Red Red Ready....

[John Brawley]

And santa heard !

 

And so I get a red to play with between xmas and new years because I have a VFX shoot on the 2nd.

 

Anyone care to suggest what sort of things I should try shooting to put this little package through it's paces ?? I'll have a cooke 15-40 as well....

 

jb

[Stephen Williams]

And santa heard !

 

And so I get a red to play with between xmas and new years because I have a VFX shoot on the 2nd.

 

Anyone care to suggest what sort of things I should try shooting to put this little package through it's paces ?? I'll have a cooke 15-40 as well....

 

jb

 

Hi,

 

Test that the focus marks on the lens are accurate. There were a few issues of FFD with the original cameras, the lens mount had been redesigned but you should still be test this.

 

Check out how the camera handles lens flairs from a bright source.

 

Stephen

[John-Erling Holmenes Fredriksen]

I also hear they had some problems with back focus when it got cold on the old lens mount (as it supposedly retracts, moving the lens slightly). I guess you might have the new one, but worth testing anyway, if only to find out if they managed to fix it. You could also test different ISO-settings to see what level of noise you like. I've seen some RED material screened next to 35mm film, it looks extremely clean, maybe too clean for some kinds of shoots.

[John Brawley]

Test that the focus marks on the lens are accurate. There were a few issues of FFD with the original cameras, the lens mount had been redesigned but you should still be test this.

 

Check out how the camera handles lens flairs from a bright source.

 

Stephen

 

 

Im not so worried about the accuracy of the focus markings. I will be pulling it by eye anyways.

 

Why lens flares ? sounds like you mean the lens and not the camera ?

 

jb

[John Brawley]

I also hear they had some problems with back focus when it got cold on the old lens mount (as it supposedly retracts, moving the lens slightly). I guess you might have the new one, but worth testing anyway, if only to find out if they managed to fix it. You could also test different ISO-settings to see what level of noise you like. I've seen some RED material screened next to 35mm film, it looks extremely clean, maybe too clean for some kinds of shoots.

 

Hei John-Erling,

 

It's one of the original 100 shipped, so i gather it's got the original mount. Right now we're in the middle of summer here and it's not nearly as cold even in winter as it get's in Oslo (a fine city too).

 

Im looking forward to just doing exposure latitude tests and seeing how far it can go with the aussie exterior contrast....

 

Ha Det...

 

jb

[Stephen Williams]

Why lens flares ? sounds like you mean the lens and not the camera ?

 

jb

 

How the sensor handles flares & bright highlights.

 

Stephen

[John-Erling Holmenes Fredriksen]

Another issue they had when doing these side-by-side tests with 35mm was getting the natural nice saturation that film gives. They did however admit that there had been limited time to tweak different settings and see how much saturation they could actually squeeze out of the RED, as the material was admittedly quite "greyish" in comparison to what you would get natively from film. Would be interesting to see how much saturation you can actually get from the RED by tweaking it a bit (and how good it looks).

 

Hoping to see some material during the holidays :)

[Stephen Williams]

Hi,

 

I've noticed a tendency to overexpose Red footage leading to ugly clipped highlights.

 

Whilst testing try shooting some different faces, I am not happy with the skin tones in much of the footage posted to date.

 

Stephen

[David Mullen ASC]

Im not so worried about the accuracy of the focus markings. I will be pulling it by eye anyways.

 

For the life of the camera? Pulling by eye is not a good solution for a lot of narrative-style shooting because it is generally late to the action and often it is off, which for a 4K image to be projected on a big screen, is going to show obvious focus mistakes. Not to mention operating and focusing simultaneously can be hard, like when an actor is leaning into an ECU as they are standing up.

 

I amazed at how people downplay the problems of focus-pulling with 35mm depth of field.

 

Get the back-focus fixed if it is off. Even with eye-focusing, an incorrect back-focus will mean that if you get a good eye focus at the long end of the zoom, it will drift out as you zoom out.

[John Brawley]

For the life of the camera? Pulling by eye is not a good solution for a lot of narrative-style shooting because

 

 

Hey David. I totally hear where you're coming from.

 

Im going to be on Holidays, and won't have a focus puller with me. Im just taking an opportunity to have an extra few days with the camera. I am aware of the lens mount issues. I doubt I'm going to be able to do much about getting it fixed (if it's out) when everyone's on break.

 

I am also well aware of the collomation issues with zooms. I used to work in a rental company and have shimmed lenses and lens mounts before.

 

Thanks for the concern...

 

jb

[John Brawley]

Hi,

 

I've noticed a tendency to overexpose Red footage leading to ugly clipped highlights.

 

Whilst testing try shooting some different faces, I am not happy with the skin tones in much of the footage posted to date.

 

Stephen

 

 

OK. So some skin tone of different types....check...

 

 

I'll be shooting doco style, and won't have any lighting support till the actual shoot day. but by then I'll be shooting vfx stuff and may not get a chance for skin tones...but i'll give it a go...

 

 

jb

[Ruairi Robinson]

Hi,

 

I've noticed a tendency to overexpose Red footage leading to ugly clipped highlights.

 

Whilst testing try shooting some different faces, I am not happy with the skin tones in much of the footage posted to date.

 

Stephen

 

 

Is this because of the way they are graded, or a lack of dynamic range etc...?

[Stephen Williams]

Is this because of the way they are graded, or a lack of dynamic range etc...?

 

Hi Ruairi,

 

IMHO people are overexposing to reduce sensor noise, they look at the histogram & open up 2 stops (from 320 asa on a meter), then somebody moves and there is a blown out highlight.

 

IMHO the Red sensor is not noisy, so rating at 320asa or even high contrast situations would be the way to go. When I shoot with a Viper I know I have at least +/-5 stops from 320 asa, its a very easy way to work!

 

Stephen

[John-Erling Holmenes Fredriksen]

Hi Ruairi,

 

IMHO people are overexposing to reduce sensor noise, they look at the histogram & open up 2 stops (from 320 asa on a meter), then somebody moves and there is a blown out highlight.

 

IMHO the Red sensor is not noisy, so rating at 320asa or even high contrast situations would be the way to go. When I shoot with a Viper I know I have at least +/-5 stops from 320 asa, its a very easy way to work!

 

Stephen

 

The guys who tested the RED for FNF in Norway mostly agreed that underexposing slightly was the way to go, and that there wasn't as much of a noise issue as there was a highlights issue. Also, low light scenes with no extra lights shot at night in Bergen looked surprisingly good.

[Stephen Williams]

The guys who tested the RED for FNF in Norway mostly agreed that underexposing slightly was the way to go, and that there wasn't as much of a noise issue as there was a highlights issue. Also, low light scenes with no extra lights shot at night in Bergen looked surprisingly good.

 

Hi,

 

I don't for one moment believe that the dynamic range of the Red camera is a big problem even through I have not seen anything near the claimed 11.3 stops from Frankie an early prototype.

 

Still photographers managed very well with Kodachrome, so I don't doubt that very good results can be achieved from a RED ONE by those who have tested it and understand it's limitations.

 

I expect I will get a chance to test 6 NEW RED cameras within the next month or so, then I will have a better idea of what the future has to hold and are all Red cameras equal.

 

Stephen

[Max Jacoby]

To me the big drawback of digital cameras is not the fact that the latitude is less than film, but that the highlights clip so harshly, instead of feathering gently into white like film does.

[Chris Nuzzaco]

Harsh highlight clipping is the big issue so many people do not seem to understand about digital cinema. I've been shooting RAW HD for almost a year now, and one of the big things I've learned about good RAW HD, well, any HD really, is figuring out what the ultimate contrast is going to be AFTER you color correct the image. Ultimately, in post, you will probably need to kick the footages shoulder up a bit in order to create the necessary "roll off" into the highlights. Because of this, you do need be very careful about where you place your brightest highlight exposure wise.

 

I totally understand exposing to the right, but I also understand when I've gone too far, and how far is too far all depends on the final image and the subject matter you are shooting.

 

Another often confusing thing about shooting RAW HD in particular is that fact that you basically have two different responses for the camera. One is linear, which provides the max amount of data you can capture, and the other is your footages ultimate "look" and subsequent curve needed to create it. You can certainly shoot in a manner that uses the cameras full linear range and create contrast in post, but odds are you will need to do more sophisticated work to pull it off if you do not want clipped highlights nor loose all of your shadow details but still have a nice bold black. Just because you can do that in post doesn't mean you should, especially if you have a limited budget, in which case, you should really just light the shot in a manner that looks good once the final "Look" or curve is applied to the footage, and I can guarantee you the image will also be much cleaner as well. Even with RAW HD, the more you jerk footage around, the worse it can possibly end up looking. Make sense?

 

As for metering, I base my ISO ratings off clipping in the green channel. The green channel is the first to blow out most of the time, so thats why I base the rating off of that channel. To expose a scene, I simply find the brightest object in the scene and then use the f/stop (or t/stop) that my meter gives me. I light and meter from the highlights down. Easy as pie!

 

Hope that helps.

[David Mullen ASC]

As for metering, I base my ISO ratings off clipping in the green channel. The green channel is the first to blow out most of the time, so thats why I base the rating off of that channel. To expose a scene, I simply find the brightest object in the scene and then use the f/stop (or t/stop) that my meter gives me. I light and meter from the highlights down. Easy as pie!

 

Hope that helps.

 

That's fine if each scene is told in one shot or each shot in the scene didn't need individual adjusting to hold a bright area. You're basically talking about a still photographer trick.

 

But the potential trouble with that technique is that within a sequence in a dramatic scene, you could be exposing each individual shot differently based on the brightest area in the frame -- it's like exposing one angle at 250 ASA and another at 500 ASA and another at 800 ASA. Your noise level is going to vary shot by shot once you do the final color-correction.

 

Normally the goal in exposing shots within a sequence is that they all "land" in a similar exposure range so that you aren't color-correcting each shot too much later to match brightness. And you base that exposure around the key subject, not the brightest thing in the shot.

 

So you don't want the noise of 400 ASA, let's say, when the actor is standing against a dark background, but when the actor moves over and stands next to a bright window or lamp, you're suddenly got the noise level of exposing at 1000 ASA, let's say, just to hold that brighter information. It would be better to continue to shoot at 400 ASA and darken the window or lamp to retain detail.

 

Now you could say you'd pick a single ASA rating for every shot in a scene for whatever particular set-up had the most problematic bright area to try and hold detail, but the problem is that that might not be the first set-up you shoot, it may be the fifth or something, and the problem may not become apparent until that set-up. So you won't know what the "optimal" exposure rating for the scene will be.

 

It's like that shot of the cars at night in Claudio Miranda's test where the red tail lights were clipped, and someone said he should have exposed it "correctly" to hold detail in the clipped areas! Trouble with that is that in order to hold detail in a tiny car headlight, you have to underexpose the whole frame by a couple of stops, when the goal of most night photography is to capture the general ambience and detail.

 

That's the problem with basing exposure on the brightest area in the frame rather than for the main subject and how you want the scene to look brightness-wise.

[John Sprung]

Im not so worried about the accuracy of the focus markings.

How about doing a diagonal newspaper test? That's fairly quick and easy.

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[Gary McClurg]

How about doing a diagonal newspaper test? That's fairly quick and easy.

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

 

 

John for us non shooters... what is the purpose of this test?

 

Thanks...

[John Sprung]

John for us non shooters... what is the purpose of this test?

The diagonal newspaper test shows you where focus really lands compared with where the tape measure or viewfinder say it should be.

 

Take a full sheet of newspaper -- the classified ads work best. Hold it by one corner, and tape that corner to the wall, then tape down the other corners so you have it flat against the wall on an extreme angle. Use a straight edge and shapie to put a vertical line thru the middle of the paper.

 

Set the camera up at a distance from the sharpie line that you have on your lens scale, say 8 or 10 feet, and at roughly a 45 degree angle to the wall. (That's why it's called "diagonal".) Light the paper evenly to your shallowest stop. Set focus by the tape, slate and shoot a test. Then set focus by the finder, and slate and shoot that. Repeat for other distances and lenses, especially ones you'll need for critical closeups.

 

When you see that in projection, you can tell very clearly whether focus landed on the vertical sharpie line or not. You can note exactly where it landed in terms of the newspaper text, measure, and get corrections to use.

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[Gary McClurg]

Thanks John...

[Chris Nuzzaco]

But the potential trouble with that technique is that within a sequence in a dramatic scene, you could be exposing each individual shot differently based on the brightest area in the frame -- it's like exposing one angle at 250 ASA and another at 500 ASA and another at 800 ASA. Your noise level is going to vary shot by shot once you do the final color-correction.

 

Normally the goal in exposing shots within a sequence is that they all "land" in a similar exposure range so that you aren't color-correcting each shot too much later to match brightness. And you base that exposure around the key subject, not the brightest thing in the shot.

 

So you don't want the noise of 400 ASA, let's say, when the actor is standing against a dark background, but when the actor moves over and stands next to a bright window or lamp, you're suddenly got the noise level of exposing at 1000 ASA, let's say, just to hold that brighter information. It would be better to continue to shoot at 400 ASA and darken the window or lamp to retain detail.

 

David, I'm well aware of this :) Thanks for diving into it more, I just skimmed over my basic approach. As for noise varying shot for shot, I think thats more an issue of always exposing for the highlight, but not bothering to check the shots contrast, and thus you end up changing the ISO in post (for those wondering, I have one "pet" LUT that I use for almost everything at the moment, so I don't change LUTs during a scene, unless there is some kind of special shot).

 

For example...

 

When I light a scene, I create a contrast game plan of sorts, I figure out how far under the highlight I want things in a scene to always be, and then I light from there. I might want to always keep one particular actors face 2 stops under the brightest highlight, the walls at a constant 3 stops under, etc..

 

I do make exceptions though, specular highlights are usually left as is.

 

Funny you mention the clipped headlights... Headlights are very similar to specular highlights if you can't mess around with them at all. The contrast, especially at night, can just be really out there. Sometimes you have to let stuff blow out in order to get the rest of the shot to show up due to sheer contrast. Claudio could have exposed for the headlights, but man, everything else in the scene would have looked like junk. Better to just let them blow out, and if they have the post funds, mess with the headlights in post, at least thats what I would have done (unless I could somehow dim or put ND on them).

 

Thanks,

Edited December 29, 2007 by Chris Nuzzaco