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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 :)

Working With the RED

I read the entire article, and yes, I'm frustrated by the negative slant, but maybe there is another explanation.

Perhaps he was taking all of the positives for granted - you will get an outstanding image as you would expect, and all the features work, but here are the pitfalls that you need to watch out for.

He certainly didn't communicate that, which is the frustrating part. But he also never said he would try to talk producers out of using it.

Has anyone else read reviews he's written about other equipment? Maybe this is just what he does?
 
My feeling is that the ASC, through AC Magazine and the technical committee has set itself up as an authority on cinema technology, among other things.

As such, they have a responsibility to be impartial and maintain editorial neutrality.

Thus it was their responsibility to report in a fair and balanced way about the camera.

By ignoring positive aspects of the camera they've failed this responsibility in this instance.

Let me put that differently. I think that the number of Fuji and Kodak ads have something to do with how they typically treat digital cameras.

I also think that film has enough strengths for it to stand on its own as a very good tool without any need to misrepresent (in this case by omission) other acquisition formats.

In other words, film still rocks. RED rocks too, but they are different with different limitations on what they can do. (Yes, I know I am preaching to the choir here.)

In the end, all AC Mag does when accepting an article this slanted is harm their journalistic reputation of their publication and the standing of the ASC as a neutral authority.

So, a wag of the finger for them.
 
Film can also have many problems....

Hair in the gate (even the best ACs get tired), misaligned gate, mechanical disfunction...

And you only find out about these when you get your neg back.

Not to mention you are limited in terms of your footage budget.

How come he doesn't mention any of these nightmares?
 
AND, maybe the author wants the use of Red1 to appear to be a tricky endeavor, where he is the expert and should therefore should be called upon to do the work!

He is probably assuming he is speaking to the old school big film DPs, producers and folks newer to the industry. It makes sense to me.
 
I too am a member on these boards and have posted a few times. I was asked by the editorial staff of American Cinematographer magazine to write an article about my experiences with the RED as it is our #1 request by readers seeking practical information. In that regard, the article is in first person and is based on my opinions and experiences. And I do state several times that certain topics I discuss are my opinions as an end user of the camera.

I deliberately took the stance of someone in the field using the product and wanted to know what to look out for. These are struggles that I endured when I started using the camera and some of which I still endure. The intent of the article is to help users BETTER use the system by being aware to its particular nuances. I took great effort to counter a topic discussed with remedies for a given issue, or suggest the proper hardware to make the camera preform its best.

Have I had frustrations with the system? Hell yes. I'm a working cinematographer and I expect my equipment to preform solidly and reliably. And I HAVE had issues with the system throughout my use with it. However, I DID state that I have shot many of my favorite projects on the RED, but apparently that is not praise enough of the camera.

I understand user/owners devotion to a product they have purchased; especially one as grass-roots and affordable to facilitate an entire new arena of capabilities to the masses... But come on guys, can't we open up our eyes a bit for some critical discourse in the interest of making productions easier for everyone and encourage the further development of the system?

(Ducking for cover... stone away boys!)
 
Christopher, thanks for posting. I don't think the issue is about issues with the RED camera. We all know that every camera system ever made is always less than perfect, and we strive every day to improve our camera system and products. I think the issue is that we've not read a similarly critical article on the problems with film cameras, Arri D21, Panavision Gensesis, Sony F23 and F35 etc. etc.

Graeme
 
Christopher Probst said:
I too am a member on these boards and have posted a few times. I was asked by the editorial staff of American Cinematographer magazine to write an article about my experiences with the RED as it is our #1 request by readers seeking practical information. In that regard, the article is in first person and is based on my opinions and experiences. And I do state several times that certain topics I discuss are my opinions as an end user of the camera.

I deliberately took the stance of someone in the field using the product and wanted to know what to look out for. These are struggles that I endured when I started using the camera and some of which I still endure. The intent of the article is to help users BETTER use the system by being aware to its particular nuances. I took great effort to counter a topic discussed with remedies for a given issue, or suggest the proper hardware to make the camera preform its best.

Have I had frustrations with the system? Hell yes. I'm a working cinematographer and I expect my equipment to preform solidly and reliably. And I HAVE had issues with the system throughout my use with it. However, I DID state that I have shot many of my favorite projects on the RED, but apparently that is not praise enough of the camera.

I understand user/owners devotion to a product they have purchased; especially one as grass-roots and affordable to facilitate an entire new arena of capabilities to the masses... But come on guys, can't we open up our eyes a bit for some critical discourse in the interest of making productions easier for everyone and encourage the further development of the system?

(Ducking for cover... stone away boys!)
Click to expand...

I may be a minority, but I appreciate it when reviews or tests are completely honest with the faults and merits of equipment. I like knowing what can happen and I also like being able to be prepared for things that can go wrong.

Thanks again!.
 
Graeme Nattress said:
Christopher, thanks for posting. I don't think the issue is about issues with the RED camera. We all know that every camera system ever made is always less than perfect, and we strive every day to improve our camera system and products. I think the issue is that we've not read a similarly critical article on the problems with film cameras, Arri D21, Panavision Gensesis, Sony F23 and F35 etc. etc.

Graeme
Click to expand...

Graeme, I certainly appreciate your civility in your post. The intent of the article was not to be a "review" piece, but more of a hands on practical pointer from someone using it daily. I did try to be as objective as possibly within the completely subjective structure of the piece. In the last few years I have greatly scaled back my writing with AC magazine as I get more and more busy shooting, but in the past I have written other technical based articles that featured both postive and negative aspects of a product. About 10 years ago myself and a cinematographer partner of mine did a comprehensive test/review of all of the new generation of film stocks available. Kodak and Fuji. It was a massive undertaking involving thousands of exposures, lab densitometer readings, location and stage scenarios... of dozens of stocks. In thatseries, Fuji definitely shouldered some harsh analysis, but they never complained, and even supplied us the stock to flambé them with. What they did end up doing was greatly refine the line of emulsions in the following years.

I'm about to shoot an entire job with a Canon 7D and if I had to write a story about shooting with that system, you Red guys would be overjoyedin comparison.

Times are changing and I'm definitely not sitting on a puke of film cans crying foul. I fully embrace these times and want to be at the cusp of these new technologies. In that regard, how can anyone look at the images included in my story and think, "this camera sucks..."

From a day to day user standpoint, I feel the points I have chosen to address are useful and i have aleady gotten several emails from people expressing appreciation for a balanced piece. I did expect some negative feeling here on the forum because we here are passionate about the system. If I have made an error in any statement, I'd love to be made aware of it because I continue to use Reds every week and I'm always open to making my work with it better.


Cheers!
 
Christopher, good constructive criticism is worth it's weight in gold. For the most part what I read in the article, we're addressing all issues as best as we can, starting with the M-X upgrade, and then on with the Epic cameras. Now as you know, I'm not a cinematographer. I am a photographer though, have a strong appreciation of the aesthetic of images, and my own unique way of looking at things. If you don't mind discussing a few issues from the article, here goes:

"the camera is presently not well suited for low-light, warm-colored scenes;" - which is fair enough if, but only if you wish to balance the warm coloured light back to pure white. If you're content enough to shoot warm to appear warm, there's very much less of an issue, and practically none at all with M-X. Was shooting for my own enjoyment last night with M-X, a lowly Lowel Tota at 3200k, balanced white to appear white from ISO800 upwards to around ISO2000 for some shots and I didn't worry one little bit, and when viewing the footage, I was right not to worry.

"The camera designers’ decision to balance what I would regard as a medium-sensitivity sensor toward daylight was a little shortsighted." - this is not a decision that we can make - it's the very basic nature of silicon based sensors - they're all effectively daylight balanced. Only way to alter that is optical filtering which reduces sensitivity, even for the blue light that we don't want to see reduced at all.

The discussion on Bayer patterns is something that I'm very familiar with though: THe issue of comparing resolutions across sensor types is a non-issue though - it's simple - point cameras at resolution chart, ensure focus and measure. Sure, the D21 is mostly used in 1080p mode where it's effectively downsampling from a bayer sensor, but I'm not very keen on the artifacts I see in that in-camera downsampling process. The only systems I know with co-sited RGB are prism based systems which don't easily go beyond 2/3" (no good for cinema glass) or the Foveon, which has colorimetry issues because silicon is just not that good a colour filter, and hasn't been used in a pro level motion camera due to full sensor read speed no doubt. That leaves the other contender, the RGB Stripe Trinitron pattern colour filter array, which is a very inefficient pattern in turning photosites into measured resolution, although simpler and easier to implement. Fact is all digital cinema camera systems I know of - D21, forthcoming Arri cameras, REDs, Genesis, F35, the now discontinued Dalsa, the SI cameras, all use color filter array pattern sensors of one kind or another - most choose the Bayer pattern, but the Genesis/F35 choose the RGB stripe. It's a still a color filter array though - not co-sited pixels at all.

"the only way the Mysterium could deliver true 4K resolution would be if the sensor were used as a monochrome chip, delivering a black-and-white picture." - and say we did this, our measured resolution would still be less than 4k because we'd still use an optical low pass filter to avoid aliasing issues. Indeed, it's wrong to talk about resolution without talking about aliasing issues. As far as I know, there are no published resolution zone plate tests of digital cinema cameras other than the RED One..... Indeed most of the reduction of measured resolution from 4k to approx 3.2k is due to the optical low pass filtering we use to avoid you having to deal with nasty aliasing issues. Of course, even with such filtering, we still have more measured resolution than the other digital cinema cameras available today that I mention above. Indeed one of the whole reasons of going to 4k and beyond is to allow you to use proper filtering to ensure the measured resolution you do get is utterly clean and un-corrupted by nasty aliasing.

"you can see that Redcode 36 offers a compression ratio in the neighborhood of approximately 10:1." - fair enough, it's around 10:1, but have you seen the blocky artifacts in the shadows of an HDCAM SR?? A single compression ratio doesn't tell you anything about the image you get at the end. At (rough guess) RED4K distribution codec at around 200:1 or more (compared to a RED One 4k source image) has no rights at all to look as good as it does - but it does.

"definite trade-offs in terms of dynamic range " - as you've not seen the uncompressed output off the sensor - how do you know this? I've measured DR off both the sensor and the RC36 and there's no difference to measured DR.

"The file that the Phantom HD generated at 2K resolution was, on average, approximately 8 times larger than the Red’s 4K file." - of course, the Phantoms use Bayer Pattern colour filter arrays also. I don't see how you can say that you can see what the REDCODE compression is doing to an image in comparison to what is being shot on an utterly different camera system. And of course, just because a file is larger doesn't mean it contains any more relevant image content. Even using the same lens, same f-stop doesn't make it a valid comparison as still the sensitivity of the sensor is different, and characteristics like noise which are generally thought of as undesirable can perversely improve the image by making it look sharper and appearing more "organic".

So reading through, it's not so much errors, but that in pointing out things about the RED, they're also equally applicable to other camera systems that are not mentioned or discussed in the same context.

Graeme
 
Graeme,

I agree on your points. In fact, you better elaborate my glossing over discussion about the true effective resolution of the camera.

In discussing the Bayer pattern issues, I wasn't singling out just Red cameras but all Bayer patterns in general. I had interest in delving into the further information that you go into, but that indeed would necessitate a separate article. Attempting to do so in my story radically side-tracked the true topic of the article, which was intended to be a general primer to using the Red in the field. Not chip design esoterica.

I think your points are worth mentioning and perhaps warrent a response letter to the editor. I'm glad that this opening up the discourse. Some of the readership and perhaps others here may glean some perspective from it.
 
Christopher, you know me - I can talk about this kind of stuff for hours, and have done, boring, I think some people to tears. Ok, not really, but....

I also much prefer forums - either in person or on a bulletin board like this where we can actually discuss the issue - rather than print media. I really like to be able to discuss these issues, because they are of interest to anyone who wants to understand or get the most out of cameras. Thanks for joining us here in that spirit.

Graeme
 
Hi Christopher,

heh, no stones here. :wink5:

I have full respect for your experience and your point of view is worthy of our attention.

I read the entire article and, other than the point Graeme has clarified, I think you have clearly outlined the issues that we as Red owners deal with every day. No desire to cover them up, they are real, though some were from the early days and have since been dealt with.

I think what frustrates us is that these are the ONLY things you choose to say about the experience, as if you wince each time you are forced to use the camera.

If this is your opinion, then fair enough. Hopefully the advancements will help alter that point of view. But if your opinion is that it's a wonderful system with some VERY REAL issues that need to be understood and worked around, it certainly didn't read that way.

Do you like the image quality? Are you impressed by the Red in any way?

There are so many out there just waiting for an article like this to prove their point of view that Red is all hype and shouldn't be considered for professional work.

Anyway, all good, we just would have preferred you also spoke about what you enjoy about the camera (if anything :001_tt1:) for balance.

All the best,

Jim in Sydney
 
Christopher and Graeme great discussion here fellas!

Christopher I appreciate your willingness to dialogue with Graeme, one of the smartest people on the planet and a expert on these subjects. I also appreciate your willingness to listen rather that stating a position and disappearing. Cutos man.

Graeme, you da man!

Christopher you are in a tough spot. I feel for ya. There has be a bit of resistance to digital cinema systems from some of the elite cinematographers, topping the list I think is Red. If I were writing your article for AC I would also have to be very cognizant of that.
 
Christopher Probst said:
Graeme,

I agree on your points. In fact, you better elaborate my glossing over discussion about the true effective resolution of the camera.

In discussing the Bayer pattern issues, I wasn't singling out just Red cameras but all Bayer patterns in general. I had interest in delving into the further information that you go into, but that indeed would necessitate a separate article. Attempting to do so in my story radically side-tracked the true topic of the article, which was intended to be a general primer to using the Red in the field. Not chip design esoterica.

I think your points are worth mentioning and perhaps warrent a response letter to the editor. I'm glad that this opening up the discourse. Some of the readership and perhaps others here may glean some perspective from it.
Click to expand...

Christopher, Christopher, you do sound and seem fairly intelligent, but really!!!? Your article sounded more like a Rant than an end user analysis. If you say you have had many readers request more information on the Red, you should probably not tell them you have used it on over 50 projects you loved but the camera really sucks. It surely reads like there is nothing good about the camera. I meet many skeptical cinematographers who say they have heard bad things about the Red or have been on shoots where the equipment had issues or broke down, or the work flow was tricky. When I inquire about the final footage or project they say, it was AWESOME. Red one camera is in a world of "recommended to the Client and complain to the manufacturer.
 
Ben Brainerd said:
One of the things I've noticed about AC is that a LOT of their digital articles read like cautionary tales. I think the editors are die-hard film people.
Click to expand...

Or their target audience has shot with film for many years.

The first thing I want to know when I'm doing something new is "What's going to come back to bite me?". That's true of technology, I want to know where your equipment or software is going to call it quits so that I can work around it. I want to know what it can deliver so that I don't waste time.

The goal of any course or lesson is to teach your students something new. It's a waste of their time and the authors to go over well known facts. You aren't going to find an article in AC state "After you've shot your film be very careful not to expose it to light! Before transferring the film, be sure that it's completely dark in a bag or sealed and locked room!" but you'll probably find one that says "Warning, sometimes data transfers can be corrupted without any indication. Always be sure to check your data before deleting the master to ensure it actually successfully copied. There are applications which can compare the files automatically, consider buying one of these."

Similarly it's very important that readers understand that RED is a daylight sensor and should be treated like daylight film stock. The color balance setting in the camera menu doesn't change the sensitivity of the sensor.

Perhaps that's now common knowledge to you so it's just bashing, but I've got a bunch of underexposed tungsten green screen shots which attest to this being important information that's not universally known.

In fact if I were to write an article for AC on shooting FX plates it would be one long rant itemizing all the things done wrong when shooting FX plates and what better practices would be. That doesn't mean I would be suggesting that you shouldn't ever shoot vfx shots, just that they are fraught with potential pitfalls which can be avoided with some easy to follow advice.

Far from giving RED a bad name I would hope that this article leads to people being better prepared and having less difficulties on set. The less surprises and problems people have shooting RED the less rumors (based on experiences) about unreliable and unusable cameras.

As to 4k or not. It was my impression that the author's warning was not a criticism of the RED or even Bayer so much as a warning against shooting 2k for a 2k finish.

And RED really should take down that "No Pixel Shifting or UpRezzing spoken here" slogan. It's always bugged me and it seems woefully antiquated at this point in time. Is there a significant difference in principle between Pixel Shifting and Bayer Patterns? Don't they both increase effective resolution by spatially shifting the individual color components? Isn't pixel shifting just essentially a bayer pattern but with a different method of seperating the individual sensor sites?
 
Gavin Greenwalt said:
Similarly it's very important that readers understand that RED is a daylight sensor and should be treated like daylight film stock.
Click to expand...

I agree completely with what you say there.
But the article didn't say that, it said that in his opinion, the camera is presently not well suited for low-light, warm-colored scenes, and that the camera designers' "decided" to balance the sensor to daylight was a little shortsighted.

Gavin Greenwalt said:
The color balance setting in the camera menu doesn't change the sensitivity of the sensor.
Click to expand...

Again, I agree completely with what you said.
But the article didn't say that, it said "The permanent color-temperature bias of the Red is “locked in” at polar opposites of the real-world shooting conditions cinematographers typically face"

Bear in mind that I am not "attacking" the article as a whole, but I do have some problems with some of the technical "facts" presented.

And I'm not attacking the magazine as a whole:
http://reduser.net/forum/showpost.php?p=547959&postcount=53
 
Sure, he could have worded it better, more accurately, but the gist of his argument is correct -- whether or not the Red One was "optimized" for daylight-balance or not, the fact remains that most low-light situations are usually closer to 3200K balance, hence why we need a digital camera & sensor that can handle that well, whether or not it handles 5600K even better. Which I think the new MX sensor does, but this article wasn't about the upcoming sensor but the current one.

Cameras like the Genesis and F35 do not have the same problems shooting in lower-levels of 3200K light (though they also are even better in daylight-balance as are all digital cameras), and certainly 500T film stock doesn't, hence why a lot of cinematographers using the Red One found this aspect frustrating, and it didn't help to be told to "just shoot in daylight-balance or use a blue filter" as a solution because that is not always feasible or practical.

So whether or not he didn't describe the reasons accurately, he described the problem correctly.

This article was not written as an objective analysis based on research, it was written as a subjective analysis based on personal experience, which is a different type of article. Filmmaking magazines often have either type. If Conrad Hall were alive and had written an article about shooting on the Red, I wouldn't look to it for accurate scientific explanations but for personal descriptions of his working experience and his aesthetic analysis as an artist.
 
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