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This stuff looks pretty good to me.


Richard Salsburg

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I'd not argue that it looks bad, though I will admit on the 2nd clip i did notice the absence of grain more so than I felt I should've. That is to say it seemed slightly "unnatural," to me. Though it is exciting to see the RED being used on productions. I'm sure it's going to open up a whole new range of aesthetic choices, and having different tools is never a bad thing!

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It's hard to say looking at heavily compressed clips online. The first clip had some really bad artifacts around the hand of the kid as it is about to touch the handlebar of the motorcycle against the blown out sky, towards the end of the clip. Again, this could very likely be be due to the compression to get it online. However, until seeing the original uncompressed camera files, it is hard to judge. To me it looks like great looking VIDEO (razor sharp and souless/ no grain), therefore not like film. In terms of latitude, the images look great!

 

If only we could stop gettting people to treat HD as THE SLAYER OF FILM, soon to wrestle its nemesis from its evil grip on image aquisition . . . (sigh)

 

Film vs HD. Hmm . . .

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Not sure that digital is the right choice for this kind of subject matter (choppers) because it still has trouble with the specular highlights of chrome and other shiny metals, as evidenced by this clip. I don't find the blown-out highlights to be terribly garcious and although the clip got compressed for online, I serioulsy doubt that the original material does not suffer from the problem, the contrast is just way too high.

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Not sure that digital is the right choice for this kind of subject matter (choppers) because it still has trouble with the specular highlights of chrome and other shiny metals, as evidenced by this clip. I don't find the blown-out highlights to be terribly garcious and although the clip got compressed for online, I serioulsy doubt that the original material does not suffer from the problem, the contrast is just way too high.

No way to tell from a compressed 8 bit sample of a 12 bit original.

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No way to tell from a compressed 8 bit sample of a 12 bit original.

 

No way to tell everything, but clipping is clipping.

 

If the highlight info was there, why didn't he recover it ?

 

I've seen (and shot) plenty of film where highlights fit in an 8 bit sample !

 

-Sam

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No way to tell everything, but clipping is clipping.

If the highlight info was there, why didn't he recover it ?

I've seen (and shot) plenty of film where highlights fit in an 8 bit sample !

-Sam

You can't tell because you don't know what they extracted from the RAW file. The highlight can be clipped on the original or not. You are throwing 4 bits away. The rest is speculation. And even if it was clipped it does not have to be. Expose differently, use a filter. You got ~11 stops to work with on the RED.

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You can't tell because you don't know what they extracted from the RAW file. The highlight can be clipped on the original or not. You are throwing 4 bits away. The rest is speculation. And even if it was clipped it does not have to be. Expose differently, use a filter. You got ~11 stops to work with on the RED.

 

No I don't quite know what was extracted from the RAW file -- but I'm seeing an otherwise acceptable range of exposure, albeit on the contrasty side as Mazx noted, _and_ I'm seeing it hard clip....

 

You're the one who's speculating that the highlight detail "existed somewhere"

 

I don't have access to a densitometer and the original negative when I watch a film either.

 

Anyway, I have no bias here -- it's just that I'm hearing left and right anecdotal reports of this camera's footage "surpasing 5218 in highlight detail" and so on, but I ain't seen that yet.

 

-Sam

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An interesting thing about shooting linear digital HD (which I do using Andromeda DVX, not as nice as Red, but still linear and 10 bit) is that you really need a DP who understands what is required to create a "rolling" off in the highlights. This is something you really need to do in post, typically via curves. The catch however is that many people shooting HD expose "to the right" which is good for reducing signal noise, but they don't take into account how post will affect the upper end, and once they get there, they find that creating the roll off looses details they wanted to keep. I guess what I'm saying, is that they didn't light for the post roll off effect. Expose to the right, but also be aware that the highest stop or so worth of highlight detail may become lost when you generate the roll off effect. This same principal applies to the shadow end as well, though its much more forgiving. I've heard the camera has a good 11.5 stops to work with, but as far as I'm concerned, its more like 10 or 9 if you really want that film like tonal response. So far, it seems many shooters aren't quite realizing that yet, but I think they will eventually catch on, and start working within the "usable" range that actually makes it to the screen.

 

As for being too clean, I hear this argument day in and out, and its an easy fix. Post grain. I'm sure I'll hear people say post grain doesn't look like real grain, I would say prove it to me. Effects post houses sample and emulate film grain from all kinds of stocks to match HD and CGI effects into film acquired shots all the time. Its called "match grain" in After Effects (that was used for a few shots in the "The Departed"), and I'm sure there are even more powerful proprietary post grain tools out there as well. The funny thing with grain matching, is that it works its best with very, very clean source footage.

 

As for loosing a full 4 bits, that also makes a big difference. If you load any image into say After Effects, and then open up curves, you can pull the curve shorter, while keeping it linear, and create harsh highlight clipping. I'm not saying they did that, but some people use that trick to get rid of magenta highlights. I have no idea why anyone would do that with Red, as it has a cool highlight correction code in Red Alert! but you never know... they might not have good grasp on how to process the RAW data yet. I've read that some future red owners (I'm guessing these people are a minority) haven't even shot with a RAW DSLR before... I'm just saying! I can clearly see a learning curve that is being climbed when I watch some of the footage.

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Hi Chris, I accept your points.

 

I have no doubt Red performs quite nicely in totally controlled lighting situations (the "Las Vegas" spots linked here alone demonstrate that). And yes you can "expose to the left" even and still trash your top end, it can still bite you... depending...

 

(Total control of lighting and you cn get nice highlights with an F900 etc, even cheaper cameras)

 

I have no idea why anyone would do that with Red, as it has a cool highlight correction code in Red Alert! but you never know... they might not have good grasp on how to process the RAW data yet.

 

Well that's what I'm curious about. Do you think the 2 .movs on this thread did not take advantage of this in Red Alert ? (was that not enabled yet ?)

 

-Sam

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You're the one who's speculating that the highlight detail "existed somewhere"

No. I said you can't tell. But I have read reports at the Red forum where clipped highlights were in shots and when people went back to the RAW file they realised they could get the highlight detail back with different raw rendering parameters. This might be such a case, or not. We don't know.

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I'm really not trying to pick on the footage but seriously man, it's so video-looking. I mean it's nice video, yeah, but still has that cheap feeling and lack of texture. I honestly don't see the big deal anymore. And this is coming from someone who almost put down $ on a red back in '06.

 

And I didn't mention the obvious grip's legs and fluid head reflections on the parked engine chrome. ;)

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I'm really not trying to pick on the footage but seriously man, it's so video-looking. I mean it's nice video, yeah, but still has that cheap feeling and lack of texture. I honestly don't see the big deal anymore. And this is coming from someone who almost put down $ on a red back in '06.

And I didn't mention the obvious grip's legs and fluid head reflections on the parked engine chrome. ;)

You can add all the 'texture' (which is a euphemism for noise) you want later. And reflections are not the camera's fault.

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DSLR photography is a great comparison and I don't mind the look at all. In fact, I enjoy what's I'm coming to see as the Red aesthetic. I'm actually trying to get my hands on one to shoot the video I'm doing on the 19th. Any Red takers?? :)

 

Evan W.

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