Red V F23

[Stuart Brereton]

The problem often with internet communication is it lacks 2/3rds of what makes for a complete conversation.

 

This being true, it bcomes all the more important to pick your words wisely. I don't believe that anyone seeking information and help would benefit from the patronising tone that you use all too frequently. You want to 'tell it like it is'? Great, find a way of doing it that doesn't rely on intellectual bullying and beating people around the head with how much more experienced you are than them.

[John Sprung]

Someone at the RED site said the OLPF is at a spacing of 8mm from the film plane on the replacements but he wasn't sure if that was different from the originals.

Wow, that's a lot. 8 mm is about the thickness of an ordinary pencil. The one sensor I've seen up close is Genesis, and their OLPF looks to be at most a fraction of a millimeter from the chip. The filters would have to be very different in how many photons they send how far off axis to work at such different distances.

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Walter your initial post was missing one critical piece of information: the amount of control a DP has.

 

Yes. A camera with 11 stop and a camera with 9 stops could be made to produce an identical image... assuming the DP has complete control over the image. I work mostly with CG cameras and theoretically they all might have 1 stop of dynamic range but I can work within that 'stop' because I have absolute 100% control over practically every photon. I can even suck light with a negative spotlight. But all of these shots are examples of situations where the DP probably has almost no control over the light (unless for example you want to gel every single car with 1/4ND as far as the eye can see. Or ask the hilton hotel if you can replace the lights in their sign).

 

If the DP wants to capture something in the shadow and a camera is performing worse in the shadows than its competitor already you might be nervous about stopping down to protect the highlights. "But it's all about talent." Yes but you also happen to be driving at 60mph through downtown. Do you use 10 miles of HMIs to accomplish what camera A can do for the cost of the camera rental?

 

With infinite resources anything is possible. Wouldn't it be great to have infinite resources!

[John Sprung]

Even if the Red is a little sharper, under most moving image situations the resolution looks pretty similar between the two cameras, but the F-23 images are clearly more pleasing and offer more options for post color correction.

Actually, these tests don't contain much if anything that would demonstrate what should be the biggest difference between the cameras: 35mm vs. 2/3" depth of field. How about a tight two shot with a distant background, fairly low light, and the same field of view?

 

Because their recording and post paths are so different, I'd want to work on both in post before concluding which one gives you more range to work with in post.

 

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[Daren Findling]

Let's not go there, please.

 

Walt has an alternative perspective. There's no need to make it personal. That's just unprofessional.

 

jb

 

 

Hi Guys

 

It was not intended to be a personal attack. I merely was trying to lighten up the mood. After reading the largest rant I have ever read with a very condesending tone I thought I would try and lighten it up. I have now just read the posts that followed and I see it did not lighten up one little bit. Oh well.

 

PS- I do not see it as unprofessional at all. In fact I have met a lot of very highly proffesional A-list DP's and directors that smoke weed :lol:

Edited December 21, 2007 by Daren Findling

[Phil Rhodes]

> Could we fry the dyes?

 

Yes, depending what type they are.

 

> If we shoot an evenly illuminated 18 gray card, I'd expect dye

> damage to show up as a permanent smudge.

 

What you actually want to do is shoot highly saturated objects as any bleaching of the dyes will be visible as a lack of saturation.

[John Sprung]

What you actually want to do is shoot highly saturated objects as any bleaching of the dyes will be visible as a lack of saturation.

Good point -- that would be more likely to detect subtle rather than gross damage. I wonder if it would necessarily be a bleaching effect, or could it also be a charring or darkening? Either way, your idea of looking at saturated colors is the best test.

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[Chris Keth]

Those are interesting. Does anyone know the whereabouts o some more controlled tests between these two cameras? I'm curious to see some simple things like greyscales, over/underexposure brackets, et cetera. Things that can more easily be compared and quantified.

[Mitch Gross]

Wow, that's a lot. 8 mm is about the thickness of an ordinary pencil. The one sensor I've seen up close is Genesis, and their OLPF looks to be at most a fraction of a millimeter from the chip. The filters would have to be very different in how many photons they send how far off axis to work at such different distances.

I believe it used to be 2mm and is now 8mm. I don't recall the distance on the Genesis, but I do know that it is a good distance out from the sensor, something like 5mm. One of the reasons cited by Panavision was that this would mean that any dust theat might land on the OLPF to be so out of focus as to not hurt the image.

[Phil Rhodes]

You can't just arbitrarily decide to quadruple the distance the LPF is from the sensor, though, without redesigning it...

 

What surprises me about those reflections is that the pitch of the circles changes from shot to shot. Do we know if these were all shot with the same lens?

[Seung Han]

I admit, peeking into anonymous people's pyschological issues on an internet message board can be interesting and even perversely entertaining at times, but it can also be a downer.

 

Instead of believing everybody does not get it, just assume everybody does, that everybody comes here already knowing that YES the most important thing is great storytelling and whatever that entails. They already get this and come here to figure out how to go about telling it with the tools at hand. Just assume this until they prove you wrong. And even then, all you should really do is critique the piece and hope the person gets it next time around.

 

 

Claudio is the second DP I respect to point out REDs shortcomings in dynamic range... I thougt it was going to blow the 2K cameras out of the water in resolution and DR. What happened?

[Daren Findling]

I believe it used to be 2mm and is now 8mm. I don't recall the distance on the Genesis, but I do know that it is a good distance out from the sensor, something like 5mm. One of the reasons cited by Panavision was that this would mean that any dust theat might land on the OLPF to be so out of focus as to not hurt the image.

 

I have seen both the old and new OLPF versions side by each and the the new version has the filter placed a noteable difference further from the sensor.

 

 

 

Claudio is the second DP I respect to point out REDs shortcomings in dynamic range... I thougt it was going to blow the 2K cameras out of the water in resolution and DR. What happened?

 

What happened is simple. People tend to believe what they want to hear, not what is factual or even logical. You can walk up to a five year old kid and say this camera is here is a red and it is worth about the same as your dads car and this other camera is a f23 and it is worth as much as 10 of your dads cars. Then ask him which camera is better. I have a feeling the five year old will display more logic then a lot of reduser members. You get what you pay for.

 

That said the red is looking great for what it is. I just don't expect it to be better then a viper, genisis, dalsa or f23. As long as a red camera comes close to those cameras and is better then a sony 900 it is a good deal.

[John Sprung]

Claudio is the second DP I respect to point out REDs shortcomings in dynamic range...

Claudio has not posted here, and the link in the first post is dead now. I'd be hesitant to conjecture as to the purpose and circumstances of his tests. Maybe somebody here knows him and can get him to join in and comment.

 

As to the dynamic range of the Red, because it records compressed raw Bayer data, what you see depends on how it was handled it post -- even more so than with a camera that records conventional digital HD on SR tape. How far could we go into the shoulder? How far into the toe? Without looking at the .R3D files using their software, we really don't know. We can't make any absolute conclusions based on some files pulled through the internet.

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[John Sprung]

I just don't expect it to be better then a viper, genisis, dalsa or f23. As long as a red camera comes close to those cameras and is better then a sony 900 it is a good deal.

Viper, F-23, and 900 are 2/3" three chip beam splitter cameras. Red, Genesis, and Dalsa use large single chips with tricolor filter layers over them. These are two very different categories of cameras -- sort of like sports cars and limousines. They both get you there, but in very different styles. The word "better" might be applicable within a category, but less so between categories.

 

Then again, perhap I just have an insane personal obsession with depth of field.... ;-)

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[Seung Han]

What happened is simple. People tend to believe what they want to hear, not what is factual or even logical. You can walk up to a five year old kid and say this camera is here is a red and it is worth about the same as your dads car and this other camera is a f23 and it is worth as much as 10 of your dads cars. Then ask him which camera is better. I have a feeling the five year old will display more logic then a lot of reduser members. You get what you pay for.

 

That said the red is looking great for what it is. I just don't expect it to be better then a viper, genisis, dalsa or f23. As long as a red camera comes close to those cameras and is better then a sony 900 it is a good deal.

 

Don't get me wrong, I am a res holder for two and I am excited to get my hands on these cameras for this price. I think Jim and his crew have done a cool thing by RED.

 

But, yes, from the hype, I did expect "it to be better then a viper, genisis, dalsa or f23." Who knows, maybe this new build will fulfill these expectations. Either way, I am grateful somebody is making these professional tools a lot more accessible.

[Seung Han]

Claudio has not posted here, and the link in the first post is dead now. I'd be hesitant to conjecture as to the purpose and circumstances of his tests. Maybe somebody here knows him and can get him to join in and comment.

 

As to the dynamic range of the Red, because it records compressed raw Bayer data, what you see depends on how it was handled it post -- even more so than with a camera that records conventional digital HD on SR tape. How far could we go into the shoulder? How far into the toe? Without looking at the .R3D files using their software, we really don't know. We can't make any absolute conclusions based on some files pulled through the internet.

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

 

I understand your points but is it naive of me to listen to somebody like Claudio when he says it has 2 stops less DR? I feel like if enough people with more knowledge than me are saying similar things, I should take note and listen. Also, at some point, we need to qualify the camera, positives and negatives. Even if the camera evolves we need to base future results to some point of reference we can use now, especially since the cameras are in field today...

[David Mullen ASC]

RED is like any other company -- they are going to publically promote the best aspects of their product and work quietly among themselves to fix the worst aspects of their product. That's hardly unusual or hard to understand.

 

The dynamic range is a touchy subject for them because obviously everyone wants it to be better, including them.

 

My rough impression when I tested the RED camera was that the DR wasn't as poor as some people were claiming -- I found lighting a scene with a lot of bright highlights to work pretty well, and the contrast looked more filmic than when shooting on an F900. It was not "tricky" to light for. But overexposure latitude was not great, and too much underexposure to compensate pushed the image into a noisier look than some people are going to like. But certainly the DR was completely usable for shooting, better than an F900, and I used that camera for eight features.

 

The thing is that the F23 is significantly better than previous HD cameras in terms of dynamic range, so it has become somewhat of a gold standard for DR... if you ignore color negative film. ;)

[John Sprung]

.... listen to somebody like Claudio when he says it has 2 stops less DR? ....

I'm a little uncomfortable with any statement of the form " so and so says such and such " -- especially when the guy is alive and local, and could speak for himself directly, if he wants to. If you know him, invite him to join us here.

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[Stephen Williams]

The dynamic range is a touchy subject for them because obviously everyone wants it to be better, including them.

 

Hi David,

 

I was disappointed with the DR relative to the claims made at IBC 2006. Hopefully the revised camera will provide in excess of 11 stops beating the best camera of that time, the Thompson Viper.

 

Stephen

[Gary McClurg]

It should read...

 

The reason why the link in my opinion was pulled was because Claudio did a fair test pointing out the pros and cons of each camera and the zealots attacked him because he didn't say the Red was better...

 

I mean comments like "Sony probably got to him." doesn't help when you have an A list DP who works for an A list director sharing his thoughts on the cameras ...

 

Even Jannard posted that he thought his tests where fair... and he welcomed him to test the new camera....

 

I should not take phone calls between postings so when I catch a mistake I can correct it... :o

Edited December 21, 2007 by Gary McClurg

[Phil Rhodes]

Obviously, Red aren't suppressing tests.

 

Obviously.

 

Perish the thought.

[Seung Han]

I'm a little uncomfortable with any statement of the form " so and so says such and such " -- especially when the guy is alive and local, and could speak for himself directly, if he wants to. If you know him, invite him to join us here.

 

 

 

-- J.S.

 

Oh, I see the misunderstanding.

 

The results were posted for a day or two then removed. He had a complete breakdown of what he thought were the pros and cons of using the RED and the F23. This isn't second hand information. It was right on his website.

 

As far as the other DP, it is somebody I am having regular meetings with. He went to California recently and went through some RED footage at a large effects house. He said similar things about the DR as Claudio.

 

So, unrelated, but also not a case of he said/she said. If you look at my post history on any site I have been a supporter of RED, so it is disappointing to get feedback like this. Still, if it's only getting better, and for that price...

[Joe Taylor]

Does anyone know the whereabouts o some more controlled tests between these two cameras?

 

 

Exactly! How did these guys manage to come up with both a F23 and RED? You'd think having the rare opportunity possess two high-end cameras and the time to play with them, they'd do something more scientific then cruising around maybe thinking that their results would amount to a real and honest comparison.

 

For the straight on shots were they shooting through the windshield? If so, this could have a dramatic effect on the shots.

[David Mullen ASC]

Shooting real world conditions is just as informative as shooting charts and exposure tests, just in a different way.

[Seung Han]

Did somebody get charged for this information? Whatever happened to being grateful for somebody's troubles to share something, with strangers no less!

 

Nobody is declaring any of these tests as being definitive. They're just sharing their observations with others who don't have access to the equipment. I don't think anybody has a right to tell them what tests to do unless you are paying for the rental or piece of equipment. Just be grateful people with varying levels of skill are sharing anything.