Which OLPF?

[PC Greene]

I know the surrounding topics have been discussed to death, but wanted to just ask others if I've got it right thinking that the old Dragon OLPF is essentially optimized for low light, the new, protected highlights (good to great light) and this new 3rd option splits the difference.

We have to go with old or new today or sit tight for weeks or months for the 3rd option to become available if we're not going to send our camera in twice.


Thank you,

 

[Phil Holland]

Depends on what's important to you, but I invite everybody to look at these images closely and think about what your needs and desires are.

I don't find myself in the real world shooting past ISO 1280 much. Most of my shooting happens in the ISO 250-800 range.

I'm using the V2 OLPF and that's what I'll be using until there's something else more compelling.

I have a secret. And this is a very, very important post.

Last week Jarred invited me to test out the new Epic Dragon OLPF plus the new camera/sensor calibration. For the last couple days I've been digging into it real hard.

I'll keep it brief because the images do the talking.





First up, FLARE.

As Jarred mentioned the "OG" Dragon OLPF exhibited reflected IR flare or magenta glow around bright sources. Much of what I've been doing is hard stress testing and comparisons to the New Dragon OLPF.

The Sun.



40 Watt Incandescent Bulb.



Single Source Flashlight.



A Match.




The magenta glow around intense sources is gone. This is great news.

You may notice that there are color and "tonal density" improvements. Dragon received a new calibration and update to the color science to play nice with this New OLPF.

So you might ask, is the IR Cut still as effective and what's the net results on the color utilizing hard Neutral Density Filtration?

Daylight - ND 2.7



IR Cut performance is still wonderful. You will not need additional IR Filtration with the New OLPF on Dragon. You just want regular NDs. I have tested 0.3-2.7 ND.

If you look extremely closely you will notice color has slightly improved overall. Additionally in shadows and highlights IR contamination has been eliminated with the New OLPF. Those blue shadows are extremely pure (check out the sky in the Sun Flare image too). White highlights are white. Dark shadow areas are clean. You may noticed that chroma is richer in the 2800K WB/ISO 2000 Match test image as well. Good stuff.

One more chart.

Artificial Daylight Source - No ND.



Color looks great.


The new calibration has also improved other areas.

Highlight Retention and Highlight Roll-Off.



That's approximately 1.3+ stops improvements in the highlights. Also to note, the New OLPF wrangles light fall-off and bloom a bit nicer. So you get richer shadow detail, where the previous OLPF with it's IR contamination flattened out those areas a bit. Subtle, but visibly noticeable in captured material.


I'm still conducting a few tests, but this is info you're looking for. I hear that the new OLPFs are coming soon and will be dropped into Dragons with this new calibration as well.

Hats off to the Red Team for developing and implementing this New OLPF tech. They listened and worked very quickly.

Now Dragon is even better.

Thanks go to Jarred for letting me break this thing in.

 

[Jon Carr]

It all depends on your shooting style. Your get great results from either OLPF. Here's some stills from the new OLPF on a low light test with mix sources.

 

[PC Greene]

Oh snap...wow, thank you Phil. Didn't realize how much of the "red rash" reflections were still making into Dragon with old OLPF. I'll certainly go for the new one then and like you, wait until this 3rd option actually materializes before considering it.

Jon, those images are beautiful...were they shot on your Xenons? Many thanks to you as well.

Love this community...blessings.

 

[Jon Carr]

Thanks Paul. Actually shot on the Allstar 18-35mm 1.8t zoom.

 

[Jan Reiff]

hi Jon, this looks good. you will have fun with DEB, do it with this files again when it´s released ;-)