SUPER noisy footage from Scarlet Dragon

[Stephen Pruitt]

I should have picked up the dining room.



Stephen

 

[Stephen Pruitt]

Thanks, Phil.

Is the "standard" OLPF anything that anyone should seriously consider? Or is it just skintone for daylight, and low light for interior nighttime shots?

Thanks.

Stephen

 

[Brian Boyer]

This may come across as condescending. I don't mean it to be but I don't know a better way to say it, so...

Over the past couple of years Dragon has been available, I've noticed the complaints about its noise have a few things in common.

1) Almost all are made by people who are noise-averse. I mean, hyper-sensitive to noise of any kind. This, to some degree, becomes a matter of managing expectations for a camera with no built in noise reduction, especially when the person compares a RED camera to one that does employ built-in NR, which Stephen didn't do - I'm just sayin'.

2) Of all the complaints I've seen save two, including complaints about M-X when it first hit, no one can ever say what their light meter reading was...because they weren't using one. The best we can hope for in trying to determine if the footage is "overly noisy" is, "it looked plenty bright in the room/in the monitor."

3) Only one of the GBs worth of the "overly noisy" R3Ds I've downloaded from either Dragon or M-X has ever had an 18% gray card in frame. Absent a light meter, it's a known reference one could use to determine if an image is underexposed. I have no idea how much light is actually in your kitchen (it's a kitchen a lot for some reason).

4) I'd say, because of 2) and 3), 98% of the complaints I've seen were underexposed to some degree.

5) This is just a guess but they're probably all watching at 100%, 8 inches from the screen.


Stephen,

To echo what others have said, if you avoid noise as if your life depends on it, the STH is probably not going to spend much time in your camera and LLO is a better bet, especially if you're eyeballing exposure.

Although, if you're eyeballing exposure, despite getting better noise performance out of LLO than STH, you may still not be getting optimal performance from LLO if your shots are underexposed like your kitchen shot seems to be.

Again, shoot at 5K for your project.

As for your image, REDgamma4 is too aggressive for my tastes in most situations. In RCX, try switching to REDlogFilm and rolling your own S-shaped luma curve, switch on D.E.B. (or not), add a bit of gamma-corrected, post Saturation (under Effects) and throw in a dash of brightness and contrast to taste.

Finally, watch from a reasonable distance. The noise will seem to lessen. Normally, the story and acting would take care of the rest.

I agree with Milan. I have a Scarlet Dragon and shot a bunch of test stuff at ISO 800 on STH. Granted, I used a light meter and I shot it at either 5K or 5KWS, but it looks great to me. To be fair, I'm not really all that noise-averse, especially when it's organic looking in nature.

You called your footage "HORRIFICALLY noisy" but I can tell you right now I've seen that level of noise from Dragon in major TV and movie productions. I'm looking at it on my 40" 1080p Sony TV and my 28" 4K computer monitor from about 20 inches away and "HORRIFICALLY noisy" is, IMO, hyperbole and misleading, to put it mildly.

The first season of Better Call Saul was shot exclusively with the STH OLPF, according to the DP. I'm telling you, I have a few episodes of Criminal Minds on my DVR right now that have as much or slightly more noise.

People were recently commenting on the amount of unobjectionable noise present in 10 Cloverfield Lane, here: http://bit.ly/1Reat5h

It may not be what you're after in an image and that's perfectly fine. I get the frustration and disappointment sometimes but I think we should try to avoid characterizing things that simply aren't to our taste as unusable and horrible, especially when people are out there making it work.

 

[Matthew Quinn]

Thanks, Phil.

Is the "standard" OLPF anything that anyone should seriously consider? Or is it just skintone for daylight, and low light for interior nighttime shots?

Thanks.

Stephen

Standard is the best of both worlds, and very versatile, highly recomend

 

[Robino_J]

This is may come across as condescending. I don't mean it to be but I don't know a better way to say it, so...

Over the past couple of years Dragon has been available, I've noticed the complaints about its noise have a few things in common.

1) Almost all are made by people who are noise-averse. I mean, hyper-sensitive to noise of any kind. This, to some degree, becomes a matter of managing expectations for a camera with no built in noise reduction, especially when the person compares a RED camera to one that does employ built-in NR, which Stephen didn't do - I'm just sayin'.

2) Of all the complaints I've seen save two, including complaints about M-X when it first hit, no one can ever say what their light meter reading was...because they weren't using one. The best we can hope for in trying to determine if the footage is "overly noisy" is, "it looked plenty bright in the room/in the monitor."

3) Only one of the GBs worth of the "overly noisy" R3Ds I've downloaded from either Dragon or M-X has ever had an 18% gray card in frame. Absent a light meter, it's a known reference one could use to determine if an image is underexposed. I have no idea how much light is actually in your kitchen (it's a kitchen a lot for some reason).

4) I'd say, because of 2) and 3), 98% of the complaints I've seen were underexposed to some degree.

5) This is just a guess but they're probably all watching at 100%, 8 inches from the screen.

I think that we might see a lot of noise panic threads popping up on the forum from DSLR shooters crossing over to RED with the new cameras coming out. We just have to keep educating new users.

 

[Milan Spasic]

I found the Standard a little more prone to IR pollution.
On the STH OLPF you can stack NDs to the roof, with no IR in front even, and the blacks will always stay crispy.


OPLFs have no bearing on the amount of noise, providing you supply the sensor with the equal amount of light.

 

[Patrick Tresch]

Standard is the best of both worlds, and very versatile, highly recomend

For the Dragon on Epic I don't know if "Strandard" is really the best of both worlds. I never saw any test done on the Epic with the Standard. On the Weapon though I'm convinced it is the best compromise.
The red dots pattern should not happen often with the LLO as we should avoid shooting the lens at T16 or higher.

 

[Hugh Scully]

I have the standard on there right now. I'm in a project that requires shots in "natural" light. On my light meter I was 2.0 at 400 and that's just not going to make it for me. It's a big space (a high school gym, no windows) and they don't have the budget to light it properly so I got the Standard OLPF to help out and it did. From my testing it feels like I got a full stop. The Standard was clean as a whistle at 800, just like the Skintone is at 400, at least so far. I need to test highlight handling with the Standard. Highlights are money on the Skintone - just beautiful. I'm doing some street night stuff with the standard that I will go back to with the Skintone also. I'm also curious about tungsten. The Skintone really works with night interiors. This is where I think the Standard is falling down a little. There's a bit of orange glow as I used to see on MX with the Standard where Skintone seems to hold mottling and pink fleshtones better in tungsten. It's very comfortable shooting at 800. Sometimes at 400 you feel like you really have to bring the light but it's worth it to stay on the Skintone, I think.

So yeah, I think the Standard is worth a try.

 

[Milan Spasic]

This is where I think the Standard is falling down a little. There's a bit of orange glow as I used to see on MX with the Standard where Skintone seems to hold mottling and pink fleshtones better in tungsten.

+1.