To Learn Again

[Sanjin Jukic]

In the HDR.mov (http://www.reduser.net/evin/HDR.mov) HQ 2K footage posted by Evin I found out that we all
still have to learn shooting with RED and especially to avoid
jagged look of the movie.

Have a look at the shutter speed artifacts during fast panning with the cam.
Even it is visible in those low quality gifs (animated gif) below.
Please wait to load animated gif file (loop) about 4.1 MB.

http://www.sanjinjukic.com/extras/seq1_animgif.gif

So what to learn again:

Learn to pan not so fast when you are shooting the movie.
(Get the best fluid head, avoid handheld shooting as you can).

Learn to choose appropriate ISO.

Learn to adjust shutter speed.

Learn to choose F-stop.

About shutter speed:
"The shutter speed refers to how long a picture is exposed. In lower lighting conditions, you must use a slower shutter speed in order to allow enough light to give a good exposure. On the other hand, if you are outside on a bright day, you would have to use a much faster shutter speed for the same type of exposure. Typical shutter speeds range from slow (30 seconds) to really fast (1/4000th of a second). The speed of the shutter will greatly affect the way movement is captured on a picture. A fast shutter speed (anything above around 1/500th) will freeze fast action such as water dripping (top right), while slow shutter speeds can be used for numerous creative effects (bottom right). Slow exposures are commonly used when taking pictures of waterfalls to give them a silky look, for example. Shutter speeds and f-stops have an inverse relationship. In other words, changing the shutter speed to the next fastest setting, while changing the f-stop to the next lowest number, will retain the same exposure effect."

About ISO:
"ISO is also referred to as the speed setting of a camera. Digital cameras offer a range of settings, typically from ISO 50-800. The higher the speed setting, the more sensitive the camera will be to light. Photographers select different speed settings depending on the lighting situation. This gives them more options when it comes to setting f-stop and shutter speeds. ISO is also used in film cameras to indicate the light sensitivity of a specific roll of film. Lower ISO settings tend to result in less grainy pictures while high ISO settings will generally produce a grainy effect."

About F-stop:
"An f-stop number refers to the size of the aperture opening. Think of the aperture as working the same as our pupils. If there is too much light, our pupil must shrink down to limit the amount of light coming into our eyes. The opposite occurs if there is not enough light - our pupil will dilate to let in more light. This is the same type of process that a camera must employ in order to attain a proper exposure when taking a picture. Typical examples of f-stop numbers are between f/1.0 - f/22. If the number is higher, the opening will be smaller and will let in less light. If the number is smaller, the opening will be larger and will let in more light."

Quotes>>LINK (http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=2105)

[G.A. Kokes]

Interesting post. Film shooting 101. I am wondering what the setting are for that shot, As the pan was not too fast.

Cheers,
G

[Jason Murphy]

Gone over the footage a number of times, and can't for the life of me figure out what you're talking about, Sanjin. It's a motion Jpeg, so you can see some color banding and artifacting due to the jpeg compression, but where are the jagged edges you're referring to in the pan? Sounds more like H264 or jpeg compression artifacting than anything inherent from the original image.

Anyone else see this?

EDIT: Looked at the H264 version, and I think I can see it (up on the bannister and stair rails). If this is what's being referred to, it has absolutely nothing to do with the RED camera, and everything to do with H264 compression artifacts. What we really need to learn here is to be careful when encoding tricky footage for online viewing.

[canred]

Yes, I see what he's talking about but I chalked it up to some compression or conversion artifacts. There are so many different setups being used to view these images and motion clips it's hard to know what we are seeing.

Tom

[Mike Prevette]

I think he's actually referring to "stutter" caused when objects move a greater distance than their motion blur when the shutter is closed, so they appear to jump a bit when the shutter is open again. It's as old as filmaking itself and has always been an issue. Pan slower, or open the shutter time up to avoid it. 90% of people are used to it and will never notice. (look at the handrails in the lower left of frame)

_mike

[Jason Murphy]

I think he's actually referring to "stutter" caused when objects move a greater distance than their motion blur when the shutter is closed, so they appear to jump a bit when the shutter is open again. It's as old as filmaking itself and has always been an issue. Pan slower, or open the shutter time up to avoid it. 90% of people are used to it and will never notice. (look at the handrails in the lower left of frame)

OK, that makes sense. It sounded like the original post was referring to jaggies and macro blocking as a result of movement, not stutter, which will of course happen when shooting at 24 FPS.

[Seung Han]

just to throw this in the mix...

Ppl are viewing this stuff on different computers on different apps and seems like people are getting different results from motion stutters to quality differences in compression due to playbacks from quicktime, VLC and other players.

The difference in images between quicktime and VLC seem markedly different then other movies on my computer. Especially in saturation.

A lot of this stuff will get sorted out soon.

[Martin Ludwig]

What we really need to learn here is to be careful when encoding tricky footage for online viewing.

all said ! thanks

[G.A. Kokes]

just to throw this in the mix...

Ppl are viewing this stuff on different computers on different apps and seems like people are getting different results from motion stutters to quality differences in compression due to playbacks from quicktime, VLC and other players.

The difference in images between quicktime and VLC seem markedly different then other movies on my computer. Especially in saturation.

Absolutely, once someone figures out how to export these clips in a more uniform and efficient way, we should see better pictures.

The banding issue seen in this motion tiff is most likely due to compression, but I think his issue is with the stutter, and I do not believe it has to do with the pan speed in this clip. Thats why I asked if anyone knows what the settings on the camera and lens where for that shot.

Cheers,
G

[Jens Jakob Thorsen]

If you dont know all of this, you are probably better off buying a DVcamera and learn about film/video shooting from the ground up.

[Ken Corben]

Give Me and everyone here a break with the cinematography 101 analysis. This "analysis" thread is an insult to the guys sharing their first tests out of the box with the reduser community. This shared shot is a gift to the community not an example of the DP's skills and knowledge from a Red 4K shoot that is funded and professionally graded etc. I'm sure like many of the first tests there is no grip and electric department. The same 2 or 3 guys are doing EVERYTHING out of the box with minimal set ups to test the cameras.

I know nothing of the guys or decisions for the set up but here is what is obvious to the trained eye:

The camera is locked at 180 deg and 24 fps in the first release.
Yes they did a jib move on sticks but more so to look at the dynamic range of the cameras with presumably no time or budget for a jib. NOT to show the dope skills of the operator on sticks.
The male model is intentionally wearing a white t-shirt and lit out of synch with the set to test dynamic range.
The camera shoots RAW - this is not film and this is not video. The f-stop and ISO selections are chosen in this shot to test the cameras dynamic range.

Listen, our team intentionally shot exteriors with RED set at 3200 deg and ISO 320 of models in direct sunlight wearing white t-shirts to specifically test the cameras dynamic range and the RAW file manipulation in SCRATCH. Would we make these choices on a commercial shoot? NO - IT"S CALLED TESTING! Are we going to post the results - not with this kind of ridiculing that ignores the intent of the shot.

BTW - our DP looked at that shot in Scratch and was blown away by RED's performance and he has shot all the cameras from Arri 435's to Genesis.

Keep it real is my advice or the sharing just might dry up altogether. Provide a thank you in your first line and then add questions as to why choices were made rather than ASSuming they were made in "error."

To the production team - thanks for the post. I have watched the QT download a dozen times and find it very helpful.

Sharky

[Ken Corben]

And another thing,

With only redalert available to these guys who didn't have a Scratch system on set, and experimenting with QT conversion parameters with a new medium the internet posted results are nothing to analyze. We viewed our shots out of Scratch on a 2K projector and were blown away. How do you share that on today's internet?

[Michael Schrengohst]

Could not have said it any better! That clip is VERY helpful
and useful for all future RED owners. Thank You guys!

[Johnny Friday]

Absolutely, once someone figures out how to export these clips in a more uniform and efficient way, we should see better pictures.

The banding issue seen in this motion tiff is most likely due to compression, but I think his issue is with the stutter, and I do not believe it has to do with the pan speed in this clip. Thats why I asked if anyone knows what the settings on the camera and lens where for that shot.

Cheers,
G

Excellent point. I know I have issues all of the time with compression---like everyone else. I think that choosing the proper codec and tweaking the compression settings is an ENTIRE OTHER ART. One in which I know I'll not master. But, i like the idea of sharing some settings for various situations. When i find something that works for me I ALWAYS save the settings in my archive to use again for a similar shot that I might compress later.
....I would guess that so much of what we see is due a great deal to the compressor used and its settings......

[Hans von Sonntag]

By shooting frames 24/25 fps and not fields there has always been this "shutter" issue. Anyone panning over a pack or any staight pattern knows this issue. This is the reason why in the PAL/NTSC world when you shoot Packshots with 35mm and pan over packs you will shoot with 50 fps and telecine later with 50 fps on a 25i (PAL) tape to create interlaced shutter-free motion.

In the p-world only the right panning speed (either fast or slow) will bring satisfying results. Bringing up exposure time makes things worse. Lowering under 1/50th creates artificial motion blur. Up to ones taste.

Hans

Edit: I did't metion it yet: Great work and a big thank you for the pictures! Its exiting to see these pictures shot with the RED One.

[David Battistella]

And another thing,

With only redalert available to these guys who didn't have a Scratch system on set, and experimenting with QT conversion parameters with a new medium the internet posted results are nothing to analyze. We viewed our shots out of Scratch on a 2K projector and were blown away. How do you share that on today's internet?

Shark,

You make a great point here. That stuff is not being shared for critical analysis, it's being shared to let us all know that the camera is alive and working.

You can not take a severely compressed internet gift and turn it in to a cinematography class. Most of what is being talked about has to do with shooting 24 frame material as much as anything else.

Give the guys a break and let them be excited about their first experiments. This is just the kind of thread that will stop people from posting footage and their experiences.

David

[Ken Corben]

I'd also say LART is a RED camera test session not a demo reel for the talented industry vets donating their time.

On the menu:

Set ups in camera and in redcine for "looks" including INT & EXT day and night that are lit, shot and while being imported to redcine by the post crew the next shot is already being lit. All of this maximizing the newly enabled "Fluid Features" of the camera by RED in Oct.

Test the camera is the goal not produce Crossing the Line II: Return of the King.

[Sanjin Jukic]

Gone over the footage a number of times, and can't for the life of me figure out what you're talking about, Sanjin. It's a motion Jpeg, so you can see some color banding and artifacting due to the jpeg compression, but where are the jagged edges you're referring to in the pan? Sounds more like H264 or jpeg compression artifacting than anything inherent from the original image.

Anyone else see this?

EDIT: Looked at the H264 version, and I think I can see it (up on the bannister and stair rails). If this is what's being referred to, it has absolutely nothing to do with the RED camera, and everything to do with H264 compression artifacts. What we really need to learn here is to be careful when encoding tricky footage for online viewing.

Guys, please do not miss-interpreted me, I did not mean anything bad. I wanted to be real and to say what I have seen at the clip HDR.mov (http://www.reduser.net/evin/HDR.mov) playing on 30" Apple Cinema Disply connected to MacPro 8-core, 2 X ATI Radeon 9800 XT, 9 GB memory. Here is a screen-shot cropped from 30" display:

http://www.sanjinjukic.com/extras/HDR_ProRes422.jpg


Unfortunately I do not have 2K projector but 30" ACD could be enough to see it very well. Also it is not a bad critical opinion at all and it is only a real notion about the thing we should take care of.

JasonMurphy, the HDR.mov (http://www.reduser.net/evin/HDR.mov) is not the motion jpeg file, it is Apple ProRes 422 compression. See at the attachment picture above. It is not about any compression issue. At the end it needs more professional specialist to explain that better than I can.

[Stephen Williams]

Unfortunately I do not have 2K projector but 30" ACD could be enough to see it very well. Also it is not a bad critical opinion at all and it is only a real notion about the thing we should take care of.



Hi,

Bear in mind that if your screen does not have a NATIVE refresh rate of 23.98 fps you will have issues. This is one of the reasons that the Ecinmea panel is so expensive.

Stephen

[Sanjin Jukic]

Hi,

Bear in mind that if your screen does not have a NATIVE refresh rate of 23.98 fps you will have issues. This is one of the reasons that the Ecinmea panel is so expensive.

Stephen

Stephen, maybe you are right.

But with upcoming (pre-ordered) HDLink Pro
HD Format Support via DVI-D includes the following refresh rates:
1080p23.98, 1080PsF23.98, 1080p24, 1080PsF24, 1080p25, 1080p30, 1080i48, 1080i50,
1080i59.94, 1080i60, 720p50, 720p59.94, 720p60, 2048 x 1556p23.98 and 2048 x 1556p24.

[Joel Kaye]

We viewed our shots out of Scratch on a 2K projector and were blown away. How do you share that on today's internet?

I guess you just gotta "testify". :-)

Thanks - I'd still see a still from the output of scratch of the models in white. Could they pull the details from the shadows and highlights back in?

[David Battistella]

I'd also say LART is a RED camera test session not a demo reel for the talented industry vets donating their time.

On the menu:

Set ups in camera and in redcine for "looks" including INT & EXT day and night that are lit, shot and while being imported to redcine by the post crew the next shot is already being lit. All of this maximizing the newly enabled "Fluid Features" of the camera by RED in Oct.

Test the camera is the goal not produce Crossing the Line II: Return of the King.

I understand LART to be a professional test and a way of determining looks and solutions for day to day uses of this camera. It's (i hope) going to be the definitive and valuable resource for RED users.

I hope that those basic setups and looks can be shared between users. By the time the Soderberg film comes out, we will all see RED in action and be able to compare it to any film, in an theater with a film print.

I know the 2K 4K is down the road, but it will be nice to see the direct comparison to film too.

David

[Ken Corben]

I hope that those basic setups and looks can be shared between users. By the time the Soderberg film comes out, we will all see RED in action and be able to compare it to any film, in an theater with a film print.

I know the 2K 4K is down the road, but it will be nice to see the direct comparison to film too.

David

The entire point of LART is sharing the knowledge with the reduser community. Look, there are a significant number of indie filmmakers that are early adopters of RED and members of this community. That is in our minds as we polish the LART agenda.

We are working on a 4K screening post-LART in LA for the reduser community to see segments of the LART results projected in 4K. That's in the works.

The comparison to 35mm has been done (WANTED) and will be done by many others and is not in line with the LART philosophy. Also keep in mind soderberg is working with limited enabled RED's at present but he is also more than a director when it comes to cameras and operating. LART will be working with more feature rich cameras by mid-October.

Sharky

[Andrew Benz]

The entire point of LART is sharing the knowledge with the reduser community...
We are working on a 4K screening post-LART in LA for the reduser community to see segments of the LART results projected in 4K. That's in the works.

Sharky

Ken-- That is incredible... I hope I can see it ;-)

I know this is taking alot of prep work... thank you.

cheers-- Andrew

[Shane Betts]

Stephen, maybe you are right.

But with upcoming (pre-ordered) HDLink Pro
HD Format Support via DVI-D includes the following refresh rates:
1080p23.98, 1080PsF23.98, 1080p24, 1080PsF24, 1080p25, 1080p30, 1080i48, 1080i50,
1080i59.94, 1080i60, 720p50, 720p59.94, 720p60, 2048 x 1556p23.98 and 2048 x 1556p24.

Snajin, bear in mind the HDLink Pro has to use a pulldown to display those frame rates on the monitor, so frame refresh isn't perfect (sorry Pete & Ian). Image quality is awesome though - you just have to let your eyes ignore the subtle pulldown.

[Shane Betts]

One thing that remains unanswered for me and something that will affect our perception of digitally projected footage is the rate at which it is projected.

Although film is shot at 24fps, unless I'm very much mistaken projectors work at 48Hz, showing each frame twice, and therefore fooling the eye (to some degree) with regard to stutter and softening the affect of frame flicker.

When we finally reach the point of digital projection of digital footage, does anyone know if the projector standards include 24 or 48Hz?

[Sanjin Jukic]

Snajin, bear in mind the HDLink Pro has to use a pulldown to display those frame rates on the monitor, so frame refresh isn't perfect (sorry Pete & Ian). Image quality is awesome though - you just have to let your eyes ignore the subtle pulldown.


Thanks Bettsy.

I've got it.

[Dominic Jones]

Although film is shot at 24fps, unless I'm very much mistaken projectors work at 48Hz, showing each frame twice, and therefore fooling the eye (to some degree) with regard to stutter and softening the affect of frame flicker.

When we finally reach the point of digital projection of digital footage, does anyone know if the projector standards include 24 or 48Hz?
You are very much not mistaken - in fact, modern 35mm projectors usually use a triple-bladed shutter, giving 72 light/dark cycles per second (3 per frame, of course!).

I don't know what approach the Christie's and Sony's of this world take, but I know that the Real-D 2D/3D switchable projectors are capable of up to 144fps, which they split into two 72 fps streams of alternating images to reproduce 3D (with an electronically controlled LCD Pola filter in front of the lens - a very nice solution imho).

If Christie's, Barco's etc don't currently offer that type of functionality then I imagine they will in the future - if you wanted to be low-fi about it I'm sure you could retro-fit one with a mechanical shutter mechanism, although synchronising the shutter and image refresh might be a pain!

A good point, although more important to the perception of image flicker than object stutter between frames, which the double or triple bladed shutter system in 35mm does little or nothing to alleviate...

[Matt Setnes]

The filmmaking 101 is definitely unnecessary, especially on test footage.