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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 :)

SUPER noisy footage from Scarlet Dragon

I never change shutter angle. It should have been 180. I'll check that, though.

But, Nick, as to noise, that is sooooooo INCREDIBLY noisy, I can't imagine what you are looking at that makes it seem "relatively normal."

I shot it at 4K because my Scarlet-X won't do 5K, and I wanted to compare them. I didn't notice any difference at all from 5K versus 4K. On my 1080p monitor, it just looks awful to me. Totally unusable, whereas at 800 ISO with the Scarlet-X it really is as clean as a whistle.

Thanks for looking into this. I can't believe ANYONE would think this footage was usable.

A seasoned RED-vet (now a FORMER RED owner) sent me a PM. This is what he had to say about that footage: "Yeeeeesssshhh... just looked at the clip you uploaded. Yeah, that's pretty much the same as what I was seeing with mine. That just plain sucks, man."

Stephen
 
Is the Standard OLPF noisier than the Low Light OLPF??? REDliterature seems to suggest that that should be the standard for almost all shooting, but I'm hearing so much about the LL OLPF, I'm now honestly confused.

Thanks gents!

Stephen
 
Stephen Pruitt said:
Is the Standard OLPF noisier than the Low Light OLPF??? REDliterature seems to suggest that that should be the standard for almost all shooting, but I'm hearing so much about the LL OLPF, I'm now honestly confused.

Thanks gents!

Stephen
Click to expand...

If you are looking for a general analog between the OLPF found in Mysterium-X the Low Light Optimized OLPF is what you are after. It's also the "cleanest" OLPF.

The Standard is slightly noisier than the LLO, but not by much and it has slightly improved color for that matter.
 
Stephen Pruitt said:
Is the Standard OLPF noisier than the Low Light OLPF??? REDliterature seems to suggest that that should be the standard for almost all shooting, but I'm hearing so much about the LL OLPF, I'm now honestly confused.

Thanks gents!

Stephen
Click to expand...

The OLPFs just distribute the DR differently.

Skintone = 320 ISO, 1.5 extra stops of highlight (vs Lowlight).
Standard = 640 ISO in the middle
Lowlight = 800 ISO, 1.5 extra stops of shadows (vs Highlight)

Again, all OLPF read same exposure, its just the DR is mapped differently.

We shoot Lowlight all the time, and love it on Dragon.

Allthough the new DSMC2 cameras are SO CLEAN, that the Standard OLPF probably makes more sense on that platform.

But on DSMC1 we've stuck to Lowlight (so far).

Hope this helps!
 
luigivaltulini said:
I see what you're saying!
- If you shoot with the Skin Tone would not go beyond 500 ISO.
Click to expand...

Fully agree!

I would only use STH if your shooting in very bright daylight conditions. I have yet to test the OLPF's on my weapon yet, but on dragon STH was the only OLPF that eliminated the high aperture red dots as well.
 
Just found this to support the LLOLPF comments above:

"More to the point, without that Low Light OLPF filtering, the noise gets INTENSE and WEIRD. It’s horrible. At ISO 400 in full sun, properly exposed footage would look fine in the highlights and skintone, then mids and lower mids would look like a shag carpet crawling with bugs, in the middle of the damn day? No, thank you. By contrast, the same footage with the OLPF filter looks great. Better, even, than the previous sensor."

Guess I gotta get a LLOLPF. I really do despise noise. I can live with blown highlights. But I can't stand noise.

Thanks guys.

Stephen
 
Stephen Pruitt said:
Just found this to support the LLOLPF comments above:

"More to the point, without that Low Light OLPF filtering, the noise gets INTENSE and WEIRD. It’s horrible. At ISO 400 in full sun, properly exposed footage would look fine in the highlights and skintone, then mids and lower mids would look like a shag carpet crawling with bugs, in the middle of the damn day? No, thank you. By contrast, the same footage with the OLPF filter looks great. Better, even, than the previous sensor."

Guess I gotta get a LLOLPF. I really do despise noise. I can live with blown highlights. But I can't stand noise.

Thanks guys.

Stephen
Click to expand...
Wherein lies the subjective nature of image capture. What you are seeing is that some prefer that highlight latitude with some texture, while others would like clean at the expense of some highlights and perhaps color. I think ordering all three OLPFs and conducting tests will be the best way to go about it. Also, I'd love to see some comparison shots with Red One MX! Often times the differences are not as staggering as they are made out to be. Noticeably different? Yes. Night and day difference? Not really. Post some comparisons if you can.
 
Hey there, Steve. . .

All of this noise business is making me regret unloading our last RED One! That was one clean camera.

I have to say, the greatest shock to me comparing the Scarlet-X to the Scarlet Dragon is the enormous degree of "sharpness" (for lack of a better word) in the Dragon. I set a wool jacket into the frame just to see how the cameras dealt with such a rouch texture, and it was stunning. The Scarlet-X showed the jacket as more of a soft-focus blur, whereas with the Scarlet Dragon, it was extremely detailed. I didn't expect those kind of differences at all. I'll do some more comparisons tomorrow when it isn't so dark out.

I bought the Dragon because I expected it would give me a stop or more on top at any given level of blackness. That may have been a mistake, and if that LL OLPF doesn't get me back to at least where I was with the Scarlet-X with respect to the noise issue, I'll keep the X and sell the Dragon. I really hate noise.

Stephen
 
Stephen Pruitt said:
Hey there, Steve. . .

All of this noise business is making me regret unloading our last RED One! That was one clean camera.

I have to say, the greatest shock to me comparing the Scarlet-X to the Scarlet Dragon is the enormous degree of "sharpness" (for lack of a better word) in the Dragon. I set a wool jacket into the frame just to see how the cameras dealt with such a rouch texture, and it was stunning. The Scarlet-X showed the jacket as more of a soft-focus blur, whereas with the Scarlet Dragon, it was extremely detailed. I didn't expect those kind of differences at all. I'll do some more comparisons tomorrow when it isn't so dark out.

I bought the Dragon because I expected it would give me a stop or more on top at any given level of blackness. That may have been a mistake, and if that LL OLPF doesn't get me back to at least where I was with the Scarlet-X with respect to the noise issue, I'll keep the X and sell the Dragon. I really hate noise.

Stephen
Click to expand...

Trust me, LLO puts you at same "noise" as MX. But with a much better picture.

Weapon, Scarlet-W and Raven take this to the next level - and appear to be MUCH cleaner than any previous RED cameras (a recent test showed Scarlet-W clean at 3200 w/ Standard Olpf).
 
Stephen Pruitt said:
I bought the Dragon because I expected it would give me a stop or more on top at any given level of blackness. That may have been a mistake, and if that LL OLPF doesn't get me back to at least where I was with the Scarlet-X with respect to the noise issue, I'll keep the X and sell the Dragon. I really hate noise.

Stephen
Click to expand...

Make sure you manually change the OLPF settings on the camera when you swap OLPFs. It does sound like the LLO OLPF is the way for you to go. I've shot a lot at ISO 800-2000 with it and it's clean. The only problem is I have gotten weird little orbs and tiny red dots for night exterior shots sometimes. It's nothing that can't be shot around if you keep an eye out for them on set. You still need to watch your histogram though, whatever OLPF you use. It's easy to not even realize you are underexposing a shot.
 
What screw driver do I need to switch this out? Did RED use a Torx? Is there a standard Allen wrench close enough that works?

Thanks.

Stephen
 
Thanks for pointing that out, Phil!

Anyone looking to buy a Skin Tone OLPF??? This pup is waaaayyyyy to noisy to me.

Stephen
 
Thanks for uploading your footage. It makes it a lot easier to talk about what's going on. I have created some GIO Scope LUTs (mentioned here and here), and alas I realize that I haven't truly completed my own homework assignment yet. But I'm working on it.

What my incomplete results tell me is that when they read the image of our ISO 800 exposure, they see lots and lots of underexposed pixels, which the histogram tells me are mostly in the blue channel. But before I say more, I'm trying to fix my LUTs so that they work from your image in Linear Light, not RG4. The RG4/ISO bits can kinda mislead what's really going on at the sensor level, whereas when set to linear light, we get the real truth. MY LUTS CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!! At least not yet...but I'm working on it.

I'll upload some results if they are interesting and arguably valid.
 
Thanks, Michael. The one thing I can tell you is that I've never had a problem with noise like that with the MX sensor. Ever. Even when shot quite badly underexposed. And that was not an underexposed image by my reading of the meters.

Thanks.

Stephen
 
Stephen Pruitt said:
Thanks, Michael. The one thing I can tell you is that I've never had a problem with noise like that with the MX sensor. Ever. Even when shot quite badly underexposed. And that was not an underexposed image by my reading of the meters.

Thanks.

Stephen
Click to expand...

But Stephen, look at it the other way. If you are outside in blinding light, you are going to WANT the Skintone OLPF. You can shoot it happily at sub 320 ISO, and you'll have extra 1.5 stops of DR in highlights.

Those are GOOD things.
 
I'd like to just add one thing.

These are two completely different sensors with different OLPF's and much different charateristics. Many people were "shocked" after their EPIC MX upgrades, without realizing that while the body was familiar they were dealing with an entirely new imaging system which required a little change in muscle memory. For example, you WANT to open up a lot more with the STH because the headroom at the top of the image is there whereas we had become used to protecting highlights on MX>

To get the most "EPIC MX like" image you can install the Standard or Lowlight if that is what you want or are used to. The STH is really a bit more filmic, but if you UNDER expose it that will mean a kind of noise you are not used to seeing.

Just had a look at the clip and at 4K I think it looks exactly about right for the dragon sensor and STH. You will notice a big difference with the LLO. Also, Luigi makes sense, capture 5K. You'll be better off.

David
 
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