Reminder to Owners using Beta Builds ( 4k 16:9)

[Jarred Land]

Some Camera owners are shooting with their cameras on big productions, set to 4k 16:9 instead of the 2:1 4k ratio, and finding out the hard way that Red Alert does not yet decode 4k 16:9.

I just want to thank everyone out there for helping us beta test, but Its very important that before you enter a real life production environment (specially shooting on others peoples dime) that you test test and re-test any settings you think you will use on the day. Sitting on set with 50 crew members and talent and a Director and Producer looking over your shoulder is not the time to test something from a build for the first time.. specially an alpha or beta build.

Same thing goes when you are playing with experimental frame rates and shutter speeds.

Shoot it, test it, put it through Red Alert, and complete the workflow during prep.. it will save everyone alot of frustration when you goto shoot, and make the day go alot smoother.

thx all.

[Alexander Nikishin]

I can imagine how painfull that must've been... :innocent:

[Mike Prevette]

Ever have that kicked in groin feeling?

[Jarred Land]

heh heh heh... yeah. Sketchy just begins to describe that feeling.

[Blair S. Paulsen]

I am out in North Carolina doing prep for a indie feature that begins principal tomorrow. I pulled off the experimental build and re-installed the 9/25 build to be safe.

On a more practical note I spent a couple hours today with an experienced gaffer trying to explain just how to rate and light for the RED. It had its moments :ohmy: . One interesting piece of our approach is that we are using the Panasonic monitors with the little postage stamp waveforms and using 80% as the theoretical clip point.

It should be noted that the "look" on the Panny 17" was much punchier than the same image in RedAlert on my MBP. The gaffer was happy with the sexier image on the Panny but distressed at the flatter look in RedAlert. I gave him the drill on how a flatter image was better fodder for post manipulation but it was a hard sell.

Another note was the gaffer's take that he had lost some measure of control over the look since "post" would be tweaking it up.

The takeaway is that walking a RED onto a feature really challenges you to interface with their established protocols and assumptions. These are experienced pros looking to produce results they can be proud of and struggling to understand how shooting on RED will impact their piece of the world. One of the challenges for me is addressing different departments in ways that they can relate to, ie, not going into the whole RAW color spiel with art department.

The level of interest in the camera is very high which is cool.

Gotta go-

Cheers
-Blair

[Robert Sanders]

I completely empathize with your situation Blair.

We had similar issues with our gaffer on our feature film shoot last August. While we were not shooting with RED cameras, we still had the problem of asking our gaffer to not light to the monitor. Because our film takes place at night during a power blackout we knew we wanted to dial in our black levels in post (which was crucial to the look of our film). But our gaffer kept lighting to the monitor. It was a constant struggle to get him to give us a couple more stops in the shadows and lower mid-range.

I ended up loading a custom LUT to our HDLink converter where I compressed the blacks heavily so that the image the gaffer was looking at was pleasing to his "eye" but the actual recorded image was two stops brighter. Because we ran our HD-SDI feed straight to a MacPro capture station we could see our waveforms and were certain we were never clipping.

[Häakon]

Just out of curiosity, what was the intention of releasing a build that can shoot 16:9 if there's no way to use the footage?

[donatello b]

"asking our gaffer to not light to the monitor"

what is the DP doing while the gaffer is lighting to monitor ?

[Billy Summers]

"asking our gaffer to not light to the monitor"

what is the DP doing while the gaffer is lighting to monitor ?

...Grabbing a bagel, talking to the crafty girl, waiting for the gaffer to light the scene...

[Andrew Benz]

...Grabbing a bagel, talking to the crafty girl, waiting for the gaffer to light the scene...

LMAO... I worked with that guy! :innocent:

[Shawn Nelson]

Yeah, DPs who leave the lighting to the gaffer...it's interesting the blurred lines in this industry.

[Robert Sanders]

...then walking over to the monitor and saying, "Nah...I don't like it."

[Robert Sanders]

In all seriousness, let's not make the assumption that the DP didn't give the gaffer instructions *before* he ran off to flirt with the makeup girls. ;)

[Jannard]

Just out of curiosity, what was the intention of releasing a build that can shoot 16:9 if there's no way to use the footage?

16:9 4K is enabled in the camera, just as it should be. We are just a bit behind on RED Alert! and REDCINE. We told our customers. The footage shot 16:9 4K is not bad footage, and will be usable as soon as it is enabled in the two apps. REDCINE Windows beta now supports it and RED Alert! will soon.

Jim

[Michael Brennan]

......On a more practical note I spent a couple hours today with an experienced gaffer trying to explain just how to rate and light for the RED. It had its moments :ohmy: . One interesting piece of our approach is that we are using the Panasonic monitors with the little postage stamp waveforms and using 80% as the theoretical clip point.

.......-Blair

Blair,
could you go into more detail as to your rational of using 80% for theoretical clip point?

Is this because you have discovered that HDSDI monitoring is not calibrated or is it a concept to reflect your lighting and exposure technique.
Are you using meteralone or refering to monitor for exposure?



Mike Brennan

[MikeHedge]

Jim!!!! REDCINE windows beta!!!! is there any way we can get a copy out to Macgregor? we shot with Blair's awesome #19 and would love to begin editing.

thanks
Mike Hedge

[Gunleik Groven]

The Redcine and feature adding info on this thread, is quite thrilling.

Cheers

Gunleik

[Mark L. Pederson]

I am out in North Carolina doing prep for a indie feature that begins principal tomorrow. I pulled off the experimental build and re-installed the 9/25 build to be safe.
-Blair

Blair -

We roll Monday on our first full RED feature - 27 shoot days.

Please feel free to reach out to me if you need anything.

Break a leg!!!

[Graeme Nattress]

Using 80% on a waveform as a clip point could lead to rather under-exposed images unless you have an abnormally high amount of very bright speculars.

Graeme

[Shawn Nelson]

Using 80% on a waveform as a clip point could lead to rather under-exposed images unless you have an abnormally high amount of very bright speculars.

Graeme

Yeah, so why not use 100% as the clip point to try to keep things as much off the noise floor as possible?

[Graeme Nattress]

Exactly!

[Stephen Williams]

Yeah, so why not use 100% as the clip point to try to keep things as much off the noise floor as possible?

Hi Shawn,

If you do that, when you turn the camera some highlight + 2 stops over will burn out looking ugly. I think it may be a big mistake to expose to the right with moving digital images, there is no headroom left, at some point art has to rule if you want cinematic images.

Stephen

[Jay A. Kelley]

Graeme,

I'm not sure I agree.. The file's ability to push in post seems to lend itself to shoot more toward the "middle of the road" so to speak. Then a colorist can push and pull elements in frame as he needs too.

Anytime you make the decision to get near clipping in camera, or crushing, you better be sure you won't change your mind later. You can alway screw up your picture in post! Why do it in camera and lose the options of all those mess ups you can create later!
:)

Jay

[Antoine Fabi]

Some Camera owners are shooting with their cameras on big productions, set to 4k 16:9 instead of the 2:1 4k ratio, and finding out the hard way that Red Alert does not yet decode 4k 16:9.

I just want to thank everyone out there for helping us beta test, but Its very important that before you enter a real life production environment (specially shooting on others peoples dime) that you test test and re-test any settings you think you will use on the day. Sitting on set with 50 crew members and talent and a Director and Producer looking over your shoulder is not the time to test something from a build for the first time.. specially an alpha or beta build.

Same thing goes when you are playing with experimental frame rates and shutter speeds.

Shoot it, test it, put it through Red Alert, and complete the workflow during prep.. it will save everyone alot of frustration when you goto shoot, and make the day go alot smoother.

thx all.


That's the MOST important thing to do with ANY new equipment and workflow !!!!!! even for the most simple things !!!

...and don't test just the day before...Do it several days before.

You'll avoid so much bad emotions, stress...

Thanks for beta testing for us guys !

Cheers

Antoine

[Kevin Halverson]

Graeme,

I'm not sure I agree.. The file's ability to push in post seems to lend itself to shoot more toward the "middle of the road" so to speak. Then a colorist can push and pull elements in frame as he needs too.

Anytime you make the decision to get near clipping in camera, or crushing, you better be sure you won't change your mind later. You can alway screw up your picture in post! Why do it in camera and lose the options of all those mess ups you can create later!
:)

Jay


Graeme is correct, the actual clip point is well above the "indicated" one, so what you might think is clipped, really isn't (at least to the same degree). I recently did a few tests and despite pushing about 1/2 stop beyond the "indicated" clip point, I actually only just hit the real clipping level.

[Graeme Nattress]

Yes, there's about 1/2 stop headroom in there, so that it's "safe" to see 100% clipping on the waveform. If you change brightness / contrast etc. etc. in camera for the RGB display, you could remove that headroom though, so be careful with in camera controls - you've got to know what you're doing with regards to how that exposure you see translates to the raw data.

Graeme

[JoshBertrand]

I know he's using the Panny's waveform but I was wondering if the in-camera histogram shows the image after it's been tweaked by the LUT (either in camera or from RedCine)? If that is the case, is it possible to view a RAW histogram without any LUT settings applied? That way you can see the light grade for the LCD, but know what is truly clipping or crushing for later manipulation in post.

[Michael Lindsay]

I think it may be a big mistake to expose to the right with moving digital images, there is no headroom left, at some point art has to rule if you want cinematic images.

Stephen

I've said this before and have been misunderstood/told off (my own failing I'm sure)... Exposing to the right (shot by shot) is a 'mistake' for drama .. Shot to shot slight fudging to the right will be fine... Free beer to the first person to coherently explain this.. :greedy:

Extreme example:Imagine you are shooting a 2 camera drama and you have two shots taken from different angles on the same person (In my previous example I suggested a single camera setup with a wide and a mid). One angle takes in a bright window behind the subject the other some dark wood work. Expose both to the right? No!! Dig out traditional lighting thinking and you wont have to match a face that is maybe over 7 stops separated on the sensor...

regards

Michael

PS I do often expose to the right with my stills camera... motion, and especially drama, is different!

[Nils Ruinet]

Graeme,
Is it (or will it) be possible to load a custom LUT into the camera to preview a specific look you'd want to achieve in post ?
This would also help the director to preview what the picture might look in the end...

[Graeme Nattress]

No custom lut. You will in the future be able to take a look from REDAlert! / REDCine into the camera though.

I don't think you'll ever see RAW for analysis in camera - there will always be a minimum of RGB processing, but that can be made to be very neutral indeed, if that's what you want. That's pretty much as it is now.

Graeme

[BASSAM MSSALATIE]

hi Michael


you wrote


... Exposing to the right (shot by shot) is a 'mistake' for drama .. Expose both to the right? No!! Dig out traditional lighting thinking and you wont have to match a face that is maybe over 7 stops separated on the sensor...

I do often expose to the right with my stills camera... motion, and especially drama, is different

Michael
Will Michael or somebody explain this to me becuase here is in my country we are not using same shortcuts expressions like (to the right),

[Brook Willard]

"Expose to the right" [ETTR] means exposing such that your histogram appears to be biased towards the right [bright] side. Simply put, if you're ETTR, you overexpose as much as possible without clipping highlights. This gives you the most shadow detail possible and lowers your apparent noise floor.

[Michael Morlan]

There have been arguments for "exposing to the left" on digital sensors, especially with the RED One with its incredibly low noise floor. Protect the highlights and expose to the left. You have the room to "push" as much as three stops.

Michael

[Brook Willard]

Yes, but why expose more left than you need to? If you can have a right-biased histogram without clipping, go for it! You'll get more [clean] data that way. Like I said, as long as nothing clips, expose as far to the right as possible.

It's semantics, I suppose. Expose left to save highlights, yes... expose right to bring out shadow detail, yes... combine the two and you're set. And no, combining the two doesn't make a center-weighted exposure. :)

[Blair S. Paulsen]

My goal on this show has been to help James get as close to the clip point as I can without clipping. When we are in a hurry and need to squeeze off the shot quickly I push him a bit to the left knowing it can be lifted in post. My belief is that the small amount of extra noise will be more tolerable than clipping and the artifacting that can come with it.

BTW the DP spends so much time in the honey wagon that he never makes it crafty :gun:

[Jendra]

Yes, there's about 1/2 stop headroom in there, so that it's "safe" to see 100% clipping on the waveform. If you change brightness / contrast etc. etc. in camera for the RGB display, you could remove that headroom though, so be careful with in camera controls - you've got to know what you're doing with regards to how that exposure you see translates to the raw data.

Graeme

Hi Graeme,

Can you verbalize what the "LUT" on the viewing channel is doing? Is it Rec 709? How many stops of range does it display and how does it correlate to what the camera is capturing?

Are you saying that using a waveform monitor (like in the Panasonic or Astro onboard LCD) on the viewing channel output, you can use that to judge exposure? And in your statement above, do you mean that in using that waveform if you put your brightest highlights at 100% you have 1/2 stop more headroom?


Thanks,
Jendra

[Graeme Nattress]

The gamma curve is precise to the REC709 spec, but over the full range of data the camera generates, not a smaller range, with a compression knee beyond that like "video" cameras.

If you set the exposure to -0.4, then you're seeing the full range, give or take a bit of room for the matrix to work in. If you don't touch the controls, you've got aroun 1/2 stop more room in raw to work with.

It's done that way for safety.

Graeme

[Chris Nuzzaco]

There have been arguments for "exposing to the left" on digital sensors, especially with the RED One with its incredibly low noise floor. Protect the highlights and expose to the left. You have the room to "push" as much as three stops.

Michael

I think a lot of the "left" exposure advocates popped up back in the day when DSLRs only had averaged histograms. Lots of people were clipping in one or two channels without realizing it because they were looking at an averaged clipping point that said everything was ok, but in reality, it wasn't.

Usually green clips first with digital cameras, so I'd be checking that channel out fairly often. I actually ISO rate my camera based off the green channels clipping point. Hasn't let me down yet, but as always, do your own tests and decided for yourself.

[Stu Maschwitz]

It should be noted that the "look" on the Panny 17" was much punchier than the same image in RedAlert on my MBP. The gaffer was happy with the sexier image on the Panny but distressed at the flatter look in RedAlert. I gave him the drill on how a flatter image was better fodder for post manipulation but it was a hard sell.

Another note was the gaffer's take that he had lost some measure of control over the look since "post" would be tweaking it up.

This would of course be true of any 35mm-originated film with a DI, which is just about every film these days, but in the digital world there is a way to have this cake and eat it too.

When you shoot with the Panavision Genesis, for example, you can chose to view your work through any LUT you wish (using an external box), all the while recording the raw, "flat" panalog image. The DP and gaffer can light to a nice sexy image that actually represents the filmed-out image plus subjective correction. In post you can either stick with this correction of vary it, but at least you have a starting place that represents the DP's true intention.

RED One needs this kind of LUT support.

-Stu

[Graeme Nattress]

I don't get you Stu.... If you want to record flat, then, of course, you always do. Flatter than flat actually. If you want to stick on a LUT box, then there's SDI output where you can stick on a LUT box. You can make that look however you want. Or you can use the internal controls to alter the look to how you want, or, in the future, upload a look from REDAlert! / RedCine if you don't like fiddling with on-camera controls.

Graeme

[Nick Shaw]

RED One needs this kind of LUT support.

-Stu

Is it not the intention that in the long run it will be possible to save the settings from Red Alert or Redcine as a look file that can be loaded ito the camera, and applied to the HDMI or HD-SDI outputs?

Conversion tools for LUTs in third party formats would of course be useful too.

Edit: Graeme got there before me!

[Stu Maschwitz]

I don't get you Stu.... If you want to record flat, then, of course, you always do. Flatter than flat actually. If you want to stick on a LUT box, then there's SDI output where you can stick on a LUT box. You can make that look however you want. Or you can use the internal controls to alter the look to how you want, or, in the future, upload a look from REDAlert! / RedCine if you don't like fiddling with on-camera controls.

While uploading a look from REDAlert! or RedCine is a good start, you are limited to the controls offered therein. I'd like to be able to use my CC software of chose to generate a LUT that, for example, includes a Kodak 2383 print preview emulation.

Of course I know that I can pipe the SDI output through all manner of hardware but I'm not sure if I'd like to rent a Panavision GDP box every time I shoot with my own RED camera. I would like user-generated 3D LUTs integrated into the camera and RedCine—it's a simple and reasonable feature request with which you may do what you wish.

-Stu

[Graeme Nattress]

What you upload will be a look file though, not a LUT. Therefore it's not designed to take arbitrary luts, because that's not how the image processing pathway works in camera. That's because it's a matter of syncing Camera and Post software with a simple bit of XML metadata. Putting an arbitrary LUT in there would lead to complexity and the only way to edit that LUT and have it make sense would be to go back to the original app that made that LUT and to remake it differently.

Remember, the whole ethos of the camera is that it's paradigm is like that of a DSLR designed to shoot moving images. We shoot RAW, so nothing bad can happen to the shot data by changing camera settings, so we're only talking about what you're viewing.

Graeme

[Stu Maschwitz]

...so we're only talking about what you're viewing.

Exactly! To a lot of people that's kinda important, including the DP I'm working with right now.

-Stu

[Graeme Nattress]

There's not support for 3D luts in camera as the image processing pipeline is not done using 3D luts.

Graeme

[Nick Shaw]

One option might be to add a Blackmagic HDLink Pro (http://www.decklink.com/products/hdlink/) on the dual link output, and loading a 3D LUT into that to preview eg a film stock. I don't know though how easy it is to load a LUT from another CC app into the HDLink.

Edit: The HDLink Pro can load 3D LUTs saved in tab delimited text format, so conversion from other formats should be relatively straightforward.

[Stu Maschwitz]

There's not support for 3D luts in camera...

Is that a software reality or a hardware reality?

-Stu

[Graeme Nattress]

I'm not a hardware guy, so I doubt I'm fully qualified to answer that, but I suspect it's a hardware thing.

Graeme

[Stu Maschwitz]

I'm not a hardware guy, so I doubt I'm fully qualified to answer that, but I suspect it's a hardware thing.

Well there's something to be said for handling it with an external device, or even a monitor that supports LUTs. That way you can view a corrected image while sending a raw signal to a waveform monitor to check exposure.

Didn't Jim say something at NAB about creating some 4K monitors? Maybe that's where the 3D LUT support belongs.

-Stu