Trees...

[Eric Ulbrich]

So a collegue of mine heard a story regarding shooting RED in trees. I wanted to see if there was any validity to it or if anyone has had the same problem. He stated that while on set their camera kept crashing. They called the rental house and a new body was delivered. This body crashed as well. After talking with a tech (I don't know if it was official RED tech or a fellow colleuge) the cinematographer was told that the camera cannot shoot into large clusters of trees that are either still or blowing in the wind. This was due to an over-load of the sensor trying to capture too much data with the leaves. Has anyone heard of something like this? Where a camera overloads due to large complex moving objects?

 

[Shawn Booth]

Yes. It WAS true.

I'm pretty sure this has been addressed and fixed.

 

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

Was a problem with early beta releases of Build 16.

The problem no longer exists.

 

[Tico Llaurador]

I agree with Christopher. The last time I experienced that issue was back in B16. But, to be on the safe side, you may want to ask Leo. He's the master codec breaker.

:wink:

 

[Tai Wah Lim]

I am curious here. Are you saying that the camera crashes whenever you try to shoot only those large clusters of swaying trees? The B16 problem was that the camera cannot capture trees close with details and in a very contrasty light situation. I do not remember it crashed the camera. Lim

So a collegue of mine heard a story regarding shooting RED in trees. I wanted to see if there was any validity to it or if anyone has had the same problem. He stated that while on set their camera kept crashing. They called the rental house and a new body was delivered. This body crashed as well. After talking with a tech (I don't know if it was official RED tech or a fellow colleuge) the cinematographer was told that the camera cannot shoot into large clusters of trees that are either still or blowing in the wind. This was due to an over-load of the sensor trying to capture too much data with the leaves. Has anyone heard of something like this? Where a camera overloads due to large complex moving objects?

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I've never heard or seen a camera crash when shooting trees or excessive detail. Seems like something funny is going on. Not to mention that this is one of those "I know someone who heard from a friend..." stories.

As others have said, there were problems with beta versions of build 16 firmware that would cause codec errors in certain high contrast and high detail situations. Sun shining through lots of tree branches/leaves, etc.. could trigger this. The codec faults would often cause the camera to stop recording with a codec error. This was fixed with the final beta releases of build 16.

If a rental company was sending out cameras with beta builds, shame on them. Sending them out without a technician who is familiar with operation of the RED and potential issues such as this... shame again.

Since we're playing the "I heard it from someone with a friend who's brother was on a production..." game, I've got some stories too. I've heard of cameras having record errors or cameras crashing when using inappropriate power solutions and I've heard of the same sorts of problems with hacked drives, home-made SSD options, etc..

 

[Gunleik Groven]

There were quite a few that had issues with B16 - in beta. Problem was that once you had bitten the bullet, there was no way back to 15. We all knew that, though, and thus: Shame on a hell of a lot of us when we understood B16 to be bugfree.

There were heavy recomendations coming, but the build still had a big "beta" warning. So: Noone else to blame...

Edit:
Brook is updated...

 

[Greg M]

I have never experienced a camera crash in high detail scenes...seems like one of those tails that grows as each person tells it.

As mentioned for a while pre build 16 there was an occasional error in very high detailed scenes...but it didnt cause the camera to crash.

 

[Mark Warren]

Shot yesterday in swaying long grasses with bushes and trees in the background -- no problems whatsoever.

 

[Brook Willard]

This was an issue through every release build, though it is much less common with Build 17 and "Max" turned on.

Some cameras suffered due to bad hardware. I've seen a handful of cameras get CPU boards replaced to set the problem straight.

Some builds would crash the camera, some builds would cut the take and some builds would increase the compression to unacceptable levels.

The problem comes from shooting high-detail objects like trees with overexposure in the background at a deep stop. Think about the way a wavelet compressor works. If there is no clipping in an image, the compression can be raised higher and higher and all that will happen to the image is detail being sucked out. Eventually the image will become an overcompressed blob.

Then think about how a compressor has to handle a clip point. There is a point where the data goes from "image data" to "no data" and that line must be rendered perfectly. There is no way to compress a "line" to decrease detail. Simply put, one pixel knows that it has data and another pixel knows that it does not. That line will never be able to change or be significantly manipulated by compression.

So when you have hundreds or thousands of these clip/no clip boundaries in a frame, there is a bare minimum amount of data that has to be in every frame. Data that you cannot compress with a wavelet. When this value exceeds what the compression processors or storage medium can handle... you get a crash.

It's not the only cause, but it is one of them. If nothing else, it helps people to understand what's happening.

If you ever hit this issue on set, there are a few solutions. One is to stop down to decrease the clipping. Another [more effective] would be to put some ND in to narrow the depth of field and "blur" the background. There are a few others as well, but it is more an "inherent limitation" than an "oops, wrong setting" problem.

Like I said, it is much improved in build 17. I have still hit the error though.

Just one of a million little things your DIT should've been aware of and prepared for on set. It ain't just dragging and dropping in the Finder...

 

[Mike Harrington]

ya this was true back in 16 days...

i had it crash like 6 times in a row when shooting against trees in backlight...
would get that codec error message

if you turned the camera around against a wall ect it would record no problem..but point it towards the trees and it crashed every time

but that is long since fixed