Holy crap...

[Brook Willard]

While we were shooting yesterday, my roommate showed up and took this shot with his Canon Rebel XTi. This JPG is crafted from a RAW file.

I tried developing the picture by underexposing the RAW file as much as possible... the highlights are clipped - there's no data there. The shadows are all there, obviously. For this JPG, I exposed in a fairly center-weighted way.

http://www.reduser.net/forum/uploaded/5_1188782053.jpg

My estimate is that those hot spots are 3-4 stops over on an incident meter. The white shirt would spot well beyond that.

Now here's that screenshot from yesterday [developed when we didn't know what the hell we were doing]:

http://www.reduser.net/forum/uploaded/5_1188699125.png

All the detail is there in the highlights, but the shadows are obviously *much* darker than the SLR picture.

Here's where it gets lame: I don't have proof that the data is there. I didn't save a picture from when I developed it to save both the high-end and the low-end. But the data *is* there. You can reach all the way into those shadows and get a low-noise image out of it.

Evin, Tonaci and Blair have the footage right now - maybe somebody can develop one that saves the shadows as well. But holy crap. This camera holds detail from a white shirt that's *many* stops over to a dark corner that's *many* stops under.

[Justin Kirchhoff]

Nice Brook. Still amazed at the range...and it can only get better when you hold onto the camera for a few more days and get to know how it works.

[Kevin Halverson]

From the image yesterday, I couldn't even tell that this was the lobby at Chapman, until "looked" into the shadows. That looks like a T2 - 22 split if I ever saw one!

The dynamic range of this camera is gonna change the way things are done in a very cool way. Can't wait to get my hands on one!

[Seth Larney]

That's kickass Brook :)

Very nice comparison..

Seth.

[Rick Darge]

Brook, where were these photos taken? Looks like a Jannard mansion.. :)

[Brook Willard]

That's the Knott Studios entryway.

[whachusay]

Brook, that is amazing. This cameras abilities are endless.......

[jbeale]

> the shadows are obviously *much* darker than the SLR picture.

I think they'll be less dark if you use something besides "linear light" :-)

[Finner]

Brook what is that LCD monitor like? Good in full sunlight? Are there any EVF's out yet?

[Evin Grant]

It's OK in sunlight with a hood, unusable without. The RED LCD looks like a better option for outdoor shooting.

[Unwounded]

Have there been any reports on the RED LCD yet? I'd really love to hear if it's the bomb or not.

[Brook Willard]

The LCD is so sharp... it's crazy. Haven't used one in sunlight.

[Karl H]

First thoughts are that it's looking impressive.


The DSLR photo may have just been overexposed to start with. Obviously when you shot the Red footage you made sure nothing clipped, but the DSLR was probably exposing for the centre part of the frame and its auto-exposure didnt worrying about clipping highlights.

Nevertheless the DR is looking impressive from these early tests. It would be interesting to see the DSLR exposed the same as Red, and then both processed to hell. It's worth pointing out that at this stage I think we are all 'pushing' the image to see where it breaks down; I think that's human, and once it's done we'll appreciate more what we ARE getting here.

Thanks for all the work by the way, this is very exciting stuff and those of us that can't be there are refeshing constantly :-)

[Brook Willard]

I have some underexposed DSLR pictures as well... they can't hold the data in the hot spots. I may post those if I get a minute.

But for now? Check out this histogram:

http://www.reduser.net/forum/uploaded/5_1188848153.png

Told you it was all there! Thanks, Graeme.

[Graeme Nattress]

Thanks Brook. It was fun to play with that image. And yes, if you further under-expose, you can see more detail in the shirt - but you'd want to get into secondaries if you go that route.

Greme

[Brook Willard]

Graeme's the man. Check this one out!

http://www.reduser.net/forum/uploaded/5_1188851637.jpg

[Graeme Nattress]

Thanks - that was just a quick jobbie in photoshop. The problem with RED is it does have a good dynamic range, and grading that to make it look good, and show all the range is hard.

Graeme

[PaulClements]

Thanks - that was just a quick jobbie in photoshop. The problem with RED is it does have a good dynamic range, and grading that to make it look good, and show all the range is hard.

Graeme

If it wasn't hard then we'd all be colorists! Great stuff - keep it coming folks.

[bradvr]

Love the overhead view photo. I had a great time with you guys on Saturday and posted some pictures on our site, the one of Evin giving the RED a spin "handheld" is entertaining :biggrin: We didn't have an EVF which made this challenging, but I can see it being workable in the right configuration.

BH

http://web.mac.com/videoresources/rcworks/Photos/Photos.html

[Evan Owen]

Yeah, getting all the DR out of these shots is pretty tough. If you're persistant though, the results are mind-boggling:

http://www.kainosmedia.com/red/hdr-pushed02.jpg

[EIDT] Looking back at this now, I realize that the background is almost too bright to be pleasing aesthetically. At least we know there's alot of room to work with, even if it's not used. Going back and looking at the original tiff, I wouldn't know it was the same image...

[Kevin Halverson]

Really glad to see the still image with the color chart with the talent. Any chance of getting a .tif of that frame posted up from the .r3d?

[Kyle Presley]

Thanks - that was just a quick jobbie in photoshop. The problem with RED is it does have a good dynamic range, and grading that to make it look good, and show all the range is hard.

Graeme

I may be wrong, or haggling over words, but I thought dynamic range was what we refer to as the visible range immediately seen in the image and latitude refers to how much we can pull out. Or is there no difference between latitude and DR?

[Evin Grant]

Cool stuff brad...
Yea, don't try this at home boys and girls...
http://www.reduser.net/evin/heavy.jpg

[Karl H]

hi scienceguy - thats a good example of exactly how much data is in the signal. The background appears to be falling right at the bottom of the histogram. As such to me it looks too noisy to bring it up that far/bright, but the fact that you can from such a low part of the signal is encouraging.

It seems to me that also the wavelet compression deteriorates here too - which is maybe to be expected, I'm sure it concentrates on encoding the best part of the signal well, and puts less work into the shadows.

However, as its been stated, you could bring that background up with a bit of fill and get better SNR, rather than trying to pull something which may be 5/6 stops under up to normalish exposure. That would reduce noise and maybe the compression artifacts too.

it's a hell of a lot more range than I've been able to pull from any video signal before.

[Evan Owen]

hi scienceguy - thats a good example of exactly how much data is in the signal. The background appears to be falling right at the bottom of the histogram. ...

It seems to me that also the wavelet compression deteriorates here too - which is maybe to be expected, I'm sure it concentrates on encoding the best part of the signal well, and puts less work into the shadows.

...

Right, I pushed it a bit too far. The point was to see how far it can be pushed without blowing the highlights and without unacceptable noise levels. In actual practice, the image would look better with a slightly darker background. But with that much room to work with, anything's possible. :matrix:

[Karl H]

I agree. its interesting because if you look at the images on fxguide- they did the opposite in some ways. They clipped the highlights and made sure the good SNR was in the rest of the image.

It kinda gives you a wierd choice.... In some circumstances where lighting is out of your control you'll be given the option of maybe having some of the image blown but a noise free super clean image. Or, if you want to preserve highlights you can underexpose the shot and 'push' the exposure of the rest of the image, but with some noise sacrafice.

I think I'd prefer the latter if the noise and compression artifacts were not horrendous.

That's a decision which has to be made while shooting, and you refine it in Post. To clip or not to clip....

[Paul Hazlett]

IIt kinda gives you a wierd choice.... In some circumstances where lighting is out of your control you'll be given the option of maybe having some of the image blown but a noise free super clean image. Or, if you want to preserve highlights you can underexpose the shot and 'push' the exposure of the rest of the image, but with some noise sacrafice.

I think I'd prefer the latter if the noise and compression artifacts were not horrendous.

That's a decision which has to be made while shooting, and you refine it in Post. To clip or not to clip....

I agree, nothing screams digital and video more than blown highlights.
As has been said before shoot to preserve the highlights and work up form there.

[Evan Owen]

I agree. its interesting because if you look at the images on fxguide- they did the opposite in some ways. They clipped the highlights and made sure the good SNR was in the rest of the image.

...

That's a decision which has to be made while shooting, and you refine it in Post. To clip or not to clip....

In many circumstances, I wouldn't mind a little clipping, but what I saw around the edges of those clipped highlights made me a little nervous. If it's like Graeme says, and just a sharpness setting in REDAlert, then I won't mind exposing a little higher. But if those edges are inherent to the RAW footage, then I'd rather protect the highlights and tweak the shadows in post.

With the kind of SNR we're seeing here, protecting the highlights (in most shots anyway) seems like a no-brainer.

[Karl H]

Thats very true, protecting the highlights seems to be the way forward. But thats' assuming there isnt a 10 stop difference between your highlights and your subject.

I can imagine some extreme situations where if you do preserve the highlights the rest of the image may well be unusable and too far into the shadows to salvage. You may have no choice but to clip them on the day. Especially if for whatever reason you cannot control the contrast ratio of your scene.

Of course, the ideal is to not let this happen :-) I'm just playing devils advocate and talking about extreme outdoor/sunlight/shade conditions where additional lighting might prove difficult.

I think only experience with the camera will tell you what you should do on the day, but I love seeing this stuff because I'm getting an idea quickly of how far we can expect to push it.

[Karl H]

what I saw around the edges of those clipped highlights made me a little nervous. .

I'd have loved to have seen them take that shot twice - the second time preserving those higlights and pushing the foreground subject up a few stops.

Seeing them side by side and comparing the noise would be fun to see.

[Hrvoje Simic]

Playing with tiff in PS I managed to separate the talent from the background.
Secondaries will be a blast with RED footage.

[kunal2]

Hi Graeme,
wouldn't it be nice to have a grading software which works like lighroom,I use aftereffects to grade my videos but found it to be cumbersome whereas lightroom (which is only for stills)I've been able to do wonders with my stills even using photoshop,was just thinking if we could have something like lightroom intutive workflow and amazing tool for video
sample of my work
cheers

[edit: some links are NSFW ~Brook]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7645949@N08/1048342505/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7645949@N08/1101133453/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7645949@N08/767208692/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7645949@N08/767208668/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7645949@N08/1048342407/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7645949@N08/1048342395/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7645949@N08/1101137855/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7645949@N08/1101136921/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7645949@N08/1101134889/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7645949@N08/1101985620/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7645949@N08/1303790526/

Thanks - that was just a quick jobbie in photoshop. The problem with RED is it does have a good dynamic range, and grading that to make it look good, and show all the range is hard.

Graeme