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Panavision Millennium DXL. Powered by RED. Color by Light Iron.


Tim Tyler

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Checkout the new 8K Panavision DXL with a 35 megapixel 8K RED sensor and 15 stops of dynamic range.

 

Sensor Type: 16-bit, 35.5 Megapixel CMOS

Resolution: 8192 x 4320

Sensor Size: Large Format: 40.96mm x 21.60mm (Diagonal: 46.31mm)

Dynamic Range: 15 stops

Max Frame Rate: 60 fps at 8K Full Frame (8192 x 4320), 75 fps at 8K 2.4:1 (8192 x 3456)

Recording Codec: 8K RAW with simultaneous 4K proxy (ProRes or DNx)

 

http://dxl.panavision.com/

 

I suppose this should go in the Panavision sub-forum, but... (Maybe I'll move it later...)

 

Congrats to RED!

 

 

Camera Views A_2.jpg

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Now that the sensor sits in a larger body, I suspect that the fans will be quieter, not louder -- looks like some large exhaust ports on it so better airflow.

 

I just saw "X-Men: Apocalypse" and the image was not thin nor noisy.

 

Anyway, I associate "thin" with weak blacks and Red images tend to be the opposite, rather heavy blacks and darker shadows than Alexa images.

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My definition of "thin" in that context is based on what the stuff's like to grade. Now, I'm not a full-time Resolve person, so take this for whatever it's worth, but I find that Red pictures have always fallen apart alarmingly quickly if there's any attempt to make more than microscopic changes. Perhaps "flimsy" would be a better word. Another example is the Blackmagic 4K sensor, which has sort of the same problem - it just costs sixteen times less, which makes it more acceptable in my view.

 

I avoided complaining about Red pictures for a long time, because it was a soft target in their first cameras and because there have been more than enough other things to disapprove of since, but honestly, they still seem to be chasing specification numbers before actual picture quality. The result is images that may just barely fulfil the spec in terms of resolution and dynamic range but as a consequence hang on the very edge of acceptable noise and reasonable colour rendering, and can be very hard to work with. Red pictures always seem to be danging from a precipice of acceptability by their fingernails, somehow.

 

How they can charge Alexa/F55/Varicam money for these things is beyond me. I'm absolutely astounded that Panavision would hang their hat on it.

 

P

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I believe it records R3D files, perhaps 3:1 is the lowest compression I believe. Photos I've seen of the camera body seem to show the same Redcode options on the menu display as with a Red Weapon.

 

Redcode is just as much raw as anyone else's raw -- in fact, "rawer" than some others that bake-in white balance, ISO gain, etc. And the Sony F65 raw is very mildly compressed. The Arriraw from the Alexa isn't compressed, but it is stored as 12-bit log instead of 16-bit linear. "Raw" just means a signal from a single sensor with a CFA before it gets processed to RGB.

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It sounds like an awesome camera, but sadly I have just never been a huge fan of the image from Red, but Im interested to see what panavision has going here, since its just the red chip, I wonder if Panavision is doing their own color science etc.

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I'd like to know exactly what they mean by "15 stops".

If it had a true 15 stop range, you'd think you'd be able to set the iris so that the highlights in your scene were just at the point of clipping and then convert this down to an 8-bit HDMI signal or similar to give a nice picture on a standard LCD monitor, and THEN if you either closed the iris down by 7 stops or put in 7 stops worth of ND, you should be able to crank the gain up by a factor of 128 times (42dB) and get pretty much the same image.

Is that going to happen.?I seriously doubt it! Certainly would be easy enough to prove me wrong, but nobody ever does....

 

Anyway, there's no lens ever made that can give you a 15-stop contrast range. The darkest "black" material known only has a reflective attenuation of about 10 stops.

 

I did enjoy the comments over on Reduser. Like suddenly Panavision have somehow "legitimized" Red cameras.
Er, guys ... Panavision have been renting out Red cameras for some years years now. Also Alexas; they'll even rent you a Canon 5D package if you ask them nicely!

"Those who called RED vaporware back in 2006 should feel ashamed now."

Erm ... but it er ... was wasn't it? Back then anyway...

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The Alexa does have a more pleasant image but the Dragon looks pretty damn stunning on Mr Robot for example, looks very good on X-Men Apocalypse as well, or Room, Daredevil, House Of Cards, 11.22.63, Straight Outta Compton, Fincher's films and Blomkamp's as well.

 

The color science is Light Iron's though, so that'll be interesting to see.

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Personally, I think the Dragon has a lovely sensor (so long as you get your exposure/olpf combination right). That same goodness, in Vistavision, with the practical layout that Panavision seem to have come up with, and improved colour mojo sounds great to me.

 

I think the most exciting thing though, was those new large-format lenses that can be focussed and controlled wirelessly - without any external motors! Very exciting stuff. That's the future right there.

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Being Red, though, is it going to sound like a hairdryer and make thin, noisy pictures?

 

Your information on the Red is outdated. Sound is not an issue ever since they switched the fans and firmware settings in Dragon. Weapon body is even quieter. I always love when people that haven't used Red gear for years or not even looked at it for years keep making fun of old tech. Well, guess what, they fixed it.

 

Yeah, you get "thin negative" and severely underexposed crap images full of noise if you can't use modern digital cinema cameras. For some reason it is never a problem for great majority of cinematographers that actually CAN shoot.

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Your information on the Red is outdated. Sound is not an issue ever since they switched the fans and firmware settings in Dragon. Weapon body is even quieter. I always love when people that haven't used Red gear for years or not even looked at it for years keep making fun of old tech. Well, guess what, they fixed it.

 

Yeah, you get "thin negative" and severely underexposed crap images full of noise if you can't use modern digital cinema cameras. For some reason it is never a problem for great majority of cinematographers that actually CAN shoot.

 

I think they mean the sound between takes when the camera is on standby. Never used the Weapon so don't know how it handles things... but generally if you have a small camera body with lots of heat production you just can't do it any other way if you have to fit the fans inside the camera body (which makes them small and leads to the hairdryer sound when they are in full power) .

 

The Dragon sensor is a major update over MX especially colour wise. and in the Weapon they also fixed the annoying filesystem if I remember correctly :lol:

 

I'm not sure what you mean with "thin negative", a latitude distribution issue which leads to underexposing according to the working ISO to protect the highlights? digital cameras may have a bit annoying shadow/highlight dynamic range balance and it is quite normal to underexpose a bit to make up with that if a camera has ugly clipping. it becomes a problem if one gets too much noise when correcting it afterwards, otherwise not so big deal generally...

 

I hope the Panavision thingy is RELIABLE in use. I'm sure the images from it are great or excellent but we'll see how it compares to Alexa 65 :)

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Sound is not an issue ever since they switched the fans and firmware settings in Dragon.

I shot a music video with a Dragon last week. The fan was so noisy the BTS guys asked us to turn the camera off when they were doing their interviews with the artists.

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I shot a music video with a Dragon last week. The fan was so noisy the BTS guys asked us to turn the camera off when they were doing their interviews with the artists.

That's been my experience as well. I did a shoot with an Epic and S16 recently. We had to take the RED outside between takes on S16 because the FILM camera was silent and the DIGITAL camera made too much noise for the ACTORS. They were getting pissed off by the noise in the extremely quiet room.

 

There is no reason for fans and big gaping holes on a digital cinema camera, none what so ever. It all goes down to physical size and manufacturers trying to fit everything into a very small package. In my eyes, any cameras with gaping holes in them, which go directly to electronics, are absolutely worthless. A clever heat sync design can solve almost all of these problems. The URSA Mini for instance is silent.

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A camera can have vents that don't go to the electronics -- the Alexa is a double-walled system so there is airflow inside the body but the electronics are sealed. Heat management IS an issue will all digital cameras.

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It's not normally during takes where it's an issue. It can be an issue on certain productions between takes, however, when they hit up to full blast.

We did have the Dragon hit full blast fans during a take today-- but granted, it was VERY hot in that room.

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Assuming the noise levels are what you'd expect, my concern would be ensuring you've got a cover on when it's raining. It looks like the camera could collect the water rather nicely in the the cooling system, with no where for it to drain away.

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Is there no fan control in the menu.. F5/55 has off/auto and off in record settings.. so you can have no fan during takes.. when in a very quite location..

 

yes there is, I don't have a camera around at the moment but it can be adjusted and will slow down during the takes. it's just that it will then vent out even more heat between the takes so it may be even noisier then but that is usually not a problem though you will occasionally get complaints about it for no reason :rolleyes:

 

but with a relatively small digital camera with huge heat generation, you can't keep it silent all the time, especially in hot conditions. it would just melt then ;)

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