RED sensitivity, settings ???

[Thibaut de Chemellier]

Hi,

Red discussions are endless...and sometimes boring, hard to find real informations about RED...

What's its sensitivity or signal-to-noise ratio?

How much does it weight in handheld mode with a prime lens and accessories?

What about gamma curves? LUT?...

Is there settings for deteil level, knee point, white clip, color matrix, shutter, aspect ratio mask....???

Thanks.

Edited September 23, 2007 by Thibaut de Chemellier

[Brian Drysdale]

Unfortunately all you can do at present is check out the specs at Red.com and cruise through the threads on some of the other web sites like Reduser, CML, DVinfo . The camera is just being beta tested at the moment with the early owners and these aren't the fully functioning final cameras.

 

I'd assume RED supplied manuals with the early cameras giving the technical information. However, I'd imagine these would be outdated once the final version comes out.

Edited September 23, 2007 by Brian Drysdale

[David Mullen ASC]

The base sensitivity of the RED camera seems to be in the 320 to 500 ASA range, but it has a very low noise level which allows higher ASA ratings if necessary. My gut feeling is that I would use it around 500 ASA generally for interiors.

[Max Jacoby]

Just be careful not to evaluate the ASA based on stills images posted on the net. Noise (just like grain) is something that is best evaluted on moving images.

[Guest Paul Wizikowski]

While this wont answer every question it should help.

 

The camera body is roughly 10lbs from there you might be able to calculate the rest of your accessories and get an approximate total weight. Every accessory RED makes is quite stout, its metal, its thick and robust and heavy. The rig I've had was easily closer to 25lbs.

 

The sensitivity and S/N ration are still kinda in the works. There are some forums on reduser where Greame addresses what he has measured at various point along the development process. If I find them I'll add them paste a link here.

 

As for Gamma I don't believe there is a setting for adjusting this, same goes for detail level, knee point, white clip, and color matrix. The adjustments in camera are currently fairly minimum. Most of these are intended to be done later in RED Alert or RED Cine. Which much like a telecine is where at least a one-light process is needed before the footage is taken in to edit.

 

Now the shutter can be adjusted, in fact there is an easy button on the rear of the camera to jump to this in the menu (there is also one for ASA, and White Balance adjustments).

 

The current ASA options range from 100-2000

 

The white balance options include, Auto Select WB, Tungsten, Daylight, and Manual WB where you dial in your WB by adjusting it in 100 degree increments. (i love this feature by the way). There is also a "Tint" feature that skews the image toward Red or Green.

 

And for those that don't know RED Alert is there for a quick and dirty timing on set for review or approval, where RED Cine is where you do your more finessed timing and can output to nearly any desired format for post. RED Alert only outputs QT proxys (3 sizes) and DPX or TIFF SEQ's in 4K or 2K.

[Guest Paul Wizikowski]

The above statements are based on Build 8 of RED's firmware.

[John Sprung]

As for Gamma I don't believe there is a setting for adjusting this, same goes for detail level, knee point, white clip, and color matrix.

That's because you're recording the full raw output of the sensor. You don't have to shoehorn the dynamic range of the sensor into the more limited range of video on the set, you can leave that for post, just like with film.

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[Hank den Drijver]

What's its sensitivity or signal-to-noise ratio?

How much does it weight in handheld mode with a prime lens and accessories?

What about gamma curves? LUT?...

Is there settings for deteil level, knee point, white clip, color matrix, shutter, aspect ratio mask....???

Thanks.

 

Sensitivity: around 500 ASA. You can set it between 100 - 2000 ASA, but that only affects the meta data and the viewfinder. The data will stay the same. Don't use it. Just light for 500 ASA or use ND.

 

S/N ratio: better than 66 db. To be improved soon with a new daughterboard, so Red claims.

 

Gamma curves/LUT/detail level/knee point/white clip/color matrix: all done in Red Alert, a software app. You just record RAW image files and metadata.

Just make sure you've lit for 500 ASA and focus is correct and you're good to go.

 

A lot of shooters cannot handle Red Alert very well, it turns out. Hence some footage on Reduser. I've just witnessed a film vs red comparison in which the Red footage was converted to DPX and had lost all highlights in the Red Alert process. I was able to play with the original R3D (raw) files later and recovered a huge amount of highlight. Harm was already done though...

This app should have a dumb-modus: export for final grading. It has just too many sliders and people get stuck in them. Especially when you don't really know what you're doing.