NAB frame grabs #2

[Jarred Land]

http://24puser.com/015197xs.jpg

http://24puser.com/005831xs.jpg

http://24puser.com/012562xs.jpg

[Gianny Trutmann]

Really cool keep it coming

[Matt Setnes]

Brilliant!!!

[Tom Lowe]

Oh Man, It's All Over for film!!!!!!

[Craig Ryan]

Uncanny detail. It looks unreal...and I mean that in the highest regard...look at the detail in that sky!

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Oh Man, It's All Over for film!!!!!!

...Yep. The only reason to shoot film now is if you really, really, really want to and don't mind spending the extra money to do so.

[Pol Turrents]

:blink: :blink: :ohmy: :ohmy:

[Nikolai Vavilov]

Yepp.... they look so cool...
but why so low resolution???

[Brian Kaz]

I thought this camera shot 4k. Those stills are tiny :)

Looks great!

[Jeff Kilgroe]

...look at the detail in that sky!

The sky, the dirt, the rocks, the rusty metal, the wood, the fine threads on the sandbags. Jeezus, and these are tiny compared to a 4K frame (4096x2304) / (1100x490) = 17.5... Go into Photoshop and scale one up to 4K... it's soft, but still tells quite a bit.

The muzzle flash looks CG though. ;)

[Steve Freebairn]

It is cg, WETA STYLE :)

[Jannard]

The sky, the dirt, the rocks, the rusty metal, the wood, the fine threads on the sandbags. Jeezus, and these are tiny compared to a 4K frame (4096x2304) / (1100x490) = 17.5... Go into Photoshop and scale one up to 4K... it's soft, but still tells quite a bit.

The muzzle flash looks CG though. ;)

Muzzle flash is NOT CG, just so you know... :-)

Tracers in the aerials were CG.

Jim

[Tonaci Tran]

LOVIN the bokeh in the first shot..and all of them..so crystal clear..anyone who does't know about red would say..wow.. nice digital slr pics.. canon mark II probably.

[Craig Ryan]

That's insane; my first instinct was "There's no way they were able to expose that well to a muzzle flash while still resolving that much detail in the shadows". I think this is proof that RED is almost too good to be true.

[Brook Willard]

On a malfunctioning alpha camera, no less...

[feb31films]

Now I am REALLY pissed that I did not make the trip to NAB this year and see this film projected in 4K. The shot with the bayonet made my nipples hard. :w00t:

[Adrian Correia]

Validation for all of our faith in this company. Congratulations....to all of us!

[JD Holloway]

Many of the images feel as if they have a 20x20 silk floating over them. But then I see the muzzle flash and think...gee, the top end is just increadibly controlled...The glint off the bayonett feels like it should be harsher in raw sunlight but its not, just increadible controlled.

So my guestion is...How run and gun was the shoot or is the lighting team working hard in these shots? Wish I was there,

J.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Muzzle flash is NOT CG, just so you know... :-)

Tracers in the aerials were CG.

Jim

That's cool. Hard to tell for sure from the still.. The camera handled it very well.

[Harmonica]

I think the muzzle looks CG because of the weird lighting, which I think is Jim's point in the "bad red footage" thread. The camera is such a superb piece of cinematic sophistication, that any poor quality footage that comes out of it will be due to external factors (ie. my own stupidity).

[Brook Willard]

I never asked Richard about it specifically, but I seem to remember overhearing something about a few 18Ks through muslin and a 12K walked in on occasion. As for whether it was present in these shots or not... well...

[damonbots]

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Are you shitting me??

These grabs are beautiful

[Jannard]

The daylight sun in New Zealand is probably the harshest in the world. I heard that from Peter and Richard and fully believe that from seeing it. No silks were used.

Jim

[Jarred Land]

The daylight sun in New Zealand is probably the harshest in the world. I heard that from Peter and Richard and fully believe that from seeing it. No silks were used.

Jim

Jims not kidding.. there is very little Ozone left over New Zealand, and the latitude is incredibly dramatic.

We had to wear SPF sunblock every day.

[David Mullen ASC]

In bright sunlight, it's no surprise that the muzzle flash would be exposed with enough detail, just as any explosion would too -- in full sunlight at 64 ASA (250 ASA with ND.60 let's say) you've got about an f/16-f/22 split typically. The DP told me he was generally shooting around an f/8 or so, using ND filters, when the sun was out.

At those light levels, even a bad DV camera would probably hold detail in a muzzle flash.

He also told me that he pushed some 18K HMI's through some silks at a distance, but he couldn't really get too close because of all the action, camera movement, explosions, etc. Probably the same reason why an overhead silk would be impractical, especially if you were shooting a lot of set-ups per day. In closer shots, he just brought in some bounce cards for fill.

Some of the "silked" shots (those with softened sunlight) just look like high, thin cloud cover momentarily covered the sun. A few other shots looked like they were made as the sun was going down -- there was one of those "soldier crawling towards the photo" shots that actually looked artificially-lit to me, in that the light was probably failing and the DP was boosting it with the 18K HMI's in order to get another set-up.

Because of all the action, camera moves, and set-ups, you're probably seeing a lot of shots made only in available light, so it's a good example of how the camera handles full sun and shade. Maybe this is a no-brainer, but the dynamic range displayed reminded me of DSLR still photography, like from a high-end Nikon or Canon. Which is pretty good, although color negative will typically hold even more extreme high-end information, especially when using the low-con stocks. The camera seems to have enough dynamic range to be manageable by the DP using simple tools like bounce cards for fill, etc.

[Jannard]

David... you are correct (as usual). I meant that there were no large silks over the scene, but there were silks in front of the lights. There were a few shots in the evening that were lit as "night for day".

Jim

[Zach Hilton]

David... you are correct (as usual). I meant that there were no large silks over the scene, but there were silks in front of the lights. There were a few shots in the evening that were lit as "night for day".

Jim

Was one of them the shot of the soldier crawling for the picture right before the tank came into frame?

[Jarred Land]

yes... that shot with the crawl interrupted by the tank was shot when the sun was gone :)

[Zach Hilton]

yes... that shot with the crawl interrupted by the tank was shot when the sun was gone :)

Thanks. Out of all the shots, that was the one that looked the most artificial, so something had to be up since everything else looked fabulous. But with 2 days and that many setups, I can't complain. Just observing.

[Brook Willard]

I guess they weren't normal 12-hour days, eh? :)

[damonbots]

Wow, the heavy hitters are here tonight! Who's got the Cognac?
This is a terribly ridiculous question, but I just have to know...
was Mr. Jackson wearing shoes?

[Jarred Land]

I guess they weren't normal 12-hour days, eh? :)

thats the funny thing.. they actually were 12 hour days.

[Alexander Nikishin]

I still can't forget that magic hour shot of the planes riding toward camera as the golden wheat field blows below...beautiful.

[Jannard]

Wow, the heavy hitters are here tonight! Who's got the Cognac?
This is a terribly ridiculous question, but I just have to know...
was Mr. Jackson wearing shoes?

Peter is one of the most interesting and talented people I have ever met, and I have met a few rock stars in my life. And yes... he was wearing shoes.

Jim

[Jarred Land]

but i wasnt :)

[Kjetil Haugen]

I still can't forget that magic hour shot of the planes riding toward camera as the golden wheat fields blows below...beautiful.

Not fair man! Not FAIR!!! From what I understand, we'll never get to see it. So please!!! Don't rub it in.... :sad:

[damonbots]

Peter is one of the most interesting and talented people I have ever met, and I have met a few rock stars in my life. And yes... he was wearing shoes.

Jim

I totally agree. You pretty much can't answer that stupid question of mine without prefacing it. Nice work. By the way, I've never thanked you for your incredible achievement with the RED camera and for offering me something I've only dreamt about before... so, thank you so much. I only hope one day I can meet you in person and say it personally.

[JD Holloway]

Thanks for the tech rundown Gents.

It sounds like nothing out of the ordinary for a typical crazy shootday.
I can't wait to see more stills.

David if your information on fill control is correct it sounds like RED should fit easily in to our tradictional HD/Film lighting models/techniques without much rethinking.

J.

[Alexander Nikishin]

Not fair man! Not FAIR!!! From what I understand, we'll never get to see it. So please!!! Don't rub it in.... :sad:

Then I guess I shouldn't tell you about the shot where Kong came out and annihilated the entire SS?

[damonbots]

but i wasnt :)

I bet you've got big smelly feet too! Why didn't you put on one of those helmets and jump in the action?!

[Kjetil Haugen]

Then I guess I shouldn't tell you about the shot where Kong came out and annihilated the entire SS?

And Kong wasn't even CGI, I've heard! I'll go and cry now...

[Brook Willard]

thats the funny thing.. they actually were 12 hour days.

Geez... that makes it even more impressive. I sort of assumed they were end-of-the-world days.

27 hours total then?

[John Allardice]

What I find a MAJOR testament to the strength of the image is the fact that we're looking at a short, shot by a DP with no previous experience with the Red One.... He had no sense of the latitude or color response of redcode, so obviously had to shoot in a somewhat generic fashion.
David ( glad to see you on the board BTW), imagine shooting a project of that scope, in two days, with a stock you'd never heard of or tested before.
I'm sure you could do it, but wouldn't it make you averse to taking any chances with the format? underexposing and pushing...etc.
What I'm looking forward to in the coming months is seeing the chances that people will take with the format once they've become more familiar with its response.

J

[JD Holloway]

What I find a MAJOR testament to the strength of the image is the fact that we're looking at a short, shot by a DP with no previous experience with the Red One.... He had no sense of the latitude or color response of redcode, so obviously had to shoot in a somewhat generic fashion.
David ( glad to see you on the board BTW), imagine shooting a project of that scope, in two days, with a stock you'd never heard of or tested before.
I'm sure you could do it, but wouldn't it make you averse to taking any chances with the format? underexposing and pushing...etc.
What I'm looking forward to in the coming months is seeing the chances that people will take with the format once they've become more familiar with its response.

J

I agree. Its sort of what I was trying to say.

[Graeme Nattress]

Yes, Richard did a superb job. It was such a pleasure for us to meet him and to hear how he shot it.

Graeme

[David Mullen ASC]

Not to take anything away from what Richard accomplished, but unless one was going out on a shoot with a pretty darn funky format/process (like cross-processed color reversal!) that you didn't have time to test for its contrast range, you'd probably figure that the typical camera or format could handle straight-forward day exterior shots for the most part.

You're generally not playing the main subject at the extreme end of the exposure scale, so your concerns would mostly be background things like how hot the sky would get, etc.

Besides, it's the nature of day exterior photography that there are limits anyway to how much you can alter what God gives you, especially in wide shots.

So in a sense, the shoot itself becomes your test to determine what the camera can handle at the extremes -- you figure that the camera can handle the midtones afterall, and day work has a lot of midtones.

If the RED test scene involved some sort of low-light night project in the style of "Seven", let's say, and the character was going to crawl around in near darkness... I'd say that Richard probably would have liked to have more time to test the camera. But for day exterior work, to some degree, it's easier to take a chance because you're not working on the edge of exposure for your subject.

What impressed me the most about Richard's work was that it was so consistent in quality considering the speed of the work. It's very easy to fall into sloppiness when you've got to shoot that many set-ups in one day.

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Muzzle flash is NOT CG, just so you know... :-)
Jim


Yesterday on the way back from lunch I looked up and there was this random dark squirrely looking cloud in a sea of white and I turned to my co-worker and commented. "Looks like God forgot his mDiv."

Sorry.. terrible compositor joke. Not funny at all. :help:

[dalen johnson]

Love the first one...the blur (depth of field I suppose in film terms)

Something strikes me about the images...3D.
I feel like Im looking at Maya images. Maybe some are?
Cant pinpoint what it is exactly...the colors, textures...anyway.
(not meant as a criticism, just an observation.)

Peace

dalen

[Poi Boy]

Hey Jim did you stay in the Hobbit room at Peter's house ?
-A

[Craig Ryan]

haha yeah PJ's got the Bag End set in his backyard. Once you have part of a movie set in your own home, you are set.

[ericyoung]

Hey Jim did you stay in the Hobbit room at Peter's house ?
-A

Would have been funny seeing Jarred squeezing into the small version of that! Hee hee!

[Jarred Land]

Would have been funny seeing Jarred squeezing into the small version of that! Hee hee!

the hobbits are scared of me... i received a restraining order as soon as i landed in Wellington. :)

heh heh heh.

[Jaime Vallés]

I just woke up (11:40am) and check REDuser (who needs cocaine?!) and find all this!!! These stills look absolutely fantastic! There's a very sweeping epic romantic-hollywood feel to them. Impressive as heck! Congratulations to the shooting crew and to team RED for making this possible.

Now, whenever you get a bit of a break, if you could post a full-res still of the movie that'd be superb!

[ericyoung]

the hobbits are scared of me... i received a restraining order as soon as i landed in Wellington. :)

heh heh heh.

Why's that? :innocent:

Were you caught Hobbit rustling?!! Did the local law enforcement put a price on your head? Was there a Jarred posse dedicated to bringing you to justice? LOL :clown2:

[Brook Willard]

For those of you that don't know, Jarred is 8' 9". He eats Hobbits for breakfast.

[Deanan]

What impressed me the most about Richard's work was that it was so consistent in quality considering the speed of the work. It's very easy to fall into sloppiness when you've got to shoot that many set-ups in one day.

Richard also has a fantastic crew that he's put together.
Very tight running and an absolute pleasure to work with!

Deanan

[Samuel Doyle]

The daylight sun in New Zealand is probably the harshest in the world. I heard that from Peter and Richard and fully believe that from seeing it. No silks were used.

Jim

I have worked in the Museum industry here in NZ for a number of years, we have a case of NZ sunlight fading the colour of Jade (stone)......


S

[Steakslim]

Am I the only one noticing that the 2nd screenshot has jaggies?

[Jannard]

Am I the only one noticing that the 2nd screenshot has jaggies?

Steak... careful here. If you are blowing up the pic in any program greater than 100%, you will see jaggies. That is inherent in 200% jpegs.

Trust me when I tell you that the 4K version has NO JAGGIES.

Jim

[Steakslim]

Steak... careful here. If you are blowing up the pic in any program greater than 100%, you will see jaggies. That is inherent in 200% jpegs.

Trust me when I tell you that the 4K version has NO JAGGIES.

Jim

Oh snap your right, my browser's zoom was set to 110% somehow *shakes fists*

Now lookin back at the pics....mmmm, Ah, delicious.

[Jannard]

I've done the same thing a few times...

Jim

[dalemccready]

Jims not kidding.. there is very little Ozone left over New Zealand, and the latitude is incredibly dramatic.

We had to wear SPF sunblock every day.


Try a burn time of 6 minutes on some days. A lot of North Americans come here and get caught out on overcast days. In full sun you can feel it stinging. It used to feel like a nice sunny warmth, now it's radiation.

[Peter McCully]

Absolutely. The light here is a real blinder. The characteristics of NZ light has a lot to do with being surrounded by sea and other factors such as the moisture content.

[overlandfilms]

What David M. says about the testing in mostly daylight versus controlled stage tests makes good sense.

At the same time, this footage is exactly what I (and many others) had been asking Jim for (prior to the milk footage) all along. It speaks directly to how RED manages imaging in the most hostile environment for digital cameras - direct sunlit exteriors.

Nothing will give away your technology faster than trying to capture over ten stops of range with a typical HD imager.

The weta footage from RED conclusively shows that the advertised specification of 11+ stops translates into a level of control only afforded through the use of daylight film stocks until now. Resolution, color sampling and latitude have finally been given equal attention within one larger component and the results look very good.

Shooting under controlled, staged conditions won't challenge RED's technology as this test did. As David said, daylight shooting can represent a somewhat sloppy broad-brush situation under the best of conditions.

Without creating a completely enclosed artificial indoor environment, silks and nets and negative fills can only do so much to reign in the master's source. NZ must present amazing challenges for Peter's team and their resulting releases are a true testament to their abilities and knowledge in this discipline.

At any rate, shooting on a stage allows the painter the most control over the set and subject. On stage, changing ratios is a relatively simple matter and experienced cinematographers, their gaffer and grips will be able to design workflow to compliment or avoid the inherent "weaknesses" of RED.

Not that I see any after the daylight footage. Good stuff.

[Vincent Rice]

Mmmmm... bokeh.

Beautiful.

[combatentropy]

The images look better if you adjust the curves.

489

490

Click for enlargement.

[Nick Shaw]

Surely there is no such thing as 'better'. It's all a personal aethetic preference.

[Shawn Nelson]

I like'em. More of a gritty look, very WWI appropriate.

[Graeme Nattress]

They may look better, (or worse depending on your POV) but you've just removed a lot of the dynamic range from the shots. If we'd shown them as you'e graded them, we would have been hauled over the coals.

But the whole idea is that RED gives you room and data and resolution to play, and you've certainly done that. It's even nicer playing from the RAW files direct in REDCINE - you can do awesome looks and then put them back into the camera.

Graeme

[Brook Willard]

Merged the threads. We have enough threads going on already... :)

[combatentropy]

Surely there is no such thing as 'better'. It's all a personal aethetic preference.

Give me a break.


you've just removed a lot of the dynamic range from the shots

Not a lot. And if I had access to the original camera feed, instead of these 8-bit down-rezzes, it would have even more of the original dynamic range.

What I did was adjust the response curve to more or less that of film. I would prefer to adjust the curve in-camera, before it was recorded.

I guess I would at least say that my graded versions look more like movies I see.

[David Mullen ASC]

Graeme's right -- since one of the big concerns with digital cinematography is always dynamic range compared to film, the last thing you want in a demo is something corrected to look very contrasty for artistic reasons, because half the audience is going to think "my god, that's harsh-looking!" and attribute it to the camera. At least when you see a lower-contrast image in a demo, you know that you can always add more contrast in post. But when you see a high-contrast image, you're not sure whether the camera lacks the capability to handle high dynamic range images, or if it was done in post.

[Andrew M.]

In the context of the discussion here of shots in the bright outside light versus interior and the dynamic range we have to deal with, I am asking myself the question.
Can you optimize CMOS sensor in the production to have one for interior shots and the other type of the sensor optimized for the exterior use, like the different film stocks?

I know changing the sensor on RED is not a field job since the back focus have to be precisely set, but having two REDs one with optimized CMOS for bright exterior shots and the other for the rest of lighting conditions would fix the dynamic range problem for time being till CMOS technology will catch up with 16 stops or more. Then in the post we could handle it in 16 bit environment. I think 16 bit is already used to handle 12 bit data just for precision, as Graeme said.
Anybody could elaborate on the film stock category in terms of light and dynamic range of the stock?

[Nick Shaw]

Apologies for the pedantry. I didn't want to start an argument. I like the look you have applied to the images.

[Graeme Nattress]

The camera raw images look very flat indeed because of their dynamic range, and very unsaturated because of their wide gamut. Once you start to make the image look "punchy" you are throwing away a few stops of DR, and when you make it saturated, you're limiting gamut. But that's fine. Until we can get a wide dynamic range display that will take that flat look and still have it punchy as it displays the full range, what we will have to do is careful colour correction and good use of secondaries to bring out the shadow details while not crushing the highlights.

Graeme

[peter roehsler]

The stills show there is room for grading either way. Shooting digital you go for the lowest contrast the camera allows you, depending on your light situation. Looking at footage, it may even appear a bit dull. Grading for release is one of the last things you do. A lot of people fall for `Cine-Gamma´ or `film look´ featured with prosumer cameras. This is clearly a dead end road taking you straight to high contrast hell already with your master. Hardly a way out, unless you really wanted it that way.

[David Mullen ASC]

The modern Kodak Vision-2 and Fuji Eterna stocks are fairly wide-latitude, maybe in the 12-stop range or so depending on if you are scanning them versus just contact-printing them. Of course, due to the nature of their non-linear response to light, they are lower contrast in the extreme ends of the exposure range, which helps them from abruptly clipping or crushing detail.

Both Kodak and Fuji make a lower-contrast stock (Kodak Expression 500T and Fuiji Eterna 400T) -- Kodak dropped an even lower-contrast stock (5263, or SO-63, used on "Elephant" and "Lost in Translation") because most people thought it was too darn milky-looking. And Kodak makes a super low-con stock called "Vision HD 72/5299" that is designed for telecine/scanning only.

For years, my complaint to Kodak and Fuji has been that all their low-con stocks are high-speed (and thus grainier) when the time you really need a low-con stock is outside in the sun. It's not so much of an issue these days since even the normal stocks are pretty wide-latitude / lower in contrast.

In fact, they have optimized their stocks so much for scanning that some people have complained that for normal printing that doesn't involve digital intermediates, the stocks are now too low-contrast and thus boring-looking. To compensate somewhat, both Kodak and Fuji have made a higher-contrast print stock (Kodak Vision Premier and Fuji XD) -- trouble is that they charge more of those print stocks and the studios often balk at paying the extra pennies for them (adds up when you make 4000 release prints!)

Anyway, as an experiment, to give people not doing a D.I. a saturated, high-contast option, Fuji has released a new negative stock called Vivid 160T, which gives you a somewhat high-con Fuji Velvia / Kodachrome slide-film look in a color negative. They don't really know how the market will respond, but there have already been some people experimenting with it. I'm going to see a demo of it this Thursday.

[Poi Boy]

This thread really illustrates that a lot of people don't get it as far as shooting raw. I would suggest that those that don't buy themselves a cheap DSLR and practice shooting and processing raw files into different looks. That will be your best education for the buck you can get for shooting with Red.
Aloha
-A

[Andrew M.]

Now I got it, so for 3-5 transistor CMOS implementation it would be good to design the bleeding current circuit at the high charge zone where highlight tend to suddenly blew up on the digital sensor. As oppose to film the highlights go in to the gentle flattening curve up there.

[Dave Cooper]

Personally I would just do something as simple as this:

http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/1117/91177106518ze3.jpg

Gives the image that extra punch without looking too flat or blowing out highlights.

I can't wait to see more screenshots or video. Keep it coming.

[Andrew M.]

Looks like some people are working on such non linear CMOS already.
http://larc.ee.nthu.edu.tw/~syhuang/paper.ps/sensor.TCE.2005.pdf
We nee the actual photo-site to have a bleeder not just a logarithmic A to D converter.

Not only the highlights but low light as well.
Doing the RAW to RGB algorithm will be a challenge though.
Much easier to convert linear data, isn’t it Graeme?

[Ralph Wong]

The images look better if you adjust the curves.

489

490

Click for enlargement.

I would really like to know what you did to get these looks in terms of adjusting the curves. I have been fiddling around with photoshop the last few days trying to get the film look and have been unsuccessful. Of course, I am relatively new to color correction and don't have a lot of experience with it. The only way I got close to the look I was going for was by using the sharpen filter which most people say is a bad idea when applied to moving footage.

In another thread, a member commented that the grabs looked kind of video like. Unfortunately, I would have to agree. I thought the shot of the gun with the bayonet at the end screamed video. The shot of the soldier seemed somewhere between video and film. The shot of the soldiers firing the machine gun looked really good, though. I guess what I'm looking for is that "punchy" look everyone is talking about where the shadows and detail really stand out.

I know some people here say that Red is a whole new look, forget trying to emulate film. However, I really like film and want to replicate that without breaking the bank shooting film. I'm guessing the key is in color correction because I have seen movies shot on the Varicam that look very filmic and others shot on the Varicam that look very video like. Some say it depends on the DP. However, I have seen F900 footage shot in uncontrolled run and gun situations that could pass for film. Having sat in on some color correction sessions, I know how much they can change the look of an image now. The only question I have is how?

The good news is that Red appears to give us the ability to achieve any look we want. I understand why they decided to make the footage flat in order to show off the range of the camera. However, whenever footage is released, I hope they will also show a color corrected version to show how close the image can be made to look like a "Saving Private Ryan". Afterall, we go to the theaters to watch movies... not dynamic ranges.

[David Mullen ASC]

Why do all war movies have to look like "Saving Private Ryan"? "The Thin Red Line" had a completely natural, unmanipulated, sharp, saturated look -- just straight color negative photography, no special processes applied.

[Priyesh P.]

David, that´s something I am wondering about, too.
Even at the intro of Hellboy, which takes place at time of WWII, too they have this bleach-bypass and 45 degrees shutter look.

Priyesh

[Ralph Wong]

Why do all war movies have to look like "Saving Private Ryan"? "The Thin Red Line" had a completely natural, unmanipulated, sharp, saturated look -- just straight color negative photography, no special processes applied.

Every war movie doesn't have to look like "Saving Private Ryan", but considering how I don't like the look of the frame grabs coming out at the moment "Saving Private Ryan" is an example of a film look I would rather have. Right now the frame grabs looks like it was shot by the people who did "Unsolved Mysteries". I should know. I worked on that show, and the recreations always looked flat and uninspired to me.

[Poi Boy]

If you don't like the grabs, go out and make some of your own.
-A

[combatentropy]

The camera raw images look very flat indeed because of their dynamic range, and very unsaturated because of their wide gamut. Once you start to make the image look "punchy" you are throwing away a few stops of DR, and when you make it saturated, you're limiting gamut.
Graeme

No, the raw images look flat -- or even milky -- because of the response curve, also called the Characteristic Curve (by Kodak, at least).

I did only two things to each of the two pictures I presented:

1. Color corrected. In post, blue already has obviously been subtracted from the images for some effect -- basically a warmer look. But adding more of one color also decreases contrast, so I brought the white balance more or less back to normal.

http://www.reduser.net/forum/uploaded/2100_1177281963.png
http://www.reduser.net/forum/uploaded/2100_1177281914.png

2. Changed the response curve from a diagonal line to an S shape. This is basically how film reacts to light. Notice I am not actually throwing away, or clipping, any of the shadows or any of the highlights. Another way to explain the S curve is that you are raising the contrast of the mid-range light levels while decreasing the contrast of the low and high ends.

http://www.reduser.net/forum/uploaded/2100_1177282056.png
http://www.reduser.net/forum/uploaded/2100_1177281996.png

But as you can see, I did not clip the highlights or the shadows. Their contrast is just lessened while the mid-ranges now have more contrast.

I did not touch the brightness/contrast controls or the saturation controls, but it seems that changing the curve indirectly affects contrast and saturation.

To my eye, the S-curve looks more realistic. An image with a straight diagonal line looks like video. Most people I have met say there's something fake or phony-looking about video, but they can't put there finger on it. I couldn't either for the longest time, until I played with the curves. I also have read that the human eye does not respond to light in a straight line either, for what it's worth. That may be why film looks more pleasing to most audience's eyes.

[David Mullen ASC]

I don't know where these frame grabs came from... but they probably weren't color-corrected to look good for a computer monitor display necessarily -- for example, they may have been corrected for the gamma of the Sony 4K projector. The black and white points also may not be set to look the best for computer monitors.

[Graeme Nattress]

Film does have it's characteristic S-Curve, but there's more to it than that! The mysterium sensor is very linear, so it's a great starting point to add whatever kind of transfer curve to it you want.

And as pointed out above, when you do maths on an image, it works best when it's in a totally linear space.

Film also has a wide dynamic range, so will tend to look "flat" in a straight transfer, just as RED looks very flat when you view it "as is".

If we had wide dynamic range displays, putting RED or Film through them, they'd look natural. Even "video" can have a wider range than TV, hence their aggressive knee curve to squash that range in, to make it look bright and pretty.

Graeme

[Andrew M.]

When we use RED just for cinematography in next few years, distribution copies have to be printed to film anyway, except these few theaters that are fully digital.
Digital cinemas have its own problem to come up with high dynamic range screen or projectors. So in post, we have to do adjustment for printers and this will take some time to figure it out. I guess we have to calibrate monitor screens to take under account the final output device.
Actually I don’t know how this will be done. Are you calibrating screens to see it as linear as possible or you calibrate the monitor screen to correct for the printer and projector idiosyncrasies?

[David Mullen ASC]

There are DCI projection standards for color space, gamma, etc. but as for home computer monitors, there are no standards -- none of us know how the other person's monitors are showing these frames.

[Andrew M.]

Looks like good reference monitors will have to be installed in more then usual places in the chain of post production, since what we get used to on the film will not work out the same way in the digital material.

[Ralph Wong]

No, the raw images look flat -- or even milky -- because of the response curve, also called the Characteristic Curve (by Kodak, at least).

I did only two things to each of the two pictures I presented:

1. Color corrected. In post, blue already has obviously been subtracted from the images for some effect -- basically a warmer look. But adding more of one color also decreases contrast, so I brought the white balance more or less back to normal.

2. Changed the response curve from a diagonal line to an S shape. This is basically how film reacts to light. Notice I am not actually throwing away, or clipping, any of the shadows or any of the highlights. Another way to explain the S curve is that you are raising the contrast of the mid-range light levels while decreasing the contrast of the low and high ends.

But as you can see, I did not clip the highlights or the shadows. Their contrast is just lessened while the mid-ranges now have more contrast.

I did not touch the brightness/contrast controls or the saturation controls, but it seems that changing the curve indirectly affects contrast and saturation.

To my eye, the S-curve looks more realistic. An image with a straight diagonal line looks like video. Most people I have met say there's something fake or phony-looking about video, but they can't put there finger on it. I couldn't either for the longest time, until I played with the curves. I also have read that the human eye does not respond to light in a straight line either, for what it's worth. That may be why film looks more pleasing to most audience's eyes.

Thanks, I tried applying the S-curve to some of the shots, and it definitely helped a lot. I'm not use to working with curves. Usually I just try to adjust saturation and color levels. Some of the images I am getting are coming close to that film look I wanted. I understand that Red is designed to capture the best image possible for doing post work on to achieve the look you want, but it is nice to see actual examples of the look I want. This has renewed my optimism in the Red camera and hopefully, I will be receiving mine around September as the schedule says. I looked forward to seeing more frame grabs that I can mess around with in the near future.

[Anders Holck]

There are DCI projection standards for color space, gamma, etc. but as for home computer monitors, there are no standards -- none of us know how the other person's monitors are showing these frames.

Well, these stills have an attached Adobe RGB color profile. If Jim has correctly made a colorspace conversion from rec709 (or xyz) the stills should look pretty close if viewed on a calibrated computer monitor using a color management aware application. But of cause anyone watching these stills inside Internet explorer see them as pretty flat and desaturated because of the wider gamut colorspace. On the mac using Safari they should look a lot better because it is colormanaged.

[Poi Boy]

Anders don't you mean explorer's smaller gamut color space ?
-A

[Anders Holck]

I mean the images are in a wider gamut color space (Adobe RGB) if you view that in a uncolor managed application, the images seem flat because the wider gamut are not translated into the smaller gamut of a basic RGB display(proximated in the sRGB profile)

[Poi Boy]

Got it.
-A

[Graeme Nattress]

Wide gamuts, when displayed without correction in a smaller gamut tend to look desaturated. Similarly, a wide dynamic range displayed in a smaller one, without a contrast curve, will look very flat.

Graeme

[Dave Cooper]

If we had wide dynamic range displays, putting RED or Film through them, they'd look natural.

Do you know of any displays off hand that would work nice? Also, have you tried any with RED footage?

[Deanan]

Wide gamuts, when displayed without correction in a smaller gamut tend to look desaturated. Similarly, a wide dynamic range displayed in a smaller one, without a contrast curve, will look very flat.

Graeme

Likewise, the same thing happens in the print stock. A wide dynamic
range is squished via the print stocks transfer characteristics into
a visual range (with a nice contrast curve).

d

[Gabi]

Amazing¡¡...a new era begins... RIP film....

[JD Holloway]

I mean the images are in a wider gamut color space (Adobe RGB) if you view that in a uncolor managed application, the images seem flat because the wider gamut are not translated into the smaller gamut of a basic RGB display(proximated in the sRGB profile)

Oh Oh,

Now i have to be critical of every shot I look at on my PC?
Bugger...
Where are my option menus....

[Anders Holck]

Just so I don't blow this out of porportion.
Here are the Reduser site in two different browsers.
The top image is correctly color managed, the bottom one is not.

http://www.holckowen.com/red/CMM.jpg

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Different applications can be set to use different color spaces... Well, not all of them can, but Windows and OSX also have settings for default color and gamma. There's a lot to keep track of and if you're doing serious color work, it's best to keep it on a properly adjusted system with calibrated displays in a consistent lighting environment.

That said... Why do just about all the color grades by members here try to mimmic the gritty, green look of Saving Private Ryan / Band of Brothers??? Is there some new unwritten law I'm unaware of? Don't mean to pick on anyone specific, but it's like hey, war movie... Let's make it green and grey. ...Here's a better suggestion, it's WWI, let's at least keep the uniforms close to the proper color.

Sorry, I must be a bit grumpy today.

[Anders Holck]

I can imagine Graeme will sell a lot of licenses for his Color plugins in the near future. It contains a very nice Bleach bypass/ENR plug in :-)

[Graeme Nattress]

Thanks Anders - I have no complaints about that! You can do some really neat stuff in Color and I'm looking forwards to seeing what Apple does to the App and what the wider audience can do with high end colour tools.

Graeme

[Brook Willard]

Off topic but... Graeme, will your Final Touch plugins work in Color?

[Nick Shaw]

The Apple page on Color actually refers to Graeme's plugins, so I assume yes!

[Brook Willard]

[places foot firmly into mouth] Next time I'll look around, eh? :)

[Graeme Nattress]

Yes, they work great, and there's a few new ones I've come up with too, that are going in there - mostly designed to get the best out of SD and HD and chroma subsampled video :-) RED users won't need those plugins :-)

Graeme

[Brook Willard]

If only Color had 4K support...

[vidalsosa]

[places foot firmly into mouth] Next time I'll look around, eh? :)

Do you often get caught doing this?

[Andrew M.]

Just so I don't blow this out of porportion.
Here are the Reduser site in two different browsers.
The top image is correctly color managed, the bottom one is not.

http://www.holckowen.com/red/CMM.jpg

So all these discussions on the other forums and this one about the film like or not film like look is worth nothing if you do not have reference monitor to check the footage on or at minimum color managed good quality PC screen. Good to know.
Even for home use just to be able to check or discuss the shots I would get good reference monitor anyway.

[Red Follower]

Are there anymore frame grabs or clips from PJ's short? - it would be a nice Christmas present for everyone to see something new.

Thanks