What is 6K?

[Travis MacRitchie]

If an editor wants to improve my compositions, maybe he'd let me come into the edit bay and improve some of the cuts in the scene...

well said.

 

[John Marchant]

Shooting more image than you intend to use allows for mistakes, changes of heart and technical fixes. If you and all around you are perfect, don't do it...

Seriously though, I see how in a lot of production environments people might see it as contentious... but its a very cheap insurance policy. Outside the world of drama, reframing is an essential tool. Documentary, wildlife, fashion - all places where reframing is often intended from square one. 6K makes it possible even for 4k deliverables.

 

[Alan McConnell]

Given that Dragon supports 2.4:1 in 6K, is look around literally the only thing being gained by shooting in 2:1 with frame guides, or am I missing something?

 

[Phil Holland]

Given that Dragon supports 2.4:1 in 6K, is look around literally the only thing being gained by shooting in 2:1 with frame guides, or am I missing something?

6K WS will fill the width of the image sensor. This particular frame guide is around some sort of 5K 2.40:1. One particular thing I can think of is using "sweet spot" which could be an aesthetic or technical choice on certain lenses. There's a lot of reasons to do it though. Especially from an operational perspective as look around enables you to see what's going on "out of frame" and allows you to prepare for movement or adjust yours to potential in frame content. It's more of a choice really. That level of freedom is a good thing.

 

[Ketch Rossi]

While, it is important to make that differentiation, of always shooting too much look around, and shooting some particular scenes in purpose, or just happening to stubble across a particular scene in need to be reframed, fact remains that with 6k you can also do that, and by "YOU" I mean "I" the Director/Cinematographer, and in such a note, it goes for any one else, were a final decision can still be made in post, applicable mostly to those situations, were NOT the main Cinematographer himself took the shots, but a B or C camera in the hands of an other...

At the end of the day I MOST welcome the added resolution to do as I please in post as well, I do that in Photography all the time, even so I know exactly what I ma shooting for it, and light accordingly and frame accordingly, thing is that in POst there is still some time for Magic to happen... In the right hands.

If an editor wants to improve my compositions, maybe he'd let me come into the edit bay and improve some of the cuts in the scene...

Ha ha,

and that is why I will spend also every minute of the Editing process in their company... Till I fil confident enough that after working with a certain editor that knows me well enough ton let him do first edit...

Given that Dragon supports 2.4:1 in 6K, is look around literally the only thing being gained by shooting in 2:1 with frame guides, or am I missing something?

6K WS will fill the width of the image sensor. This particular frame guide is around some sort of 5K 2.40:1. One particular thing I can think of is using "sweet spot" which could be an aesthetic or technical choice on certain lenses. There's a lot of reasons to do it though. Especially from an operational perspective as look around enables you to see what's going on "out of frame" and allows you to prepare for movement or adjust yours to potential in frame content. It's more of a choice really. That level of freedom is a good thing.

I think here one of the "OTHER" see other, reasons might also be the lens choice with Dragon, as we also used the Leica Summilux C. Primes, in my short, and if using wides they might just wanted to frame conservatevily as to avoid any vignetting at all.

 

[Phil Holland]

A quickie before I head off to the land of sheep counting.


Thursday through Monday presented lots of folks hitting me up with Dragon questions, which I'm happy to answer.

One thing that seems to be coming up a lot is lens coverage and the Dragon sensor. Luckily we've been able to do some coverage tests to understand exactly what's going on and how that new found real estate can be used.


However, one thing I seem to be reminding people about is common working aspect ratios.

Dragon's native Full Frame 6K sensor is 1.94:1. Dragon actually is set to 6K 2:1 when it ships too. Formats you can certainly use and deliver in. 1.90:1 is even a standard 4K delivery resolution within spec.


However, remember what the industry uses "most of the time":

Common Cinema Aspect Ratios: 2.40:1 and 1.85:1
Common Broadcast Aspect Ratios: 1.78:1, otherwise known as 16x9


I'm seeing a great deal of people selling, contemplating selling, contemplating buying, or on the fence about doing anything with their glass decisions. Concerns and worries hidden within all of these choices. The good news here is that there are tremendous deals on quality lenses out there because of this. Shop wisely and aggressively

So some quick calming words, which won't be new to those who have been following the Dragon progress.

Nearly every lens that covers Mysterium-X 5K full today covers 6K HD. A good deal of lenses also cover 6K WS with no issue, I just shot something that demonstrated that. 6K Full Frame and 2:1 tends to be where potential coverage issues actually come in for Super 35mm designed lenses and typically only at wider focal lengths.

Luckily Red Dragon is a multi-format sensor and camera system as well as having a very quick to change lens mount system, which opens up possibilities that we're all familiar with. You can pretty much use any lens out there on a DSMC body with the right mount or adapter. And remember, all Super 35mm lenses cover Dragon 5K. This is important.

The question really is what lenses do you enjoy using or want to chose for a specific application and just how much of the Dragon sensor you'd like to use. 6K? 5.5K? 5K? 4.5K? 4K? Which aspect ratio? How do you want to "get there"?

 

[Phil Holland]

Been a while since I popped into this thread, but it was on my mind over the holiday break. Had some time with a few shooting mates after Turkey Day and we had a bit of discussion of Dragon and 6K. I also recently shot some extremely detailed landscape material on Mysterium-X at 5K. Shooting into some back lit clouds over a rolling hill and I was thinking to myself..... 6K might be more fun here. Heck. dynamic range too.


Some additional things that came up as we were trying to plan out gigs on the horizon and how Dragon comes into play.

- Dragon at 6K is higher resolution than many of the current DSLRs on the market and should be comparable to the highest resolution DSLR available today when comparing things relative to format size.

- Modern Motion Picture Film Stocks are typically ASA 50, 200, 250, or 500. Sometimes pushed a stop in processing. However, given Dragon's wider dynamic range and ability to shoot at a clean usable range of ISO 250-2000 you have something a bit more flexible. Meaning you'll be using less ND in brighter situations and getting better performance in lower light situations compared to Mysterium-X. I've seen this already as I've shot a bit of ISO 250-320 material without ND on Dragon and have been real happy.

- Lens coverage is better than expected at 6K, 6K WS, and 6K HD overall. Some older S35 glass and mostly the wides in a prime set tend to be the ones that don't play nice. Modern glass however, performs extremely well at the higher resolutions.


During our back and forth I was reminded of one of the larger concepts behind shooting at 5K or 6K. And that's to minimize aliasing. This logic is/was applied to film scanning at 6K. Here's a post from 2008 from Graeme:

The key thing though, is that higher resolution film scans don't so much bring in more real detail, but they do allow for less aliasing in the final result, and for better digital preservation of the grain structure, even if it doesn't lead to more detail.

Super 35mm tops out at 6K and grain is globular and larger than a pixel, but this theory (which has been thoroughy tested) in general produces very, very good 4K images. Dragon can be finished at 6K in reality if you have a reason for that. For most of us we're focused on making nice looking 4K material and this super sampling helps for sure.


Another thing, and this is more of a funny one to me and perhaps revealing how twisted my memory is. Back in 2010 on Reduser there was a poll conducted:

I have a question... what would you prefer:

1) a 6k camera over a 4.5k camera.

2) a 17 stops camera over a 12 stops camera.

If you can choose just one improvement, which one would you take?

54 votes were cast and every single person said more dynamic range. But the real thing with Dragon is that you get both options and there's really no reason to choose at all. 6K and 16+ stops (wherever that lands). Solving multiple desires at once, not to mention improved color science/tech.


Reducation started this week and I know there's a bit of a focus on shooting Dragon. Looking forward to hearing how that goes and what was discussed.

There's a few more Dragons out in the wild now and fresh batch of sensors are/were due in this week. We'll likely see more go out in the next 4 to 6 weeks. Even more from then on.

 

[Paul Ellington]

Been a while since I popped into this thread, but it was on my mind over the holiday break. Had some time with a few shooting mates after Turkey Day and we had a bit of discussion of Dragon and 6K. I also recently shot some extremely detailed landscape material on Mysterium-X at 5K. Shooting into some back lit clouds over a rolling hill and I was thinking to myself..... 6K might be more fun here. Heck. dynamic range too.


Some additional things that came up as we were trying to plan out gigs on the horizon and how Dragon comes into play.

- Dragon at 6K is higher resolution than many of the current DSLRs on the market and should be comparable to the highest resolution DSLR available today when comparing things relative to format size.

- Modern Motion Picture Film Stocks are typically ASA 50, 200, 250, or 500. Sometimes pushed a stop in processing. However, given Dragon's wider dynamic range and ability to shoot at a clean usable range of ISO 250-2000 you have something a bit more flexible. Meaning you'll be using less ND in brighter situations and getting better performance in lower light situations compared to Mysterium-X. I've seen this already as I've shot a bit of ISO 250-320 material without ND on Dragon and have been real happy.

- Lens coverage is better than expected at 6K, 6K WS, and 6K HD overall. Some older S35 glass and mostly the wides in a prime set tend to be the ones that don't play nice. Modern glass however, performs extremely well at the higher resolutions.


During our back and forth I was reminded of one of the larger concepts behind shooting at 5K or 6K. And that's to minimize aliasing. This logic is/was applied to film scanning at 6K. Here's a post from 2008 from Graeme:



Super 35mm tops out at 6K and grain is globular and larger than a pixel, but this theory (which has been thoroughy tested) in general produces very, very good 4K images. Dragon can be finished at 6K in reality if you have a reason for that. For most of us we're focused on making nice looking 4K material and this super sampling helps for sure.


Another thing, and this is more of a funny one to me and perhaps revealing how twisted my memory is. Back in 2010 on Reduser there was a poll conducted:




54 votes were cast and every single person said more dynamic range. But the real thing with Dragon is that you get both options and there's really no reason to choose at all. 6K and 16+ stops (wherever that lands). Solving multiple desires at once, not to mention improved color science/tech.


Reducation started this week and I know there's a bit of a focus on shooting Dragon. Looking forward to hearing how that goes and what was discussed.

There's a few more Dragons out in the wild now and fresh batch of sensors are/were due in this week. We'll likely see more go out in the next 4 to 6 weeks. Even more from then on.

Thanks for sharing Phil - it's going to be incredible 2014 :0) Hopefully Dragon will be in your hands soon ... Heck, hopefully me as well.

Talk soon mate!

- E