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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 :)

something really weird... wondering if this has ever happend to anyone else

Zakaree Sandberg

Zakaree Sandberg

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we were shooting this daytime exterior crane shot.. we had a big white structure we were photographing..

we had set the camera to 48fps and just as we hit enter, our vtr guy was getting an intermittent signal..thinking it was just him, as our other monitors were working fine, we moved on and continued with our shot (again.. the vtr thing might not be related.. but finish my story)

the picture looked perfect on the monitors, im not sure how the onboard red monitor looked.. but our ground monitors.. picture perfect, and the histogram was looking good...

ok... so, those files are downloaded.. opened in redcine and BAM blown out.. everything was blown out (we shot at asa 500)
again.. this was night and day from what we were seeing on our panasonics.. vs what was recorded..

I had to take the asa down to 160 in order to see the picture normally.. however the whites were gone..

its as if the sdi monitoring path was showing us 160asa, yet the camera was recording a blown out image


anyone? its kinda concerning
 
FWIW

I had a very similar thing happen with my Scarlet only the inverse, everything was under by like 3+ stops. Very strange.
 
Sareesh Sudhakaran said:
I don't presume to know much about the Red camera, but I have a question, possibly naive: Didn't the DP meter the scene with a lightmeter?
Click to expand...


You don't see many light meters on Red shoots.
 
Glen Powell said:
Which is a shame….
Click to expand...

no, it's really not. the camera is a light meter.

zak, sorry to hear about that :/ i have had some weird stuff happen with my exposure, but it shows up on the touchscreen and i just reboot... hope you can reshoot or sky/texture replace or something
 
Something similar. I was shooting an entry way on a bright sunny day outside and practicals lighting the entry way. I wasn't shooting toward the outside light but parallel to it. I was focused on two people in the entry way as another person walked between them and the camera. In post, I noticed the person walking in front of the camera looked normal until reaching the point directly in front of the lens. At this point, the scene became very bright for about 3 frames. Easy to fix but surprising, to say the least.
 
Sareesh Sudhakaran said:
I don't presume to know much about the Red camera, but I have a question, possibly naive: Didn't the DP meter the scene with a lightmeter?
Click to expand...

no this is rarely done except for ratio lighting... light meters are exactly true with digital cameras
 
Zakaree Sandberg said:
no this is rarely done except for ratio lighting... light meters are exactly true with digital cameras
Click to expand...

You're kind of contradicting your original question here. If digital light meters were exactly true, you wouldn't be experiencing this problem. You'll never kick yourself for having a light meter as a backup check on each setup.

As for the solution, did you check to see what color space the camera was outputting? Use your false color and other exposure tools to ensure the building wasn't red and your subject was in the green/pink?
 
Where the exposure tools saying things were okay? Ie: the goal posts/stop lights indicating nothing blown out? I realize you couldn't see the RED lcd on the camera, but did you have the Redmote (with the exposure tools) in sight?

Also, did anything happen to the shutter angle??
 
Jake Bastian said:
You're kind of contradicting your original question here. If digital light meters were exactly true, you wouldn't be experiencing this problem. You'll never kick yourself for having a light meter as a backup check on each setup.

As for the solution, did you check to see what color space the camera was outputting? Use your false color and other exposure tools to ensure the building wasn't red and your subject was in the green/pink?
Click to expand...

Origional post had nothing to do with light meters...I rarely see light meters on set except for lighting ratios. They arent accurate for exposure with red...besides the point.
Redcolor 3, red gamma 3.. histogram was where it shouls be..
Camera was 40ft in the air, so no..I didnt. Toggle falae color.

Out of my monitoring path, everything was where it should have been
 
paul engstrom said:
Where the exposure tools saying things were okay? Ie: the goal posts/stop lights indicating nothing blown out? I realize you couldn't see the RED lcd on the camera, but did you have the Redmote (with the exposure tools) in sight?

Also, did anything happen to the shutter angle??
Click to expand...

Redmote = garbage..that thing wont reach 5ft from the camera.
shutter was 180. Fps 48. 500 asa
 
Check metadata on your problematic clips. Although metadata is only for the overall clip and not per frame (as far as I know).
 
Can you post an R3D still so we can have a look?

I use my Redmote on both my Scarlet and Epic 20 feet away from the camera, rock solid and no problem, did you install the new antenna?
 
Some REDMOTES seem to have trouble even after the antenna upgrade. Sometimes it's user error while connecting the REDMOTE -- seriously, don't just assume this isn't the case, it's finicky. And sometimes the REDMOTE needs to go back to RED for a fix. I would talk to RED about the REDMOTE issue if you're having signal or connection troubles.

That said, not much else we can do here other than look at an R3D clip and make educated guesses about what my have went wrong. Not that it changes anything after the fact.

Light meters... Always good to have. If your meter doesn't align with your camera, then you need to calibrate and/ or profile your meter. The good ones allow this. And no, don't borrow someone else's profile and install it. Each meter needs to be profiled. My Sekonic 758C meter lines up perfectly with my EPICs. I always double check exposure with a meter or with a second camera if it's a multi-camera shoot. Simply winging it based on the exposure tools in the camera can be risky at times. And yes, I'm guilty of that myself a lot of the time. Settings may get changed without someone noticing or you may just be in a hurry and goof up yourself. I know my fat thumbs make mistakes every now and then.

There are lots of things we don't often see on RED shoots, usually for budgetary reasons and a lot of times this follows the same lack of certain items we see with DSLR and cheap HD camera shoots... Not just light meters. Sometimes the issue isn't even budget, it's a lack of understanding of how to use certain tools with RED or other digital cameras. Or the expectation or assumption that the camera can do it all just fine without need for extra tools.
 
Every now and then I'll turn my cam on and the exposure is all blown out, can't say that I've seen it happen whilst the camera is running though. I know this happens because I shoot 3D and it's pretty obvious that 1 camera isn't exposing properly, not just a bit out either, try 8 stops. I just turn it off, wait a bit and turn it back on and it's good to go. Never checked what is coming out of sdi or hdmi when this happens sorry.
 
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