Stills and Motion Workflow for Advertising

[Philip Jarmain]

I am an advertising photographer working primarily in Toronto and Vancouver. I have spent the last few years trying to refine the stills and motion workflow. It's a challenge but I believe it's worth while. Even two years ago no one could have fathomed the changes in advertising as people now use their phones as their primary device to view content. Most large campaigns I have worked on in the last year have been stills and motion combined that need to provide many assets both stills and motion for broadcast, social media, web and print. So I am a believer in the RED stills and motion workflow but it has a long way to go. I would love to hear some some solid advice for getting sharp stills and also for general workflow and tethering.

I have been shooting phase one for years so I like the Raw workflow but compared to a phase the dragon stills are so rediculously soft it hurts. Sharpening in post doesn't help - the dragon images at 6k at 4:1 compression at 1/200 of a second shutter of a static model in studio lit with a broncolor parabolic ft1600 him are soft compared to say a 5D.

I'm using Zeiss Otus 85, 55, and 28mm lenses and shooting 6k at 4:1 compression. The Otus are the sharpest lenses I have ever used and outperform Summicron C's for sharpness. On my Canon 5DSR at 50 megapixels they are rediculous. So lenses aren't the issue.

I'm thinking the Olpf might be the issue - I'm using the Skin tone Highlight Olpf. Phase one Digital backs and the Canon 5DSR don't have high pass filters. I just received the low light Olpf and I'm about to do a test for sharpness with that. Has anyone compared them for sharpness.

I'm upgrading to the weapon helium shortly. I fear it might not be any sharper because it's a small sensor and still needs an Olpf. Has anyone done some actual printed tests? I have been doing test prints at the dragon native resolution which is about 10"x20" at 300 dpi on an Epson printer. They are decent when the subject is close but at any distance they are brutally soft. And yes I have had my back focus checked by technicians.

I just started doing tethered tests but the problem is that it's Ethernet so data rates are poor and compression settings are higher. The art directors need my camera tethered when shooting stills.

I shoot seperate takes for stills so I can shoot 4:1 compression at high shutter speeds. It slows me down a bit but it's fine.

How do I get sharper stills and will I eventually be able to tether for stills.

The ad industry needs this technology since budgets are leaner and instead of a few assets for a campaign now we need hundreds of various assets.

Is anyone seriously working on this workflow for advertising to produce good quality assets for OUT OF HOME/billboards and transit shelter ads and posters? I'm trying and have done a number of billboard campaigns on my dragon but they kind of suck technically compared to even a low end low resolution dslr. The dynamic range is awesome but again they are soft.

Please help - Red's digital stills and motion concept has to come to fruition whether red users want it or not. Either Arri or Red are going to get it sorted because in advertising economics are driving this issue. Can't afford two full crews on set - one stills and one motion. How can we put our heads together and get this workflow properly resolved? Hdrx, high frame rates are all fine for web but for print we need alsmost zero compression and top level sharpness. There is no serious information on the red site or anywhere that I have searched.

I'm loving this Red Camera it's well thought out I guess I'm looking for advice from someone using this dragon for stills and motion ad campaigns.

Thanks


Philip Jarmain
http://www.jarmainproductions.com

 

[Ketch Rossi]

Welcome to Reduser Philip,


I have the Stills/Motion workflow at heart and am actually doing the first step in quick workflow session today in Costa Mesa with a small group of Redusers while also going life on Facebook streaming.

This I'm doing today it's just a simple Q&A talk thru kind of workshop, nothing fancy, just mainly to answer the many emails and messages I get thru my social media channels and here on Reduser about shooting Motion for Stills, but I'll be doing a Master Class workshop soon where we'll go all the way in.

It seems that you are already in a very god position vs others as far as knowing what you are doing, however it seems that you can't get sharp enough images, which is not right, and while of corse you can't compare RED cameras to any MF camera, do to the size of sensor and lenses used, you can surely compare them to a similar size sensor and Mega Pixels count.

The results I have head brought me content but I also chose the RED Motion for Stills workflow vs DSLR for specific reasons, and I have now returned to also make use of DSLR wth the Canon 5DsR and MF body in the Phase One XF 100 and Hasselblad H6D-100, because to each it's own...


Do you have any samples that you can show us so to understand what is not sharp enough for you?

 

[Alberto Guglielmi]

Hey Philip,

I just did a test yesterday with my Epic-W vs Canon 5Dmark3 vs Leica M-240.
Leica with 50mm summicron, Epic-w and Canon with the same Sigma Art 50mm.
Nothing too professional. I basically shot the same thing, lit the same, same aperture (5.6). I put the ISO at 1600 for the canon and leica, and shot at iso 800 for the RED. 125th for still cameras, different fps and shutter speeds for the RED. Canon and RED I switched on the same tripod. Leica I just shot by hand one frame.

My take:
They pretty much look the same for sharpness. I would say Canon might be a step lower. Adding 1 or 2 in sharpness in redline X makes the RED the sharpest of all by far.
Please see attached for reference. File names will tell you what is what. S1 and S2 are the different level of sharpness in red cine X
Note that I did not spend time in matching colors exposure, but it was just sharpness test for an upcoming shoot.

Let me know what you think.

 

[Mike Finegan]

I think you should use same exact lens (ignoring crop factor) - assuming you have EF adaptor for Leica and use higher f stop (say f8).
I also did informal comparison between Sony A7R2 and Epic-W Helium S35 and have had 5DMk3 for several years that was replaced by Sony.
It has to be the OLPF but I felt is was same or better than 5DMk3 OLPF (but that is from memory of 5DMk3 not head to head).
There must also be some impact from compression - but as discussed by Ketch at the weekend workshop - not all frequencies (and resulting compressed wavelets) - are impacted the same by OLPF and / or overall compression. BTW that informal seminar / workshop was fantastic and brought together a lot of RED dual cinematographers/photographers.

What would be nice is if someone could shoot all the RED 8K cameras with same lens but no OLPF side by side with Sony A7R2 (no OLPF) and maybe one of the medium format cameras (with comparable resolving/contrast lens). Crop factors and effective resolving power are different, but at the end of the day it is the still frame that matters. Compare at similar FOV - for same number of pixels - X by 8K.
Since the different RED cameras have different 8K compression capabilities there should be some difference in detail. With and without OLPF is likely largest impact.

If anyone from RED is reading this (Graeme?), can the color science baked into OLPF also be baked into a non smoothing blank glass filter? Would be nice if operator could choose to risk Moire and get sharpest images when needed.
For A7R2 it happens once in a while but I can deal with in post or pick another image almost identical where it does not occur.

If there is demand and it is of interest to RED management, a tall sensor with low compression (higher data bandwidth) and non-softening 'color filter' (plus high speed tethering / >= 4K proview) could totally wipe competition for high end photography market. The medium format cameras are finally starting to support video but RED is so far ahead, why not hit that home run also
All IMHO, but would like to see one camera that does everything.

 

[Alberto Guglielmi]

I tried different compressions at 8K to see if there was a difference in sharpness. 3:1, 5:1, 8:1, 10:1
I did not see a visible difference at all. It pretty much all look similar.

 

[Martin Konrad]

Hi Philip
I think in your setup its not really worth trying to do everything on the Red.
Let me explain, getting exploitable stills for web and instagram is never a problem
unless the request arises after the shoot and you have only 1/60 or 1/50s stills of shots with movement.
You are talking about advertising imagery for print.
These days I never get requests for prints that have the same aspect ratio as the motion job,
most of the times the print request has to work for a multitude of formats (which is where maximum resolution is neeeded).
So on the shoot day this would require not only changing shutter and exposure on the red to reduce motion blur
but you would also most likely be required to move the camera, change a lens and reframe for the print size/format.
So it is just as easy to set up a dedicated Camera body (like your 5dsR).

The only problem I see is that you are dealing with two different sensors
so colors seen on screen by the clients are not the exact same.
I think your time is best spend setting up your stills camera to output the images
to your standard tethering Software (Capture One?) and set up a profile within the software that
gets you as close as possible to the Reds Lut that your clients see on their screen.

In an ideal studio setup you have one client monitor being rigged to your Red
and the computer running the capture software for stills (via two inputs).
So once you switch from motion to stills you only switch the input signal on the client screen
and they get to see the "Red style profiled" images on the same screen (they don't even have to get out the sofa...)

this will be the setup I will work with once I have my Red

 

[Mike Finegan]

any chance you could repeat test without OLPF? (clear glass exists, right?)

 

[Christian Locke]

Hello Philip, (wow first post it will be an honor trade paint with some people here)

I would ask how do you shoot waterfalls? Try the shutter speeds and Martin Konrad mentioned it (noticed later). Less lighting also as Red captures more right?
Also I recommend the use of a Canon EOS 750D for those shoots with those lighting conditions. Canada Gooo Mgtows...

lockechristian.com