels. If you have no NDs, then choose a time of day when the light level is less and you can open the iris without overexposing the camera. this will not be perfect but should establish a base point to trim from.

I hope this is helpful.
Click to expand...

So I tried this method of back focusing today instead of the charts. And my golly I think it did the trick! Lugged my 24" LCD to the door of the studio and plugged the camera into the huge monitor, threw the 17-55 f2.8 wide open to 2.8 at 17mmand infinity, put an ND in to keep exposure down a bit more and back focused the one of the most distant objects I can see from here while using the magnify focus assist feature. All this by itself the image was way out of focus. So I had to dial in the backfocus quite a bit but the images Im getting now are FAR better than before! Some images look pretty darn sharp without ANY sharpening in the computer at all (as they should). Mostly Im finding they do need the sharpness cranked up to high in the R3D file but we all know some sharpening is needed anyway bc the camera doesnt do it automatically.

The 4k images are amazing. The 3k images are pretty good and hold up downscaled to HD. The 2k HD images leave much to be desired.. even for HD (imho). Do you guys think the 2K HD images are what you'd expect or do they look pretty bad (even for HD)?

Did some night shots too and at 800iso the noise and compression is way better. Quite a few of you mentioned that you were certain there was/is a compression/acquisition/codec issue or wavelet issue, etc. I've already got an RMA setup so Im wondering if I should play it safe and RMA the camera or hang on to it some more? I still plan to do the side-by-side test tomorrow anyway just to further confirm everything is set correctly, and even if possible to hone in the backfocus more if possible. I did do it the poor-man's way being 7hours from the nearest big city (Seattle). So judging by these images, what do you think? RMA or play? :) What would you do?

The exposure on some of these shots is wretched bc I wasnt worrying about that. I was watching sharpness, etc..

There are several images so I just threw them in a new directory (full res jpgs):
http://66.147.244.90/~laymenmi/red/after3rdbackfocus/

Thank you guys for all the help! And thank you Robert for the instructions for the poor-man's back focus! :)
 
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Ryan Sims said:
The after3rdbackfocus still don't look right to me. I have not had to sharpen any of my Scarlet footage.
Click to expand...

Ryan, could you send me (or post) some R3D stills of yours at different resolutions (4k, 3k, 2k) so I can compare them with mine? It'd help me get a better reference point for what I "should be" getting.
 
That still looks a bit soft. Those 4K jpegs I have posted have no sharpening and they look much sharper than your images. Although they aren't sharpened in camera, they are still somewhat sharp and only need a small amount of sharpening if you want it to make it really pop. Yours still looks a bit too soft. I'd play it safe and have it at least checked out by RED.
 
Marie Turock said:
I like to share my experience with the relative soft look of r3ds when I can so that other people can compare and contrast their experiences with mine. I never claim to be right or wrong, just true to what I have seen.

I have edited footage from all three varieties of Red cameras, just about every glass configuration one can imagine, and of course my very own Scarlet with Canon glass. One thing that has been absolutely consistent throughout the years is that Red footage is relatively soft at 100%, and even somewhat soft at 80%. I have never seen a tack sharp r3d, ever. That said, I would love to see one, if anyone would like to post? When I use the expression "tack sharp" I am comparing it to what one would get from shooting raw with a mediocre DSLR and mediocre glass, simply because it is a fair comparison. Therefore, I never can personally blame choice of glass when it comes to people encountering problems like these with their Red cameras. There is a period of adjustment and acceptance in the world of Red, but when one takes the time to adjust and accept, then things can get beautiful quick!
Click to expand...

Underworld doesn't look sharp to you?
 
Marie Turock said:
I like to share my experience with the relative soft look of r3ds when I can so that other people can compare and contrast their experiences with mine. I never claim to be right or wrong, just true to what I have seen.

I have edited footage from all three varieties of Red cameras, just about every glass configuration one can imagine, and of course my very own Scarlet with Canon glass. One thing that has been absolutely consistent throughout the years is that Red footage is relatively soft at 100%, and even somewhat soft at 80%. I have never seen a tack sharp r3d, ever. That said, I would love to see one, if anyone would like to post? When I use the expression "tack sharp" I am comparing it to what one would get from shooting raw with a mediocre DSLR and mediocre glass, simply because it is a fair comparison. Therefore, I never can personally blame choice of glass when it comes to people encountering problems like these with their Red cameras. There is a period of adjustment and acceptance in the world of Red, but when one takes the time to adjust and accept, then things can get beautiful quick!
Click to expand...

Pretty sharp for 3K and no sharpening. This is from CP.2's. Have a look at 100%. Right click, open in new tab, hit zoom to view full size.
3Kclose.jpg
 
Marie Turock said:
I like to share my experience with the relative soft look of r3ds when I can so that other people can compare and contrast their experiences with mine. I never claim to be right or wrong, just true to what I have seen.

I have edited footage from all three varieties of Red cameras, just about every glass configuration one can imagine, and of course my very own Scarlet with Canon glass. One thing that has been absolutely consistent throughout the years is that Red footage is relatively soft at 100%, and even somewhat soft at 80%. I have never seen a tack sharp r3d, ever. That said, I would love to see one, if anyone would like to post? When I use the expression "tack sharp" I am comparing it to what one would get from shooting raw with a mediocre DSLR and mediocre glass, simply because it is a fair comparison. Therefore, I never can personally blame choice of glass when it comes to people encountering problems like these with their Red cameras. There is a period of adjustment and acceptance in the world of Red, but when one takes the time to adjust and accept, then things can get beautiful quick!
Click to expand...

Weird.

Cannot say that I recognize this or that we sharpen RED footage allmost "ever".
Trying to think through te series I have supervised, and this does not ring a bell... :)
 
Marie Turock said:
I have edited footage from all three varieties of Red cameras, just about every glass configuration one can imagine, and of course my very own Scarlet with Canon glass. One thing that has been absolutely consistent throughout the years is that Red footage is relatively soft at 100%, and even somewhat soft at 80%. I have never seen a tack sharp r3d, ever. That said, I would love to see one, if anyone would like to post? When I use the expression "tack sharp" I am comparing it to what one would get from shooting raw with a mediocre DSLR and mediocre glass, simply because it is a fair comparison.
Click to expand...

It's a culture thing. When you've grown up with 35mm, 16mm and endless telecine sessions that ended up in SD you have a different sense to sharpness than someone who is used to video or DSLRs. None is better or worse, it's different. The equation Red=soft is as old as Red is on she market; and, IMHO, determined by taste. Nonetheless, cameras are different, so is their sharpness. Arri, for instance has a tad more sharpness in their debayer than RED, the Si2k is even softer. Adding electronic sharpness in the finishing process is done oftentimes, regardless which camera was used.

All this, however, has nothing to do with the OP's problems. I would listen to David Mullen's suggestion and get a second camera and additional sharp glass.

As a personal side-note: Red's compression has problems with high detailed scenes such as parks and trees. When I shoot at 3K and a compression lower than 1:5 I get clunky artifacts in the shadows. The problem is easy to solve: don't lower compression down to 1:8 or even lower. But you've all done that. Listen to David Mullen.

Hans
 
hmm, the OPs results are not far from mine. I never posted this here but I was quite disappointed when I saw my first footage from the Scarlet. Spoke to a buddy next to me (with EPIC and Scarlet) and he told me I´ll get used to it, it´s quite in line. Not that you cannot get it sharp in post, but at least quite noisy when sharpened, you can even see some noise in that test chart shot from David Mullen in this thread (I give the scarlet enough light, expose around 500ISO) ,so what Marie wrote seems reasonable to me. On the other hand, I´d love to get sharper results straight out of the camera - @Michael, please keep us informed about your findings.

Thank you, Ulf
 
Michael McCaffrey said:
Testing low compression ratio's:
http://66.147.244.90/~laymenmi/red/Wide_6_to_1.jpg
http://66.147.244.90/~laymenmi/red/55mm_6_to_1.jpg
http://66.147.244.90/~laymenmi/red/wide_3_to_1.jpg

I wouldnt surprise me at all if there was some bad compression thing happening. Seems to me the most likely problem as I've noticed it from the first shot I took with this camera. Wouldnt surprise me either if the compression issue is related to the softness. I've tested this camera with 3 different lenses that I have access to, tried a back focus adjustment and everything else that can be done save a side-by-side test which I'll do tomorrow.
Click to expand...
While all of your other pictures look off, these look totally fine. There's plenty of natural detail in the 3:1 compression shot.
 
There's still something very wrong in your debayer or capture in the 3:1 though:

Artifact.png


That's not optical. Did you rescale the image or apply sharpening or something? Nothing should create that artifact though.
 
Gavin Greenwalt said:
There's still something very wrong in your debayer or capture in the 3:1 though:

Artifact.png


That's not optical. Did you rescale the image or apply sharpening or something? Nothing should create that artifact though.
Click to expand...

looks like a burnt in rectangle.
 
Gavin Greenwalt said:
There's still something very wrong in your debayer or capture in the 3:1 though:

Artifact.png


That's not optical. Did you rescale the image or apply sharpening or something? Nothing should create that artifact though.
Click to expand...

Which image did you pull this off of? I looked at the "wide_3to1.jpg" and didnt see it. Hrmmm. Id like to find the original image so I can send it to Red. Sent the camera in for RMA today. They say 3-5 days to evaluate it and then they will service it or send me another one. May not have a camera again until June 4th! crazy. 2.5 weeks lost to a bad camera and Im supposed to be shooting days later. I dont want this one back and this is just one more reason why.
 
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