RED - Epic and Scarlet

[Tenolian Bell]

True. However, I am just reporting what I have read before as the people in Hollywood wanted to put a money tag on what should be considered an "independent" movie regardless of if it was made outside the studio system. I have tried to find that source again. But I can't relocate it.

 

My guess would be this is the studio system thinking of how it will market their acquired "indie" type films. People who work outside of the studio system would not really care how the studios define indie film.

[Tenolian Bell]

Film does have dynamic range. Gray scale is the reproduction of white to black and is what defines dynamic range.

 

What you describe is not exactly how film works. Film is not binary. The closest you can come to a on/off system for film is at the molecular level.

 

Light photons are absorbed by silver halide crystals. The photon interacts with an electron and forms a photoelectron. The photoelectron becomes captured in the crystal latticework of the silver halide and interacts with a silver ion to form an atom. A cluster of atoms form in the halide crystal which makes up the latent image that is properly exposed and ready for development. Groups of millions of halide crystals form sections of the film and subsequently the larger image.

 

A halide crystal needs at least four or more photoelectrons to form a latent image. Kodak has developed a doping technique that allows a crystal that has partial exposure to be fully exposed by filling in the missing photoelectrons. This extends films sensitivity, which allows the use of smaller crystals, which improves the sharpness.

 

The only place in this process that is absolute or not, is the formation of atoms from photons. Each halide crystal has a variable number of atoms. Groups of halide crystals have a variable amount of exposure.

 

One part of the film could be over exposed, another part could be underexposed. The red color layer of the film could be over exposed while the blue layer is underexposed. Their are few absolutes in the over all exposure of a frame of film.

 

Film really does not have any dynamic range. Each film grain is either exposed or it isn't so each film grain registers a white or a black value. What seems like a grey scale is actually millions of black and white specks that mimmick various levels of grey. With massive amounts of resolution a digital camera can also mimmick film because it too can register a simple value of 1 or 0, on or off, black or white, which corresponds to each pixel. Therefore just like film digital can simulate grey levels with millions of tiny white and black specks.

[rob spence]

The introduction of Red or any other new camera is not going to help create more indie films or any other type of movie or TV content. We've always had the tools to do the job and it's the cost of talent, props, travelling, crew, food, grip, lights, special effects, scripts...etc, etc distribution...etc, etc...that make movies expensive to produce. I'm afraid that using Red will not give you any advantage in producing your indie movie...it's just another camera.

[Chris Gloag]

The introduction of Red or any other new camera is not going to help create more indie films or any other type of movie or TV content. We've always had the tools to do the job and it's the cost of talent, props, travelling, crew, food, grip, lights, special effects, scripts...etc, etc distribution...etc, etc...that make movies expensive to produce. I'm afraid that using Red will not give you any advantage in producing your indie movie...it's just another camera.

Not when you can buy it.

[John Sprung]

Film does have dynamic range.

Yes, absolutely it does. Any system that makes a picture has to have dynamic range.

 

Hans Kiening of Arri just last week showed us his latest work on measuring dynamic range. He uses a scale of transmission patches made using an Arrilaser to produce accurate densities in B&W film. Over each of them he lays a test pattern of light and dark bands. The dynamic range is the span between the darkest and lightest patches in which the bands can be seen. He also has a light baffle for each patch to control stray light.

 

This way of testing will work for any kind of camera, film, digital, TV, whatever.

 

I very much like this idea of having detail within the test patches. After all, that's what we really care about. We either want to see things, or hide them from the audience.

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[John Sprung]

Trying to do so much with one camera could in the long run risk being a gimmick that doesn't replace the simplicity of a dedicated camera.

This is the problem of trying to cram too many features into one product. It does too many things, none of them well enough. The engineering epithet for that is "Swiss Army Knife":

 

http://www.swissarmy.com/MultiTools/Pages/...duct=53504&

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[Brian Drysdale]

Not when you can buy it.

 

I think this depends on how much you wish to spend. A 3k Scarlet would be worthwhile purchase for a wide range of productions, especially if you're shooting say your indie feature film every weekend. As you go up the price range I suspect the model mightn't work so well, unless you've got other work that'll pay off the investment.

 

At a certain point the producer on a very limited budget will have to ask is the money I'm spending on a camera better spent on production values like art direction or paying a name actor for a couple of days? The 2/3" Scarlet is camera that will be of interest to these people.

[Thomas James]

I would have to disagree that using massive amounts of resolution does nothing to improve the contrast ratio . Assuming the that the 256 megapixel Epic 617 has 256 times the resolution of the 1 megapixel 720p format and then assuming that the contrast ratio of each pixel as being so poor as to only deliver a white or black value. Then for each group of 256 pixels we can generate 8 bits or 256 levels of grey merely by lighting up the appropriate amount of pixels. Now assuming that the contrast of each recorded Red pixel is only 8 bits which is consumer HDV performance we can multiply 256 times 256 to get 64,000 levels of grey which is 16 bit grey level performance when downsampled to the 720p high definition format.

 

This is why LCD televisions look so great when feed with a true high definition signal because they display a very high apparent contrast ratio but when feed with a standard definition signal the picture looks washed out.

[Dan Goulder]

Not when you can buy it.

If you can't work successfully with whatever tools are already available at that (or any other) price point, then buying a RED camera will be equally pointless.

[Jay Taylor]

This is why LCD televisions look so great when feed with a true high definition signal because they display a very high apparent contrast ratio but when feed with a standard definition signal the picture looks washed out.

 

Hey Thomas,

 

I'd love to know what brand and model LCD you're referring to, because every LCD television I've ever seen, sd or hd, looks like a big steaming pile of feces. :D

 

 

Jay

[John Sprung]

.... Assuming the that the 256 megapixel Epic 617 has 256 times the resolution of the 1 megapixel 720p format and then assuming that the contrast ratio of each pixel as being so poor as to only deliver a white or black value. Then for each group of 256 pixels we can generate 8 bits or 256 levels of grey merely by lighting up the appropriate amount of pixels. ....

 

This is why LCD televisions look so great when feed with a true high definition signal because they display a very high apparent contrast ratio but when feed with a standard definition signal the picture looks washed out.

There's no display in the real world that works anything like that one bit per pixel idea.

 

If LCD's seem to deliver different contrast performance between SD and HD, it's not the resolution that does it. It's the data they're being fed. Compare apples to apples some HD material and an SD downconversion of the same stuff.

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[Chris Kenny]

There's no display in the real world that works anything like that one bit per pixel idea.

 

If LCD's seem to deliver different contrast performance between SD and HD, it's not the resolution that does it. It's the data they're being fed. Compare apples to apples some HD material and an SD downconversion of the same stuff.

 

Lack of sharpness reduces contrast in high-detail areas. As an extreme case, if you blur a black and white checkerboard pattern enough, you end up with a gray field -- no contrast at all. The same effect works more subtly with edges in real-world images. While total contrast might remain the same, the lack of contrast in high-detail areas and the fact that sharp high-contrast edges will effectively be blurred over several pixels by the upscaling algorithm (i.e. a pure white square on a pure black background will end up with a few pixels of gray around it) can cause the image to appear less contrasty.

[John Sprung]

Lack of sharpness reduces contrast in high-detail areas. As an extreme case, if you blur a black and white checkerboard pattern enough, you end up with a gray field -- no contrast at all. The same effect works more subtly with edges in real-world images. While total contrast might remain the same, the lack of contrast in high-detail areas and the fact that sharp high-contrast edges will effectively be blurred over several pixels by the upscaling algorithm (i.e. a pure white square on a pure black background will end up with a few pixels of gray around it) can cause the image to appear less contrasty.

Right wrt upconversion, but downconversion is what was under consideration. Shoot HD and SD side by side, then downconvert the HD. Compare that with the native SD.

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.