Red for city nightscapes?

[Sarah C.]

Hey guys, anyone got a demo shot/frame from a Red of a cityscape at night? Preferably something like a bird's-eye view with lots of dark buildings and street lights as the only lighting. I'm trying to convince a production group to .. GO RED for a certain shoot. My preference is to show a full size frame with none or little compression... want to see Red do better than a film camera!

thanks much!
~Sarah

[Gunleik Groven]

Look at my lowlight tests...

[Sarah C.]

Hey Gunleik.. where are those tests located? (I tried your website.. didn't see a city shot..)

thanks
~S

[Steve Sherrick]

Gunleik has some good examples.

[Brian Broz]

I'm curious to shoot some tests...as my experience with low light tungten lit scenes has been abit underwhelming (at least with a T3 18-50). I assume it is still best to shoot at ASA320 in terms of the tradeoff between light level and noise!?

[Sarah C.]

Hi thanks guys! I downloaded a night test reel by Gunleik. It looks like the blacks may have been intentionally crushed in grading? Also.. looks like the darker values are noisy.. and the darker the noisier. Does this sound typical for Red?

Here's a frame from the reel.. note how little detail.. well, about none is located in the blacks. (This is not meant to disrespect Mr. G.. I believe he/someone did this intentionally to somewhat hide the noise). I'm looking at this via a MacBook Pro with the LED screen.. so it may look even darker on some monitors!
~S

http://cg-i.com/Gunleik_still.png

[J. Bernard Vallon]

all images will have noise in the shadows, in fact that is what makes it a shadow, is a lack of good information in a certain area. For a good test for a city scape you want some superspeeds and maybe even a 360 shutter. But, if it were my production I'd use stills from a DSLR and add grain

[Sarah C.]

Hey P.O.,

Yeah.. I know.. noise is going to happen. I was just hoping to have some form of proof that the Red could outperform a Genesis HD camera. So far I'm not seeing it. :( As for stills.. no can do.. likely our moving shot would be from a helicopter!

~S

[Kenn Michael]

I have a submission! :)

This was shot at 3am in NY with a 35mm Nikkor at f/2.

http://www.codekraft.com/red/ny_street.jpg

Gamma will be different depending on your browser so....

Download the 4K TIFF (http://www.codekraft.com/red/ny_street.zip)

[Sarah C.]

Seriously.. this is from Red? :) Can I have a little Quicktime.. uncorrected? Pretty please? Only if it isn't too much trouble..

thanks much!
~Sarah

[Kenn Michael]

Uploading now...

[Kenn Michael]

1920x1080 ProRes HQ
Uncorrected
320 ISO
Rec709 Gamma (mainly so that you could see a slightly lower-contrast image than Redspace)
Full debayer

a little post sharpening will increase the detail pop

http://www.codekraft.com/red/ny_street_mov.zip

...and yes, it is really from Red! :)

[Evin Grant]

Sarah, how the footage is processed will have more of an impact than which camera (Red One/Genesis) should be used. I do have footage shot in downtown LA at night using a Crane on a Shotmaker. It was shot at ISO 640 and has noise but it's quite well controlled because it was post processed correctly. Here is a 720P quicktime.

http://www.evingrant.com/flicks/BBCweb720.mov

[Gunleik Groven]

I'll upload some stuff straight out of RA...

[Sarah C.]

Thanks, guys! Trick of it is.. I don't own a Red otherwise I'd go do some tests myself. Since the people I work with have not used a Red camera it's a tough sell and that's why I'm glad you guys are sharing some examples!! I know correcting the footage is key, that's why I'm glad you guys are able to share some ungraded material. Then I can even let others "play" with it here at work. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Red... I'm a fan even if I do not own a camera.

thx agn!
~Sarah

[Sarah C.]

OK.. thanks again everyone for your help! I really enjoyed getting the uncorrected media so that I can see before/after correction to see how much damage is done to an image via color grading and sharpening. I imagine it would be even better to work directly with the RAW format.

Here' some comparisons of stills from the footage I got from Evin and Kenn. Evin: yours is over-cooked in terms of the black/shadow details. Maybe you are hiding the noise as a result from the color grading? Gunleik has the same effect.. could even be that it is better at full rez before you guys compressed into Quicktime. I took Kenn's uncorrected and just did a few seconds of color grading ala Photoshop to see what we've got to play with. It is evident that as soon as I began to tweak the image, noise begin to reveal itself. When I sharpened the image.. noise got all the more defined! I expected to see this. Kenn's footage is different from Evin's in that he has a lot more ambient light for fill. There are still some dark areas for me to study to see how bad the noise is and to what point can it be suppressed via grading and other... manipulations. So... below is just for fun... will be sending the QT's to some of my co-workers here about the Red camera. Thanks again!

Note: the jpeg compression made these worse than they should be.

Evin's Biker Dude
Notice how little shadow detail there is anywhere in this frame.. even on the helmet, jacket, building in the background..which should have some! I'm guessing this is like Gunleik's images.. it got graded and then the compression was the nail in the coffin.
http://cg-i.com/RedOne_Biker.jpg

Kenn's more ambient NY scene
Flat to begin with(uncorrected image)
http://cg-i.com/NY_001.jpg

Kenn's NY scene with Photoshop
Brief Sarah Color Grading/Sharpening
I tried to balance the contrast without causing too much noise. Note the sky.. that's telling of what got boosted: noise. Happened from the color tweak and sharpening.. but also understand I was NOT working with the RAW image, but a lower rez one.
http://cg-i.com/NY_001-PS3.jpg

~S

[Tico Llaurador]

Sarah, over at redrelay.net you may find suitable exterior night shots in R3D. I suggest the Shibuya district clip from Visceral Psyche (I believe).

[Sarah C.]

Sarah, over at redrelay.net you may find suitable exterior night shots in R3D. I suggest the Shibuya district clip from Visceral Psyche (I believe).

Looks too bright for my purpose... I'm needing to look at footage that is mostly dark. Thanks for the thought! Much appreciated. Kenn's will do. It is a little on the bright/ambient side but there are some values that go very dark.

~Sarah

[Tom Lowe]

that taxi shot shows how vital CCing skills are to any cinematographer or editor working with RAW. good job on that, especially working off burned-in images. looks good on my monitor.

[Evin Grant]

Sarah here is the frame you pulled as a 4K DPX. I exported it from RA using Red Log which will look flat and awful but gives you the highest precision transcode from the RAW data to DPX so you can play with it in Photoshop.

(Control/left click to download 32MB)
http://www.4kninjas.net/pics/BBC4klog.dpx

[Sarah C.]

Thanks, Tom! (see PM in a few minutes)

Hey Evin.. Thanks! That'll be cool to work with. Tried to d/l it though...you might have to .zip it up since it looks like your web server does not see or recognize the file?

~Sarah

[Pietro Impagliazzo]

Couldn't help but try a little CC as well on the NY shot:

http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/5347/nystreet0000000tt8.jpg

http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/3354/diffbr5.jpg

Diffused looks nice too.

__

I'd rather go with a slightly noisy image than with heavily compressed blacks.

Do you guys see anything wrong with my CC? :help:

[Craig Ryan]

Hi Sarah,

I am by no means a pro or expert at grading, but actually learned most of what I know about it here, and have seen some amazing things done with RED footage. The beauty of RED footage is how much you can pull out of the shadows when properly exposed. Usually this can be done with acceptable levels of noise.

Here's my take on the NY grab; this was done in Microsoft Office Picture Manager on Vista (problems with Photoshop atm), so I didn't have access to fancy curves or anything , just basic color sat/hue/brightness/contrast/midtone adjustments. You can really make this kind of image POP. At full res there may be a bit much noise, but when you downsample, it looks phenomenal.

http://www.reduser.net/forum/uploaded/49_1224218736.jpg

After looking at it on the browser I may have pushed it a bit much for my taste...but on my monitor it looks much better. Gamma setting must be different.

[Evin Grant]

Link fixed

[Sarah C.]

Hi Craig and Impag,

Thanks for the submissions! Only since you asked... from what I can see via my MacBook Pro (LED backlighting): both of you guys have valid "looks" to your grading. I understand the concept that your monitors may be very different to what I have so that's already a consideration. Through my monitor I see Impag's as being a cooler feel, and is close to the original capture in terms of overall values in the scene. Craig's was obviously lightened up and the color enhanced. The pro's and con's of what you guys did (imho).. Impag looks like he tried to stay closer to the original scene, but in doing so leaves it a little less vibrant/exciting than the shot could be. The diffusion is nice since it takes some of the digital look out of the scene. Craig brought in lots of "excitement" to his shot by boosting the values upward but in doing so flattened the scene somewhat(contrast), lost the darkest values (and made blacks go dark grey) and in doing so also boosted the noise making it all the more visible. I see nothing wrong or incorrect with either approach.. what matters is how it looks for the final output.. whether DVD, film, internet, etc. Only you would know your pipeline and grading for the optimum look of where your work is going to be seen. Grading is objective to a point, the rest is subjective.. how bright do you want the scene to be.. how saturated.. how cold or warm... and that's subjective to your purpose/story you are trying to tell. (All words I'm sure you guys have heard before :) )

~Sarah

[Dan Sturm]

Couldn't help but play with the image...depending on what you're using to do you're color grade, you can get alot of the image back by using multiple copies of the image with varying overlay modes (i used screen a few times and a lowered opacity overlay). You can do this sort of thing in after effects pretty easily and push the image pretty far depending on your output resolution.

http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k117/dansturm23/ny_street_1.jpg

http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k117/dansturm23/ny_street_2.jpg

[Sarah C.]

Here's what Evin's biker dude could be... (from DPX.. tweakage in Photoshop). Mostly all I did was isolate and suppress the color of the noise causing the most damage. Then I simply found a suitable contrast, did a little sharpening and saturation boost. *I'm on a MacBook Pro with LED backlighting, so you may easily be seeing something different on your monitor.

Original look from DPX file...
http://cg-i.com/RedOne_Biker_dpx.jpg

This is what I find tolerable noise(digital grain!) Finding the trade-off between losing my mid tones and having noise. I think this lighter-handed grading would allow more shadow detail to survive compressed video.
http://cg-i.com/RedOne_Biker_02a.jpg

This is if I smash the darkest areas. (notice the building is still back there tho) This if fine for a still image that is going to print. If this were to go to release on DVD or anything compressed the dark areas are bound to get darker and mushy.
http://cg-i.com/RedOne_Biker_02-2.jpg

And here's proof... I totally fried this image to illustrate something. Do you notice anything "good" about the noise structure?
http://cg-i.com/RedOne_Biker_02hot.jpg

Still.. this is subjective stuff.
~S

[J. Bernard Vallon]

Beating a genesis is tough, I've heard the native ASA is 800, and it has a bit more DR then the R1. Maybe after mysterium X...

[Sarah C.]

P.O... yeah.. looking kinda grim for Red being a dark night kinda camera...not impossible, but it may not be good enough for our needs. Still researching though.

~Sarah

[Gunleik Groven]

I'll try to post something overnight to show off some post options that may (or may not) change your mind... Just have some real work to do first...

[J. Bernard Vallon]

LilRed,
I didnt say don't do it, if done well with a wide aperture lens, and maybe even an open shutter, itll look great. I'm just saying it probably wont beat a Genesis.

[J. Bernard Vallon]

...yet

[Pietro Impagliazzo]

...yet

Yeah, I just hope Mysterium X is rated at ASA 500.

And Monstro 800?! Let's wait and see... :umm:

___

But then again T3 @ ASA 640 can give pretty good results.

Here's a grade I did with the Visceral Psyche TIFF:

http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/5829/ccro3.jpg

Probably the TIFF was processed at ASA 640, but I don't know if the curve was flat.

I can't stop grading RED footage... It's just too good! :)

[Sarah C.]

LOL.. you guys... Impag.. that's a -bright- image! What we need to shoot is basically an industrial area with minimum street lights... But I like your enthusiasm!!

P.O... yeah yeah.. I know. I think GenesisHD is 400ASA equiv.? What I didn't realize is that it can do a 360deg shutter and that the sensor is not a Bayer-design.. it is 100% RGB (all colors treated equally).

Hmmmm hmmm hmmm.... might have to do a test shoot sometime with a Red just to be certain it is or is not a "contender". Would be nice if the guys at Red wanted us to test the Mysterium.. even with a protoype.

thanks guys!!
~S

[Tom Lowe]

The noise in that chopper photo is unacceptable. Yikes.

Sarah, I assume this is a big budget production? The Viper seemed to do well in Collateral, Zodiac, etc.

[Kenn Michael]

If I remember correctly (correct me if I'm wrong Evin), the chopper photo was done pre-build 16 when the noise print was a bit uglier.

I just got off a shoot with my cam and they were shooting night stuff on Master Primes wide open at f/1.3...

Absolutely gorgeous. Can't show any footage though.

[Pietro Impagliazzo]

LOL.. you guys... Impag.. that's a -bright- image! What we need to shoot is basically an industrial area with minimum street lights... But I like your enthusiasm!!

P.O... yeah yeah.. I know. I think GenesisHD is 400ASA equiv.? What I didn't realize is that it can do a 360deg shutter and that the sensor is not a Bayer-design.. it is 100% RGB (all colors treated equally).

Hmmmm hmmm hmmm.... might have to do a test shoot sometime with a Red just to be certain it is or is not a "contender". Would be nice if the guys at Red wanted us to test the Mysterium.. even with a protoype.

thanks guys!!
~S

Yeah, sorry If I spammed a little.

But like you said, this picture is not so dark.


If I remember correctly (correct me if I'm wrong Evin), the chopper photo was done pre-build 16 when the noise print was a bit uglier.

I just got off a shoot with my cam and they were shooting night stuff on Master Primes wide open at f/1.3...

Absolutely gorgeous. Can't show any footage though.

Feature or Ad?

[Sarah C.]

The noise in that chopper photo is unacceptable. Yikes.

Sarah, I assume this is a big budget production? The Viper seemed to do well in Collateral, Zodiac, etc.

The noise is fine.. depends on where the image is going.. If it's going to stay small and go through another round or two of compression likely the noise will get smushed into the the mix and some of the noise will get lost along with sharpness. Or smash the noise and darker values for a certain "look" to the imagery. As for the purpose of a feature.. definitely will not work, nor will compressing the blacks/shadows to beat the grain down to a lower IRE. There are a variety of plugins/filters through various softwarez that have grain/noise reduction but why do that when we can possibly get something cleaner to start with? I am now interested in what Kenn is saying about a cleaner look with a newer build for Red. Any footage would be helpful! (Or again.. maybe a test is in order).

~S

[Kenn Michael]

My footage was shot on Build 16 which has the better noise characteristics (especially in the blue channel) than the build in which Evin shot his chopper footage.

Also, I think Evin was on a zoom lens which might top out at a 2.8, and I shot a stop faster at a 2.0 with my prime.

[Sarah C.]

Hey Kenn,
Thanks, very helpful info. That would be excellent if the newer build truly handles noise better.

With all this, I can see why the GenesisHD was the original answer.

~S

[Kenn Michael]

Your welcome! :)

The newer build does handle noise better, but if my shot is too noisy for you (shot with the newer build), then Genesis it is. If you do shoot Genesis, please post some uncompressed stills so we can see how Genesis handles noise in the shadows.

[Sarah C.]

Hi Kenn,

I didn't think your shot was bad. By the help of the gang here and their cc tests it looks to me like it does hold back the noise better, but not unexpectedly there is not much latitude to play with before noise shows itself. --We've already gotten the GenesisHD video but it is not something I can share.

Looks like I've got more researching to do!

~Sarah

[Andrew Walker]

Here's some stuff that I got up in Seattle over the summer. Shot with a Nikon 85mm @ 1.8 ISO 640.

http://599productions.com/Seattle1_2K.jpg

http://599productions.com/Seattle2_2K.jpg

and here are the 2K TIFFs if you wanted to check them out.

2K TIFF 1 (http://599productions.com/Seattle1_2K.tiff)

2K TIFF 2 (http://599productions.com/Seattle2_2K.tiff)

[Uli Plank]

Sorry, folks, but I had the chance to test our Red next to a Genesis during a summer night. The Genesis is about 2 stops faster and has more DR as well. OTOH, your biker woud have had purple blooming around his headlight.

[Evin Grant]

My footage was shot on Build 16 which has the better noise characteristics (especially in the blue channel) than the build in which Evin shot his chopper footage.

Also, I think Evin was on a zoom lens which might top out at a 2.8, and I shot a stop faster at a 2.0 with my prime.

Yes this is true, I used a 15-40 T2.6 Optimo. I also used a 1/33 shutter and Build 11 or 12 I think. You can use a 1/24th shutter on the Red too. If you really want to see what the Red can do in the dark you'll need a Master Prime or Super Speed and you could go with a 360º shutter but I'd trade the 270º for a 1/2 stop of noise personally.

[Sarah C.]

Hi Guys,

Thanks again soooo much for participating in this thread! Between here on the forum and my talking with some other Red users in person this weekend(including one guy who also knows Genesis) I'm thinking the Red is not up to the challenge of doing something equivalent let alone better than Genesis.. at this time. It was definitely worth considering and my time to do research. It'll be fun to look back at this thread someday... :)

~Sarah