Temperature and Black Shading

[Jan Reiff]

i saw a lot of people doing wrong things with Dragon here in Germany in the last weeks ...

i did some examples, and will put it into my ipad to show everybody at a set with a dragon right now, HOW IMPORTANT temperature and black shading is.

a lot of people don´t care about the right operation with this camera and shouting out very loud the trouble they have ... of course, all this will be even better with the new firmware as we will not dealing anymore with the red noise, but right now, it is possible to shoot fine images even pushed ...

the samples are here

https://www.flickr.com/photos/123436930@N07/sets/72157645650449302/

i think everyone will see the difference. EDIT: take a look at Marks Statements here too ...

Cheers!

 

[David Battistella]

Nice test.

One way to see this on real time is to turn on the exposure tool right after you boot the camera with the cap on. You will see the screen turn purple from left to right. When the screen is all purple you're almost good to go.

Battistella

 

[Jan Reiff]

i do some tests more today with my MX too - MX always appear to be cleaner, but if you go into the deep crop, it´s more muddy and it looks like there is already a NR on it - that´s the huge difference, Dragon is finer, as the "red sparkles" are really sharp ... i think this removement will be a huge step to end the discussions.
It´s difficult to judge at the moment as RED said the red noise has to be fixed, so it will be interesting to repeat the tests when firmware is out.
i will show more samples with MX later or tomorrow

 

[Mark L. Pederson]

notice, that even a "fresh" black shading is always better than an old one -

Cheers!

Jan .... this is not a true statement - and statements like this create more mis-information. Unless you have changed firmware - there is no such thing as "fresh". There are only TWO things that matter with respect to Black Shading a RED camera.

A.) SENSOR TEMP - (this is NOT the same as CORE TEMP)

The fan settings in ADAPTIVE let you set a TARGET FOR CORE TEMP - and your SENSOR temp is REACTIVE to the CORE temp. Remember, in ADAPTIVE fan mode - the camera is always working to gracefully get the camera to the target CORE temp and hold it there.

But the key here is - what is the sensor temp when you are shooting relative to the sensor temp when you created your CalMap. And this is what the "CAL: T/E" meter helps you with.

B.) EXPOSURE TIME (aka SHUTTER SPEED)

It has nothing to do with FRAME RATE - other than the fact that higher frame rates will force you into faster exposure times (faster shutter).

But the key here is - what is the EXPOSURE TIME (aka shutter speed) when you are shooting relative to the EXPOSURE TIME (aka shutter speed) when you created your CalMap. And this is what the "CAL: T/E" meter helps you with.

Technically - you will have the BEST CalMap if you create for the EXACT exposure time you are shooting at - however - variances in exposure time are more forgiving than variances in sensor temp relative to your CalMap. In other words - you can swing farther away from your CalMap with respect to Exposure Time than you can with respect to Sensor Temp and not see a noise penalty.

Again ... there is no "fresh". A CalMap does not go "stale".

Until and unless you update your firmware - you would get the same results a year later - it's all about CURRENT (SHOOTING) SENSOR TEMP & EXPOSURE TIME vs. SENSOR TEMP & EXPOSURE TIME on the camera when the CalMap was created. And this is indicated in the filename of the CalMap.

 

[Christoffer Glans]

So, what is the "proper" way to do the black shade? And how does CalMap work? (I'm soon to own a Epic MX so I would like to know the correct way)

 

[Jan Reiff]

Mark you are right - in this case i did not explain enough - my last Black Shading was under very hot temp - and i did a new one today and it improved the noise actually, as i see the difference

 

[Mark L. Pederson]

So, what is the "proper" way to do the black shade? And how does CalMap work? (I'm soon to own a Epic MX so I would like to know the correct way)

First - get your SENSOR up to the temp your will be operating / shooting at.

Your FAN SETTINGS are going to have a profound impact on regulating the core temp of temp of the camera - which the sensor temp will react to - which is why I always recommend ADAPTIVE fan mode. 65 Degree target is the default setting and is great for MOST situations.

** If you are shooting in very HOT conditions - crank the target up to the MAX (70) - let the camera get up to that temp and roll on an empty mag a bit until your sensor temp stops rising - I did this very successfully in the Middle East shooting in 105 degrees + outside.

If you are a Ninja and you want to split hairs - you will notice that CORE temp will often level off and stop a degree or so UNDER your target temp. In other words - set target to 65 degrees - let camera warm up and CORE temp levels off at 64 - but if you roll for a minute on an empty mag - you will get the CORE temp up to the exact target. That is what I do.

Set your camera to the EXPOSURE (shutter speed) you are going to shoot at - block all light entering the camera - create your CalMap.

Done.

 

[Jan Reiff]

i passed this corrected info to your statement in my first post ;-)

 

[Jan Reiff]

my request to RED would be, to have a kind of "zoom in" into the GUI box - sometimes it´s difficult (when you are in bright areas) to see the colors (yellow, green) - maybe i am color blind, but others told me too ;-)
the indicators should be bigger sometimes with an additional option to check it -
btw:
the black shading is not known by everyone - i think this is the main problem of rental Epics and especially Dragons - they don´t shoot in the best condition.
this is one of the biggest challenges to make this even safer in my opinion - some people may need a robocop voice coming out of the box: "yes, you can shoot now - you got your temperature" ;-)