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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 :)

The toe and the shoulder Dragon DR

In my perfect world, I'd swap a stop of highlight protection to get a stop of better lowlight performance. I'm not sure if that's possible - I think DEB is the substitute, at least for now. I hope that is not the endgame. But it is a fast response to user feedback.

I think RED will do all it can to continue to milk every drop of performance that they can out of the Dragon sensor.

The MX took almost 2 years to perfect, once it was released. RED will do everything they can to optimize the image, as they always have. They have earned my patience and loyalty. We've come quite a long way since my RED ONE, Build 12 in a very short time.
 
Christof Paul said:
how can a camera with the drawbacks of OLPF V1 be considered for a production environment? dot pattern or floating orbs might be fixable with a feature movie post budget but for normal people that shot is just ruined?
and doesn't OLPF V2 require new post processing only available in RCX as of right now to get rid of red noise?
and what about the magenta line issues mentioned in several posts here?
and aren't all these issues not really ISO (high or low) related?
Click to expand...

There are numerous productions shot on Mysterium-X and Dragon V1 OLPF. Both of those artifacts are often shot around or simply used. I don't know exactly what you are saying on that front.

"Red Noise" is really not an issue for many. For those that do not like the chromatic noise, Red provided an option. DEB. It's in RCX today, it will be in the 3rd Party SDK in the future. Just like every new feature added to the system.

Actually, more or the red specks. If you look closely at the A/B between DEB on and off it's more or less a similar film-like noise (DEB OFF) or something a bit less colorful (DEB ON). It's an adaptive debayer that manipulates chromatic noise.

The CMOS lines occur and that is something that we as shooters need to be aware off. It's due to CMOS technology. It can happen on Mysterium-X, it can happen on Dragon, if you blow out several other cinema cameras you'll see it too. It happens on my DSLRs in still modes here too. It's more visible when the system is stressed at higher ISO ratings and potential contrast ratios of sources in frame are "super blown out" in comparison. This artifact has been around for many years and is not Red exclusive. Similarly you get the potential vertical line via CCD based cameras. It's something I think can be worked on with future sensor development and something I know Red is looking at with Dragon currently, but it's more or less our job to look out for it and shoot carefully in my opinion.


Bruce Allen said:
Well, it does make specifying a rental more difficult for someone not intimately involved with REDUSER. It's not like RED has clear instructions on their website about OLPFs or anything.
Click to expand...

Totally agree Bruce. I think though between Red's efforts and likely a couple of the more enthusiastic REDusers there will be a nice handout/print out discussing the concept of modular OLPFs and what you can do with that tech. This only needs to happen when the Modular OLPF actually exists in a production ready form. I know I'll be making a few graphics and certainly a variety of experiments.


Ignacio Aguilar said:
Swap OLPFs maybe great, if it can be done safely on set, and it doesn't bring another additional problem to the equation. It reminds me out using several film stocks depending on their ASA rating. Even the late Harris Savides, ASC, once said that he would have loved to have different versions of the same HD camera, once adapted to highlights and the other, to low-light situations, when he did "Zodiac" using the Thomson Viper in the mid 2000's.

But having to swap OLPFs it's still a compromise, and not exactly what was announced. I mean, Dragon characteristics were supposed to be the best of both OLPFs, without all this swap thing. I really hope RED will keep improving the camera in that direction.
Click to expand...

Heh. That Viper man. Not a low light camera at all! Zodiac to date is my favorite thing shot on that bad boy. I worked on a film in 2007 and it was all Viper. It was such a hard shoot because of a grumpy Viper.
 
I think Dragon is getting a bad wrap in a post DEB world. For me, 800 ISO became highly usable with DEB enabled exposed or even underexposed. I believe underexposed its comparable to MX. DEB didn't make my workflow any more complicated, it added a single check box.

In the link below, I shot the first two clips with the same exposure methodology one on MX the second on Dragon. Shot both at rated at 1600 printed at 800 and 400 depending on the shot. The second video on dragon was all natural light in a dark 15 by 15 room. The outdoor scene was all 800 ISO. I'm just surprised time and time again at Dragon's sharpness even with an underexposed subject. Its awesome.

Maybe I'm alone, but I like the way the noise looks on Dragon. I even like 2000 ISO the most as long as its properly exposed, and I probably will shoot my next short up there. It looks the most organic to me (vimeo encoding doesn't really do it justice.) 400 is great for ads where a clean digital look is appropriate, but I feel like 800-2000 is great for dramatic moody narratives, its less sterile. The last clip is shot at 2000, I feel like if the mids are exposed normally, the darks are given an extra kiss of fill, and whites are not underexposed, its a nice image up there.

To be honest, I couldn't ask for anything more out of the camera now that we have DEB.

https://vimeo.com/105272142
(download for better quality)

https://vimeo.com/92691515
(heres a better download for the MX footage. Theres little excess banding in the first link.)
 
Phil Holland said:
The CMOS lines occur and that is something that we as shooters need to be aware off. It's due to CMOS technology. It can happen on Mysterium-X, it can happen on Dragon, if you blow out several other cinema cameras you'll see it too. It happens on my DSLRs in still modes here too. It's more visible when the system is stressed at higher ISO ratings and potential contrast ratios of sources in frame are "super blown out" in comparison. This artifact has been around for many years and is not Red exclusive. Similarly you get the potential vertical line via CCD based cameras. It's something I think can be worked on with future sensor development and something I know Red is looking at with Dragon currently, but it's more or less our job to look out for it and shoot carefully in my opinion.
Click to expand...

I don't totally understand the desire to downplay the magenta banding issue. Yes, it happens on CMOS cameras. Yes it happens on MX. But it is FAR more egregious on Dragon than both MX and other CMOS cameras. I think it's fair to call attention to it and ask for a fix and not try to say this is a problem with all CMOS just deal with it. I NEVER noticed the issue on MX. But with Dragon, it is very easy to encounter the problem and is a real issue. I appreciate anyone giving pointers on how to avoid it for the time being as many have already done, but I think we should continue to help RED see where and when this is an issue so they can understand what is causing it and come up with a real fix.
 
Hans von Sonntag said:
Talking about ISO and the experience one has is highly dependant on the personal exposing habits and even more on the subject/environment. In your example the subject is bright and has hardly any darkish corners that could be prone to noise. Then - and this is even more important - how does one expose? We all know that every here and then a thread is started on this forums that deals with severe noise problems in various conditions. Eg. unusable noisy green screen shots, noisy low light scenes, etc... All those mediocre, noisy shots have one reason: underexposure. Yes, it's possible to underexpose and get noisy picture with ISO set to 400. And it is possible to expose fairly well with an ISO set to 1600.

If an experienced Red user like Phil Holland for instance uses the Epic Dragon in a range of 250-2000 ISO and states that this is a useful range, I would agree. However, I would disagree if someone would say Dragon is fairly noise-free at IOS 2000 when shooting a forrest at night or a scene in a dark back-yard lit with a candle. This shots always end up under exposed and hence pretty noisy.

----

I find that with Dragon I'm there where I've been when in 2008 the digital camera revolution killed my well working Arri/Kodak set up. With the RedOne, MX , HDACM, etc. protecting the highlights was the name of the game, the opposite of how film behaved. With film I opened up the iris half a stop or so, with digital it was wise to close the iris a bit.

We all exposed film a tad more than advertised on the can. Thus, you prevented the dark and mid dark parts to become too grainy, you fed the hungry beast with light fudder. The highlights where hardly an issue with film. The same now with Dragon. On the contrary to MX I build up my exposure from the dark and middle dark part of the picture and keep them safe regarding noise. Highlights have plenty of DR and roll off nicely.

The new game is: protect your blacks from noise! This does not mean that Dragon is more prone to noise than MX. It just says that highlight roll off is no issue anymore.

---

Sensitivity: I never expected Dragon to be more sensitive to light than MX. I expected Dragon to bare more light. No wonder really. The photo sites became smaller due to the resolution increase. The smaller the photo site are, the less sensitive they are. To push both, sensitivity AND resolution is a leap too much and hardly to be expected.

Red did a disservices to them selfs with the declaration Dragon will do 250-2000 ISO. This made less experienced user to dial up the ISO way above 320 (which is the "native" sensitivity according to Red) in lowlight conditions. A disappointed user base was the consequence. A pity really because Dragon is a marvellous sensor and colour sciences bundle that answers most questions we all had when film got replaced by digital technology.

Hans
Click to expand...

There are quite a few parmeters in the mix here. Iso, different sensors, underexposure and and color science and olpf's...


The dragon sensor is far more light sensitive than MX. Or at least dragon sensor with olpf1 is far more light sensitive than MX with MX olpf (I have not tested the cameras without olpf) . I find it very accurately when RED state that: native / mid gray MX @ 800ISO = native / mid gray Dragon olpf1 @ 2000ISO.

To me underexposure is photosites that did not get enough light to reach above the noise floor. Dragon olpf2 needs more than twice the amount of light compared to olpf1 to reach that level.


The picture on my link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/108703...269260/sizes/l has some black details like the pants and such, but yes it's not underexposed / no noise bar goalpost on the camera was raised.

On this image however there was heavy underexposure and larger areas of the image was shot bellow the noise floor.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/108703124@N02/14509091625/sizes/l

On the little thumb nail on the side that is developed at 50iso we can see that the dragon has the higher DR in the top and on the large image we can see that dragon olpf2 has a cleaner / lower and more color accurate noise floor than MX.. but not by much, the olpf1 on the other hand would shoot the same scene with no low end issue, picture would look smashing.
 
Eric Haase said:
I don't totally understand the desire to downplay the magenta banding issue. Yes, it happens on CMOS cameras. Yes it happens on MX. But it is FAR more egregious on Dragon than both MX and other CMOS cameras. I think it's fair to call attention to it and ask for a fix and not try to say this is a problem with all CMOS just deal with it. I NEVER noticed the issue on MX. But with Dragon, it is very easy to encounter the problem and is a real issue. I appreciate anyone giving pointers on how to avoid it for the time being as many have already done, but I think we should continue to help RED see where and when this is an issue so they can understand what is causing it and come up with a real fix.
Click to expand...

I'm certainly not downplaying it or saying just deal with it. It's an artifact that exists today that we have to manage during capture. I've sent over files and tests a few times attempting to help. What I am saying is it's something that we need to look out for. Red is well aware of it.

The biggest culprits I've seen that induce the effect is specifically exploring higher ISOs with extreme contrast ratios. A blown out window for instance can induce the phenomenon on heavily back lit subjects or shadow details. A low con can help with this to a certain degree or adding a fill light to "balance" the wild out of range dynamic range a bit.

In common production lighting setups I'm not seeing it all that often at all, even on bare bulbs. I just shot yesterday and am working on material now and the over exposed window (afternoon daylight) isn't doing it either on ISO 500 material. It's when it's a higher contrast ratio than that for the most part.

In the past on various other cameras we've ND'd windows, flagged, frosted bulbs, ND'd flashlights, etc..... to avoid this sort of thing.
 
I believe that some people accustomed with MX might be having trouble when exposing for Dragon under the same conditions they were used to, due to the fact that the OLPFv2 is so much bluer that one can not think of it being a Daylight camera anymore. I`ve started a thread on this earlier and would love some more opinions:

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?121270-Dragon-White-Balance

Phil was already kind enough to chime in!
 
Mark Wuerthner said:
For those of you who want to see side by side tests of epic vs. dragon here are two:

http://vimeo.com/104037800


http://vimeo.com/100207513

http://vimeo.com/100192768

Look at the tests and come to your own conclusions. Use these tests as a way to educate yourself as to the the difference between the two cameras. Feel free to not start a debate on Red cams vs other cams.
Click to expand...
A raw frame from each camera (MX and dragon) would be really helpful! We are talking about differences that disappear once Vimeo compression in part of the mix.
 
Owen Rennie said:
Very interesting/ confusing post... Would someone be kind enough to explain what DEB is and does..
Click to expand...

DEB (Dragon Enhanced Blacks) is an adaptive demosiacing algorithm that is applied to the bayer pattern CMOS image.

The net result is the removal of chromatic noise, particularly in the red channel.

phfx_redDragon_DEBSample04.jpg


The interesting bit here is using this technique can enhance detail slightly in some circumstances. Commonly most visible on the Red and Blue channels:

phfx_redDragon_DEBSample05.jpg


Some users do not like the red specks that tend to show up in shadows, darks, and midtones. This is Red's answer to that. Some aren't really bothered by it.

Side note, personal note. Chromatic noise is indeed a property of motion picture film. It's visible when scanning and projection. With DEB enabled we have something that is a bit different that still maintains texture but it is slightly cleaner overall.
 
Thanks Phil. So I'm assuming this is a feature in RCX? (I'm still using an old version) or is it firmware update? ( I'm Also using an old version).... Time for an update I guess :)
 
Owen Rennie said:
Thanks Phil. So I'm assuming this is a feature in RCX? (I'm still using an old version) or is it firmware update? ( I'm Also using an old version).... Time for an update I guess :)
Click to expand...

It's in the current beta RCX build and will make it's way into the SDK eventually.
 
Thanks Phil for your ongoing support. I certainly benefited from it a lot since a while by now.

My last little movie looked like film and I can't be more than happy about it. (Even Moby gave me music for it)

Dragon is just a great camera, I really love it (v2)
 
For whatever it's worth, I was just shown some sneak peeks of a top secret HUGE shoot by one of my clients (major cable network)...shot on Dragon...and I was blown away. Looked amazing!!!! Even my clients were talking "Dragon" and how good it is.
 
So much of this is subjective.
I guess a lot depends on the look you are going for, hyper real or naturalistic. or even somewhere in between :)
Having the room to play is fun though.

dragonNight320.jpg



dragonNight2000.jpg
 
Im thrilled because,

this is what you see:
dragoneye.jpg

and this is what you get:
dragonextract.jpg
 
Björn Benckert said:
Here is dragon 6k straight out of camera no grading 800iso, no deb no add... to me thats a very fine image and I do not see any problem with noise. https://www.flickr.com/photos/108703124@N02/14954269260/sizes/l
Click to expand...

Talking about ISO and the experience one has is highly dependant on the personal exposing habits and even more on the subject/environment. In your example the subject is bright and has hardly any darkish corners that could be prone to noise. Then - and this is even more important - how does one expose? We all know that every here and then a thread is started on this forums that deals with severe noise problems in various conditions. Eg. unusable noisy green screen shots, noisy low light scenes, etc... All those mediocre, noisy shots have one reason: underexposure. Yes, it's possible to underexpose and get noisy picture with ISO set to 400. And it is possible to expose fairly well with an ISO set to 1600.

If an experienced Red user like Phil Holland for instance uses the Epic Dragon in a range of 250-2000 ISO and states that this is a useful range, I would agree. However, I would disagree if someone would say Dragon is fairly noise-free at IOS 2000 when shooting a forrest at night or a scene in a dark back-yard lit with a candle. This shots always end up under exposed and hence pretty noisy.

----

I find that with Dragon I'm there where I've been when in 2008 the digital camera revolution killed my well working Arri/Kodak set up. With the RedOne, MX , HDACM, etc. protecting the highlights was the name of the game, the opposite of how film behaved. With film I opened up the iris half a stop or so, with digital it was wise to close the iris a bit.

We all exposed film a tad more than advertised on the can. Thus, you prevented the dark and mid dark parts to become too grainy, you fed the hungry beast with light fudder. The highlights where hardly an issue with film. The same now with Dragon. On the contrary to MX I build up my exposure from the dark and middle dark part of the picture and keep them safe regarding noise. Highlights have plenty of DR and roll off nicely.

The new game is: protect your blacks from noise! This does not mean that Dragon is more prone to noise than MX. It just says that highlight roll off is no issue anymore.

---

Sensitivity: I never expected Dragon to be more sensitive to light than MX. I expected Dragon to bare more light. No wonder really. The photo sites became smaller due to the resolution increase. The smaller the photo site are, the less sensitive they are. To push both, sensitivity AND resolution is a leap too much and hardly to be expected.

Red did a disservices to them selfs with the declaration Dragon will do 250-2000 ISO. This made less experienced user to dial up the ISO way above 320 (which is the "native" sensitivity according to Red) in lowlight conditions. A disappointed user base was the consequence. A pity really because Dragon is a marvellous sensor and colour sciences bundle that answers most questions we all had when film got replaced by digital technology.

Hans
 
Hans von Sonntag said:
Talking about ISO and the experience one has is highly dependant on the personal exposing habits and even more on the subject/environment. In your example the subject is bright and has hardly any darkish corners that could be prone to noise. Then - and this is even more important - how does one expose? We all know that every here and then a thread is started on this forums that deals with severe noise problems in various conditions. Eg. unusable noisy green screen shots, noisy low light scenes, etc... All those mediocre, noisy shots have one reason: underexposure. Yes, it's possible to underexpose and get noisy picture with ISO set to 400. And it is possible to expose fairly well with an ISO set to 1600.

If an experienced Red user like Phil Holland for instance uses the Epic Dragon in a range of 250-2000 ISO and states that this is a useful range, I would agree. However, I would disagree if someone would say Dragon is fairly noise-free at IOS 2000 when shooting a forrest at night or a scene in a dark back-yard lit with a candle. This shots always end up under exposed and hence pretty noisy.

----

I find that with Dragon I'm there where I've been when in 2008 the digital camera revolution killed my well working Arri/Kodak set up. With the RedOne, MX , HDACM, etc. protecting the highlights was the name of the game, the opposite of how film behaved. With film I opened up the iris half a stop or so, with digital it was wise to close the iris a bit.

We all exposed film a tad more than advertised on the can. Thus, you prevented the dark and mid dark parts to become too grainy, you fed the hungry beast with light fudder. The highlights where hardly an issue with film. The same now with Dragon. On the contrary to MX I build up my exposure from the dark and middle dark part of the picture and keep them safe regarding noise. Highlights have plenty of DR and roll off nicely.

The new game is: protect your blacks from noise! This does not mean that Dragon is more prone to noise than MX. It just says that highlight roll off is no issue anymore.

---

Sensitivity: I never expected Dragon to be more sensitive to light than MX. I expected Dragon to bare more light. No wonder really. The photo sites became smaller due to the resolution increase. The smaller the photo site are, the less sensitive they are. To push both, sensitivity AND resolution is a leap too much and hardly to be expected.

Red did a disservices to them selfs with the declaration Dragon will do 250-2000 ISO. This made less experienced user to dial up the ISO way above 320 (which is the "native" sensitivity according to Red) in lowlight conditions. A disappointed user base was the consequence. A pity really because Dragon is a marvellous sensor and colour sciences bundle that answers most questions we all had when film got replaced by digital technology.

Hans
Click to expand...

There are quite a few parmeters in the mix here. Iso, different sensors, underexposure and and color science and olpf's...


The dragon sensor is far more light sensitive than MX. Or at least dragon sensor with olpf1 is far more light sensitive than MX with MX olpf (I have not tested the cameras without olpf, so it could be so that the MX olpf just eats more light than the dragon olpf1, but I dont think so I think it's the photosites that are more sensitive in dragon) . I find it very accurately when RED state that: native / mid gray MX @ 800ISO = native / mid gray Dragon olpf1 @ 2000ISO.

To me underexposure is photosites that did not get enough light to reach above the noise floor. Dragon olpf2 needs more than twice the amount of light compared to olpf1 to reach that level.


The picture on my link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/108703124@N02/14954269260/sizes/l
has some black details like the pants and such, but yes it's not underexposed / no noise bar goalpost on the camera was raised.

On this image however there was heavy underexposure and larger areas of the image was shot bellow the noise floor.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/108703124@N02/14509091625/sizes/l



On the little thumb nail on the side that is developed at 50iso we can see that the dragon has the higher DR in the top and on the large image we can see that dragon olpf2 has a cleaner / lower and more color accurate noise floor than MX.. but not by much, the olpf1 on the other hand would shoot the same scene with no low end issue, picture would look smashing.
 
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