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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 :)

Tested Monstro vs. Helium

Why don't you set each camera in a way to get the best possible picture?
Same FoV and DoF.
With a Sigma 24..35 you would allready have the range to match the FoV and DoF for all s35, FF camera's.

With a speedmount you would gain almost a stop of light.
Some camera's don't even have 2000 ISO.

At ISO 51200 the Sony A7S2 beats them all (at 4k+).

Don't get me wrong, I appriciate the time and effort you put into these tests.
 
Why don't you set each camera in a way to get the best possible picture?
Same FoV and DoF.
With a Sigma 24..35 you would allready have the range to match the FoV and DoF for all s35, FF camera's.

With a speedmount you would gain almost a stop of light.
Some camera's don't even have 2000 ISO.

Sorry, I don't get your point. Please clarify what you mean.
 
Venice


venice_1.1.2.jpg
 
Without looking at the r3d files for the Monstro I am a little surprised by the DPX of the Venice. I am questioning whether some kind of post pipeline needs to be done with the Sony footage. Sony is not known for noise.
 
Without looking at the r3d files for the Monstro I am a little surprised by the DPX of the Venice. I am questioning whether some kind of post pipeline needs to be done with the Sony footage. Sony is not known for noise.

The Venice has a base sensitivity of 500ISO at the moment (they are working on a 2500ISO mode). 2000ISO EI is the highest you can go in camera. I just took the X-OCN ST file, and developed one frame in the Sony RAW viewer 3.0 to DPX. Thats all I did.
 
Sorry, I don't get your point. Please clarify what you mean.

I'll try.

Starting point Sigma Cine 24..35 mm image circle 43.3 mm T2.2

Shoot with all the camera's in the same format when possible let's say 16:9 with as much resolution as possible and that it fits within the image circle of the Lens.
With the comparisson between Monstro and Helium we can take this even a step further with an exact match in resoluton.

Monstro 7,5k HD, 36.48x20.52mm (41.86mm image circle), 7296x4104 (29.94 megapixels) Lens set to 35 mm T4

To get the same picture out of the Helium with respect to FoV and DoF.

Helium 7,5k HD, 26.63x14.98mm (30.55mm image circle), 7296x4104 (29.94 megapixels) Lens set to 35x0.73 mm T4x0.73 = Lens set to 25.55 mm T2.92

or when you have a speedmount set the lens back to the same value you had it with the monstro.


Personal the 50 at T4 on Monstro and the 35 at T2.8 on Helium would be close enough to get the same FoV and DoF ( or Helium with speedmount on the same value's as the Monstro).

Venice ISO Sensitivity = ISO500 so why push it to 2000, it's the picture quality that comes out that counts, not the ISO value(it's gain any way).

(Set the RED's against Varicam at the same ISO "ISO5000" and they will loose the quality contest, same counts for A7S2 set to ISO51200, can any cinema camera even do that? ).

The human eye has a (comparable to camera's) ISO rating between 500..1000 according to astronomers.

An ISO rating of ISO500...(max. ISO1000) should look like what we as humans can see.
 
Venice ISO Sensitivity = ISO500 so why push it to 2000, it's the picture quality that comes out that counts, not the ISO value(it's gain any way).

Uhm, but that was not the point of this test. I did another test in the studio where I lit for ISO500 T8 which is a whole different story, but the purpose of this test was to see how the cameras perform in a very difficult environment with bad CRI and low light. So I still do not get your point, sorry.

And FOV wise: I did exactly that (in respect of the available lenses I had: 20, 24, 35, 50, 85). So Monstro and Venice were shot on a 50 and Helium on 35.

An ISO rating of ISO500...(max. ISO1000) should look like what we as humans can see.

Oh, if that is true my eyes seem to have a super fast aperture because when I look outside the window at night and watch the same scenery we shot this test, I see much brighter than what I saw in the monitor when shooting Venice 500ISO, 24fps, 172,8 degree shutter, T1.5
 
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So Monstro and Venice were shot on a 50 and Helium on 35.



Oh, if that is true my eyes seem to have a super fast aperture because when I look outside the window at night and watch the same scenery we shot this test, I see much brighter than what I saw in the monitor when shooting Venice 500ISO, 24fps, 172,8 degree shutter, T1.5

Both at the same T-Stop or at equivalent T-Stops?

Your eyes must be on the 1000ISO side then.
 
Both at the same T-Stop or at equivalent T-Stops?

Your eyes must be on the 1000ISO side then.

Same T-Stop to test the sensor capabilities in low light – not equivalent T-Stop to get the same DoF which would be totally pointless in this test.

Hm, hard to say if it was 1000ISO, I did not check my aperture on my iris lol
 
Thank you for this comparison, very interesting indeed. Venice is definitely not a low light camera. No low light, no HFR, what were they thinking?
 
Uhm, but that was not the point of this test, but the purpose of this test was to see how the cameras perform in a very difficult environment with bad CRI and low light. So I still do not get your point, sorry.

ISO on digital camera's is just gain, so you also amplify the noise.
Shoot the same shot with the Helium again at ISO1000 with a speedmount and the 50mm T1.5 and you will get the same output as now with half the noise (and you also get the same DoF).

When you still want more light in your picture give it to a Resolve wizard like Rand and he will sqeeze out the last bit that is hidden somewhere in the RAW file.

Lattitude of the Helium is supposed to be 16,5 stops and we (humans) can only see 13..14 stops at the same time.

Helium according to DxoMark https://www.dxomark.com/red-helium-8k-dxomark-sensor-score-108-a-new-all-time-high-score2/ Lower ISO means better s/n ratio, more color.
 
Very interesting test. I just looked at the red files. I know that you are trying to push the boundary of the cameras, but is this image not greatly underexposed?
I only have experience with shooting with MX and I know Helium is different. But I would never expose where most of the information is in the left 20% part of the histogram. At first I was a bit alarmed at the amount of noise from Helium, but then I realise those areas in the sky are nearly black.
Of course still very interesting how much better Monstro is.
/Andreas
 
Very interesting test. I just looked at the red files. I know that you are trying to push the boundary of the cameras, but is this image not greatly underexposed?

Yes, they are all underexposed around two stops. But since the Venice can't go higher than EI 2000ISO and my lenses wouldn't go faster than T1.5, I shot every camera at this sensitivity (yes, I know it is just gain in the end but I wanted to see something in the viewfinder)
 
I think they listened to the big HollyWood DoP's, etc...
It's funny when I spoke to some experienced DPs (not necessarily "big" but definitely "Hollywood") at the unveiling event they all said the same thing- who shoots at 500 ISO 24FPS max these days? All said these were the two reasons this camera was not going to make it big here... Lets hope Sony can squeeze some more sensitivity from it as promised....
 
Damn, Venice is so good at seeing in the dark, that black VW Golf came out white this time.

LOL! This was shot just next to our office so I left the tripod with my buddy and went up to swap cameras and lenses. While I was away also the cars must have swapped :-)
 
Without hyping too much, something interesting from a bit ago.

One night, just after Jarred invited myself and Peter to take a look at Monstro he said it was "years ahead". I've been trying to wrap my head around exactly what's going on under the hood, especially in relationship to Dragon. But I can say rather safely Monstro is the best sensor currently found in any digital cinema camera on a technical and even aesthetic level, this will likely be the case for the next 2-3 years I think, unless one company in particular figured something out regarding one of their R&D sensors, but it hasn't come to market this time around. Monstro has more color and tonality even than anything else I've shot with and is rather linear. Pretty sure a time machine was involved. I even had a post house comment on the improvement really recently.

The real fun comparison is looking at Venice versus DSMC2 6K S35 Dragon even. Heck, same could be said for nearly any other camera out there.

For me Dragon was the thing that pushed RED really forward. Helium and Monstro are doing a bit more in slightly different ways with Monstro clearly being the premiere tech.

I should also add, I'm not the only one who "sees this".
 
Interesting the venice image doesn't have a chance in this situation, while the Monstro creates a useable image.
 
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