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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 ran out of daylight last night, but I could tell that my programming mind was reactivated during dream time. Upon waking I had a number of new hunches which are all telling me that I'm on the right path. Because it's a royal pain to post images, I'm going to start writing up a blog posting that details my explorations and discoveries and quote summaries here. That will probably come later tonight or tomorrow...I need to shoot some fresh charts, which I cannot do until tomorrow.

But here are three things I'm pretty sure of (owing to my own journey with the DRAGON sensor in EPIC and SCARLET bodies):

1. When RED created the STH OLPF, they should have named it STH / ISO 320. Reading Phil Holland's magnum opus, and looking at imagery from him, Mark Toia, Gunleik Groven, and others, it is true that one can make good images with STH at other ISO ratings. But I was always disappointed when I used ISO 800 as my base for STH and often quite delighted when I metered using ISO 320. Maybe in 10 years I'll learn how to meter. Until then, I use ISO 320 as a crutch for STH (*).

2. I think that the image we are discussing is underexposed, even at ISO 800. The gray coat on the table and the white (fedex?) box out of focus in the foreground are plausibly metered, but they have the benefit of being closest to the wall that's reflecting all the incoming sunlight. They read in the histogram where I'd expect 18% gray and paper white to read.(**) That said, I think that the back wall is underlit. If you want to talk about noise in the gray coat, let's do! If you want to talk about noise in the tiles and the butcher-block, I think it's underexposed, even at ISO 800.

3. The DRAGON sensor is, dare I say, overly sensitive to noise in the EPIC body. I got a WEAPON CF in December, and it's like night-and-day on the noise front. My EPIC-M and SCARLET are both being reincarnated as WEAPON MG bodies. I do have the STD, not STH OLPF in the CF (and going in the MG), but as many other have said, it's a lot cleaner at all ISOs.

As it relates to your image, I think that 3 alone is a bit of a fudge. One *can* get fantastic images out of DRAGON in an EPIC/SCARLET body. But factor #1 aggravates factor #3 in general. And factor #2 aggravates factor #3 specifically. Factors #1 and #2 together are additive, hence the unacceptable noise.

Hopefully I'll have clips, LUTs, charts, and explanations soon.

(*) I don't have STH for Weapon, but I believe I don't need this crutch nearly as much, nor perhaps at all, with WEAPON

(**) n.b. Such plausible metering does not mean ETTR. It's dead-on for those subjects.
 
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Thanks for your thoughts, Michael.

I guess what I'm thinking now is that the LL may be the only hope for me. I would never, in my style of filmmaking, ever be able to put more light on the back cabinets or butcher block. I liked that just the way it looked "live." With the MX sensor in our RED One or in the Scarlet-X, I can shoot what my eye likes at 800 ISO and have it come out looking clean enough and good enough to use without any additional treatment. That clip I posted was ungodly noisy to me, and if I added more light to it, I'd have had to play quite a game in post then bring it back down to where it is level-wise now.

All-in-all, this has been a pretty disappointing discovery. I'm going to install a LL OLPF this morning and try it again. If that doesn't work, I'll be selling the whole kit and using our Scarlet-X for the next feature. I'm just sorry I sold our RED One MX already, as that was one fine camera for us. I loved the look!

Stephen
 
Weapon is way cleaner even with std olpf. Way cleaner.
 
Keep your STH for shooting outside on bright days. I would never consider using it inside, but its nice to have for bright outside days = less ND filtration + slightly better more natural colors + no red orbs at high apertures. Keep it at 320iso and you should be good to go!
 
Stephen Pruitt said:
Thanks for your thoughts, Michael.

I guess what I'm thinking now is that the LL may be the only hope for me. I would never, in my style of filmmaking, ever be able to put more light on the back cabinets or butcher block. I liked that just the way it looked "live." With the MX sensor in our RED One or in the Scarlet-X, I can shoot what my eye likes at 800 ISO and have it come out looking clean enough and good enough to use without any additional treatment. That clip I posted was ungodly noisy to me, and if I added more light to it, I'd have had to play quite a game in post then bring it back down to where it is level-wise now.

All-in-all, this has been a pretty disappointing discovery. I'm going to install a LL OLPF this morning and try it again. If that doesn't work, I'll be selling the whole kit and using our Scarlet-X for the next feature. I'm just sorry I sold our RED One MX already, as that was one fine camera for us. I loved the look!

Stephen
Click to expand...


I cant emphasize enough that the LLO puts you at same noise floor as MX.

We had the same concerns - I HATE NOISE. And we always find LLO very clean at 800 @ 2.8
 
Stephen Pruitt said:
Hi all. . .

I just fired up my Scarlet Dragon for the first test shots, and I have to say, it's MUCH, MUCH, MUCH noisier (video noise) than my RED One MX that it replaced. I mean, it's literally like night and day.

The colors look great, but then I never thought the MX colors didn't look great.

I'm really disappointed.

I shot in 5K 2:1 8:1 compression and used the Skin Tone OLPF, but I can't believe that's the difference, or NO ONE would ever use the skin tone OLPF. . . EVER.

Any suggestions?

Stephen
Click to expand...

I just reviewed the R3D you uploaded and I have to say that I do not see the footage as Noisy at all.

Yes, it has some noise in it, but then so does film. Do you find film far too noisy to use?
Do you dislike the look of film that is a bit noisy?

However, if you really don't like any noise at all then go with the LLO OLPF and perhaps some noise reduction in post
 
I hate to be cruel, Mr. Stevens, but if you don't need severe noise in the cabinets, the back tiles, and the butcher block in that clip, you either need a new monitor or a new pair of glasses. It's HORRIFICALLY noisy! The same image, shot with a Scarlet-X at ISO 800 showed NO discernible noise whatsoever. None. It was remarkably clean even at ISO 1200!

And, no, I don't like film grain, either. So there.

:-)

Heading out now for a Torx 6 to switch the OLPFs on that camera.

Stephen
 
I think this image is relatively noise-free considering the scene - I applied temporal noise reduction and lifted the shadows to expose the noise fully.

UvPMi16.jpg
 
My factory black shade was unusable from the start for me. I would suggest a new black shade at 65 C adaptive fans. Also, I often would set my shutter to 90 degrees for the black shade even if I planned to shoot at 180 degrees...I know its not a Red backed theory but I thought it killed some grain. good luck
 
Okay. . . I just did some tests directly A-Bing the Scarlet-X and the Scarlet Dragon with LLO installed. And the results were very strange, to my mind, at least.

First finding: The Scarlet Dragon NEEDS to be rated at 250 to get a clean image. What's really strange is that it really doesn't matter how little light you feed it, when the camera is set for ISO 250, it yields are very clean image. At 800 ISO, it doesn't matter how much light you feed it, it is noisy. The Scarlet-X, on the other hand, is quite clean at the higher ISO settings.

Now, the strangest finding, using the EXACT same lens, on the EXACT same settings (4K, 2:1, 5:1 compression), the Scarlet Dragon is VASTLY sharper. Now this looks great on objects to be sure, but it looks like hell on people. I could see every single hair and wrinkle on my (attractive 55 year-old) wife, where as with the Scarlet-X, even on the exact same settings, all of those little imperfections just aren't noticeable at all. This is quite an unexpected finding. It's almost as if the Scarlet-X had some sort of a soft-focus feel to it, but not the hyper-realistic Scarlet Dragon.

EDIT: I think I just figured out I had some sort of focus enhancement on the video image, as the footie itself looks fine in Premiere Pro, thus, no need to answer the questions below.

So that leads to two questions:

1. Has anyone else noted this hyper-realism?

2. How does one deal with such a ridiculously detailed and contrasty image in post?

I've got work on the back door of my daughter's house right now, but I'll shoot some more things and post them later.

Stephen
 
And Brett, how did the clip look in motion? I think we're confusing apparent noise in a still with real noise in a moving clip. I'm not sure they are the same thing at all.

Thanks.
 
Stephen Pruitt said:
Thanks for pointing that out, Phil!

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

Stephen
Click to expand...

It's not the OLPF that makes it noisy, it's the improper exposure.

I use STH OLPF for 99% of the shooting, I've never had a problem with noise.
The color reproduction is way better to my eye, way less IR pollution and not to mention the pretty skin tones.
I'd use LLOLPF only in, as the name implies, LOW light situations or when you don't have control over lighting.
Even then, STH can work unless pushed to the extreme.

I've got the Standard OLPF in my Weapon at the moment and I miss the STH already.
 
Thanks for all your help gentlemen.

I have a much better handle on things now. MUCH better.

Thanks again.

Stephen
 
Stephen Pruitt said:
I hate to be cruel, Mr. Stevens, but if you don't need severe noise in the cabinets, the back tiles, and the butcher block in that clip, you either need a new monitor or a new pair of glasses. It's HORRIFICALLY noisy! The same image, shot with a Scarlet-X at ISO 800 showed NO discernible noise whatsoever. None. It was remarkably clean even at ISO 1200!

And, no, I don't like film grain, either. So there.

:-)

Heading out now for a Torx 6 to switch the OLPFs on that camera.

Stephen
Click to expand...

HORRIFICALLY noisy to you, looks rather normal to me.

The cleaner an image gets, the more I often dislike it and think it looks like lifeless video.
 
I guess noise is definitely an aesthetic option, Mr. Stevens, but I'm fairly sure the "grainy noise" group is smaller than those who prefer sparkling cleanliness (which is why I think RED keeps talking about looking for ways to lower the noise floor).

Regardless, thanks for everyone's help.

Stephen
 
The original image is underexposed. The histogram shows it's exposed to the left at 800ASA, not to the right -




So this is how it looks as shot, underexposed and 'gained up' digitally using the higher ASA setting -




And this is how it looks at 400ASA and with the exposure value brought down a bit, which is more like how it was 'actually' exposed -




Here's an example grade done in RCX that greatly reduces the appearance of the grain seen in the 800ASA version -




There's nothing wrong with the STH OLPF, or the Scarlet Dragon camera.

But, yes, if you want minimal to zero noise and you can't get a high enough light level and/or wide enough f-stop to expose properly for the shadows or darker areas, and you don't want to crush the blacks in post, then the Scarlet Dragon with STH OLPF is not the best tool for the job.

As others have said, shooting at 5K instead of 4K, then down-rezzing also helps reduce the appearance of noise, as does using the DEB setting in RCX.
 
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Use D.E.B, A.D.D. and smile!
(If it doesn't work, get drunk! Then smile! :biggrin: )
 
Stephen Pruitt said:
Okay. . . I just did some tests directly A-Bing the Scarlet-X and the Scarlet Dragon with LLO installed. And the results were very strange, to my mind, at least.

First finding: The Scarlet Dragon NEEDS to be rated at 250 to get a clean image. What's really strange is that it really doesn't matter how little light you feed it, when the camera is set for ISO 250, it yields are very clean image. At 800 ISO, it doesn't matter how much light you feed it, it is noisy. The Scarlet-X, on the other hand, is quite clean at the higher ISO settings.

Now, the strangest finding, using the EXACT same lens, on the EXACT same settings (4K, 2:1, 5:1 compression), the Scarlet Dragon is VASTLY sharper. Now this looks great on objects to be sure, but it looks like hell on people. I could see every single hair and wrinkle on my (attractive 55 year-old) wife, where as with the Scarlet-X, even on the exact same settings, all of those little imperfections just aren't noticeable at all. This is quite an unexpected finding. It's almost as if the Scarlet-X had some sort of a soft-focus feel to it, but not the hyper-realistic Scarlet Dragon.

EDIT: I think I just figured out I had some sort of focus enhancement on the video image, as the footie itself looks fine in Premiere Pro, thus, no need to answer the questions below.

So that leads to two questions:

1. Has anyone else noted this hyper-realism?

2. How does one deal with such a ridiculously detailed and contrasty image in post?

I've got work on the back door of my daughter's house right now, but I'll shoot some more things and post them later.
Click to expand...


I did a great deal of testing when Epic Dragon was released a while back (as well as many, many others).

Here's a few things you will notice with your Scarlet Dragon.
- The Dragon sensor is a fairly big jump in a few ways when compared to Mysterium-X
- Color is vastly improved
- IR Contamination has been more or less eliminated (i.e. you pretty much don't need to use IRNDs or anything like that)
- The OLPFs that are tuned towards DSMC Dragon sensor tech are slightly less aggressive which equates to slightly more detail
- The way REDCODE RAW writes on DRAGON has been improved based on the lower noise floor of the sensor itself, which again improves things slightly

in terms of how ISO works, yes you will see slightly increased noise amounts as you move through the recommended ISO Range of ISO 250-2000. The general consensus for many is the Low Light Optimized OLPF and Standard OLPF are ideal for ISO 250-2000 filming and can be pushed a bit beyond that if necessary. Most trying to keep the Skin Tone - Highlight OLPF between ISO 250-800. Most feature work I've seen shot on Epic Dragon with a 5K extraction for instance has been in the ISO 500-1280 range using either the LLO or STH OLPFs.
 
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