Andy Jarosz

I would say that is the only way to truly empirically evaluate a light source. I don't want a "colored" number or one that is tailored for any specific capture device, be it a camera or a human eye. When I hear the Skypanels have low color rendering scores but look great on Alexa cameras, I don't go "what's wrong with the light?" I go "What's wrong with the camera?" As a creative, you want a light to be as unbiased as possible so that your big choices--camera and lens--are consistent and predictable across every shooting scenario. A light that only looks good on one kind of camera is not that, and so the color rendering numbers are suitably low. If look is important to you, it's in your best interest to want to control the variables as much as possible. Only empirical measurements give you enough information to form these decisions.

I should have mentioned this in my other post, but TLCI is not the best metric to evaluate lights on. Like CRI, it can be "gamed" through particular tuning of the light. SSI is my preference.

If you want a value that measures how lights look through a camera specifically, that's what TLCI is for.

You're going to get accumulated error by averaging all the scores--which each have their own margin of error--into a single score. The error of one value on it's own is not that big a deal, but you could potentially get a misleading value when they're all factored together. Unless you are ensuring your instruments are calibrated and accurate, this will be a problem. What is the issue with SSI? It's just that the numbers aren't high enough for LEDS? That's kind of the point, the numbers aren't supposed to favor any one light source--they're just supposed to tell it like it is. Regardless, I think any single number value will ever tell the full story. Simply look at the spectrum overlaid on top of daylight, and you'll immediately be able to evaluate how the light will perform.

1000% test, and try to break it in your test--shoot close to the screens, at sharp angles, etc. to account for every scenario. If you're forced to not have genlock, use a 144 degree shutter and limit vertical camera moves. Make sure the screens you use are high quality--Roe BP2 or BO2 ideally--and that they have a low scan rate. Video panels usually run at either 1920 or 3840hz (they know that's confusing) so you have refresh rate for days, but the actual time that the screen takes to refresh is a large factor. The shutter "actuation" speed of film cameras may not play nice with it. For what it's worth, we did the video that is the background of loledvirtual.com without genlock on a 8K Weapon and it turned out fine, but there were some shots with flicker that had to be fixed in post.

I think the camera is still in "open beta," as it were. It seems that they're holding off on releasing specs until they're confident they're not going to change. Which is VERY un-Red--I'm glad to see them being a little more conservative this time.

In this case, it has everything to do with the new CFA. Other cameras will either line bin (pixel skip) to get lower resolutions using the full sensor size, or window the sensor--both have major drawbacks. There are also cameras that will downscale in camera, but you can't do that in a RAW workflow. The new CFA is symmetrical across the sensor, so rather than skipping lines, they can skip clusters of photosites. And since the sensor is so dense, there is essentially no penalty for doing so--using just 4K worth of photosites on this 12K sensor is essentially going to give you the same pixel pitch that a native 4K sensor would have had anyway. It's very clever, and it means that they've made what could be the last camera they need to make for the next 10 years. Buy it now, shoot 4K. In a few years, you already have 8K. A few years later, you're already set for 12K.

Hey Dan, Roe Black Pearl 2 panels are the standard for production.

The rod to lens center height is standardized, but there are sometimes exceptions. It's always best to double check.

It's definitely in the form factor of traditional diffusion, but there's definitely something else going on. It's clearly not a louver or eggcrate, so it really has to be something akin to a holographic lens. I have a sheet of this at my shop, I might have a microscope somewhere I could take a look at it under! There are a lot of LEDs with individual lenses over the diodes, any fixture that uses 5mm-style for example has a lens built into the LED itself. Another example would be an Astra. But you're right, they do leave multiple shadows.

Have yi have you seen Rosco Opti-Sculpt? It's brand new and is, I believe, a holographic lens sheet. A little expensive compared to normal gels, but it's pretty cool stuff: https://us.rosco.com/en/product/opti-sculpt

Ah you're right--I mistyped, meant shorter of course. I'll edit my post so as not to cause future confusion. Scoptopic vs photopic, that's kind of what I meant to say--if we light scenes in darker conditions (and most people also view content in darker conditions) than we'll perceive a bluer light better than warmer light (it's not peak sensitivity, but it's closer than red.) I actually think this illustrates what James is saying here. When I think of, say, Barry Lyndon, I don't think of that movie as being lit by hard sources--in my mind it feels very "soft." But obviously when you actually look at stills the candlelight scenes are actually quite hard. That said, I think it's a human perception flaw and likely shouldn't be something that is relied upon.

I weirdly understand what you're saying here. However, I would be very hesitant before bringing this up in a professional context, if for no other reason than it will cause confusion. The reason is not because the light is actually softer, it's because the longer wavelengths are more visible to the eye and so it's just easier to see the harshness of the bluer lights. Additionally, bluer lights activate our photopic vision which makes that harshness even crisper.

The manuals of cameras always list the acceptable voltages. From the DSMC2 manual: The 6-Pin 1B DC-IN connector accepts DC input power from 11.5VDC to 17VDC Ursa Mini Pro: 12 V to 20 V

My little open source light pulls up to 6 amps and runs at 10Khz, absolutely nothing even close to audible whine. Remember that a lot of these driver modules and ICs have to be vetted in and of themselves, for example attached is the testing for the driver I chose. I haven't actually read any of these certs, I have no idea what they mean, but it's a far cry from "not being able to get through compliance testing." It's absolutely possible, and most of the fixtures you use on set on a daily basis have done it. Skypanels, LED Lekos, etc. are all PWM. Fan noise will most certainly be louder and broader spectrum than any whine. Using a filter is a fine solution and actually can work well, but it limits the max brightness of course. Another thing to consider is remote phosphor fixtures like the Cineos can use the phosphor itself to add some "photonic inertia" that smooths out the flicker. I've even seen this with regular diffusion at high frequencies. And yeah, RGB mixing is definitely on my radar--but I'm wanting to wait until I have regular access to a colorimeter, as the fun part for me is figuring out the right mixing algorithm to look correct to the human eye.