Jim - Baseline footage idea.

[Jay A. Kelley]

Jim I know how protective you are about the camera and it's looks. But one thing is concerning me, and I am sure it's crossed your mind as well - I'm beginning to see a lot of footage out there that's either not processed correctly, or not shot correctly. There's no doubt this will get worst (and better!)

This footage is causing people to really complain about noisey channels and so on.

Perhaps it would be a good idea for RED to get/create some baseline footage. Say about 10 - 15 clips at :20 each in different enviornments.

Sunny Ext
Cloudy Ext
Evening Ext
Night Ext
Bright Window light Int
Nighttime Int (various shots)

You get the idea. Look for shots that, for you, represent what the camera can do. this will also keep everyone else honest. If they shoot something with buttloads of noise, they will not be so quick to blame the camera if they can go see footage with similar light levels and very little noise.

I think something like this would be a huge help in "setting the bar" for RED's abilities.

I realize RED is still changing every day, and build 15 will change it even more, but I think getting a place for "Excellent RED Footage" can do nothing but help

Jay

[sander kamp]

I object to the idea that the camera has to be used in a certain way, with this kind of lighting and that kind of post-processing. Let's face it: any camera will look good with perfect lighting. It's how a camera deals with lens flares, noise, compression and blown-out highlights that makes a camera what it is.

We haven't heard much about noise since RED was supposed to be 'like 35mm film without the grain'. Well, maybe in daylight but certainly not at night. The noise is there and I would much rather learn about ways to deal with it, how to reduce it, how to make it more organic and so on.

[Ace]

I dont thinkso. Its like buying a watercolour or oils set with a Monet printed on the lid. As sanders said, nothing ever comes right out of the box. Good images are often worked over with lots of love.

[Rick Darge]

agreed. i enjoy the entire spectrum of good and bad footage that's been posted so far. it shows that you really need to be a responsible shooter when making pictures with this thing

[mikeburton]

I'm sorry, but i still think that "good looking" footage is extremely suggestive and differs from person to person. I actually like footage with some noise in it in certain scenarios.

What you sound like your suggesting is a certified "shoot me this way" stamp of approval which IMHO is just plain wrong. I like seeing everything this camera has to offer, from clean to noisy and everything in between because there is no "right" or "wrong" way to shoot. It is your personal choice when you hold that camera in your arms.
If you as a shooter are asking for a specific way to achieve a different result than what you had achieved, then that is a different story but please don't assume everyone wants to see the same "look" out of this camera.

[Jarred Land]

Jay.. its a genuine concern and something that weve thought about alot. The good news is that pretty soon everyone who wants to see a baseline will be able to goto the theater on fridays and watch movies shot on RED and see just how good RED footage can look.

[Steve Sherrick]

Well, I'll respectfully disagree with all of you and agree with Jay to a certain extent. I am all for using this camera anyway you want. If you like a certain look you can get by pushing it a certain way, then of course as artists you have the freedom to do that. But I think what Jay was getting at, and what I am also interested in is the camera performing the way it was intended to perform. Let me preface this by saying I have yet to receive a camera, so I by no means have hands on experience with one and this is in no way meant to cast judgement on Red footage as I have not been able to do any testing yet. But what I expect is footage that when properly exposed is clean, free of data errors, and does not exhibit strange artifacts. I think what Jay was saying is that Red knows this camera better than anybody and they know what the camera should be capable of under certain conditions and therefore should be able to provide some great test footage that people can use as a comparison to their own test footage to see if there are any huge discrepancies between the two.

I don't think this limits anyone's artistic choices. All it does is provide a reference point for properly exposed and properly processed Red footage. If you want to deviate from what Red is calling properly exposed/properly processed footage that is fine. But at least you'll have a reference point.

Ultimately it's our own tests that will be of the utmost importance but having Red provide test footage under a variety of shooting conditions is a very useful thing in my opinion. They know that what they are providing is what they are considering a good representation of what the camera is capable of.

Steve

[Rick Darge]

boo-yah!

[Darren Orange]

Nice, Jarred, Nice!

That's the real test.

Jarred, will "Jumper" be the first to have some RED ONE footage and be released?

[Daniel Reichenbach]

redstockshots BACKSTAGE is coming soon, and that's exactly the idea behind this: everybody who like, can upload his REDfootage, can explain: which were the technical conditions, lenses, problems ASO and after that: EVERYBODY will have the possibility to give there opinions or advices and rate the picts with 1 to 5 stars, if he like the footage or not, if it is in his eyes technically correct or not. I will explain more of the rules and idea behind that, when BACKSTAGE goes on air. That should give a good basic for judging his own footage, to learn from the others and to increase the footage quality.

[The Polak]

It makes me angry when people who don't have much experience in cinematography - like lightning set (and from reduser forum comments and some footage i have seen i am positive some of Red owners never worked on professional set) are complaining about noise. If you dont light set, you can shoot best 35mm camera with 350 asa negative and all you will get from lab will be bs. I did not have my hands on camera yet, but so far what i have seen, there is some really great footage out there. I believe RED can give you magical images if you know what you doing. It takes a lot of time and hard work.

[Jannard]

There are a ton of things one can do in lighting, exposure, etc. to get less than optimum results. There are also many ways to get lost in processing. I know many that "snap up" their footage by dragging the levels to the ends of the histogram and can't figure out why the highlights are clipped. I NEVER move the "white side" and rarely move the "left side" to get an image to stand up. I almost always use curves (S-curve) and leave the endpoints alone.

Some get lost in color space... others in Lin/Log.

Don't "brighten" your image in REDCINE by upping the exposure, you are likely to push highlights off the edge. Try pushing up the center of the curve. Or use Brightness, which tends to hold the endpoints. I use curves.

If you under-expose in dark situations, and then try to pull the image up... you will get noise.

ISO 1000 will be noisier than ISO 320. It is a fact. But you can get tremendous images at ISO 1000.

One of the silliest things I have done to frustrate myself is to view images in REDCINE at 1/2 res High (so I have realtime playback) and wonder why the image is noisy. When I remember to switch back to Full res. High... the noise goes away.

If others are getting noise-free images, or low noise/high ISO images... you can too. All the cameras are the same.

I posted this a few weeks ago... ISO 800. No complaints here.

Jim

http://www.reduser.net/forum/uploaded/9_lvball2.jpg

[Warren Kommers]

thats cinematography. it's a craft and art. a crart. the people who shot well before their RED arrived are the same ones making the best looking footage. the camera won't do it for you. as the beastie boys once said, "skillz to pay the billz".

[Dylan Reeve]

I talk to people about cameras and stuff - I tend to talk from a technical perspective (I am not a cinematographer - I could probably light and shoot a shot alright, but not great or even well)... So the people I talk to want to see actual footage and actual stills.

I think Jay's suggestion was a good one - it would be a good idea for RED to put up some reference shots - nothing drastic, just a fair representation of the camera in decent conditions. We'll still see the really great, and the pretty crap - but for people trying to get an idea of what the camera does it's nice to have some basic baseline footage.

[Warren Kommers]

redrelay.net?

[Jannard]

No matter what we post... or have posted, someone will want something else. I have tried over the last few months to post several types of images. Wildlife, airplanes, race cars, Las Vegas at night, MacBeth charts, etc. We are pretty busy getting cameras out the door so we'd love to have someone in the community, that knows what they are doing, post what you are asking for. It seems to mean more coming from the community than if I post.

Jim

[Dylan Reeve]

I guess the most useful thing would be having a easy to find bit on the website that links to some reference footage... Regardless of who shot it.

[Casey Green]

RED is democratizing a technology for making outstanding images by making it affordable to both professionals and novices. Along with this comes the reality that not everyone using the toolset will be experts and the results are going to vary quite a bit.

Having a set of "baseline footage" made by RED is not going to change this, and that is not a bad thing. This is a professional tool, and one must study the craft of lighting and filmmaking in order to use is to it's potential. It should not be RED's job to explain why certain footage by some shooters does not look as good as others. The more footage that is released, the less of an issue this will be as the Camera keeps proving itself. After viewing many clips over the past months (especially done in low light), I'm not worried about it.

[Dylan Reeve]

I certainly wouldn't argue with that - obviously it the GIGO principle (garbage in garbage out)... All I'm saying (and I think what Jay was saying) is that for people trying to evaluate RED from the comfort of their desk it would be helpful to have a clear resource from RED's page with some sample footage/stills... Otherwise they just have to got looking, and they're going to get all sorts of stuff back, with no real idea of what went into making it (was this crappy looking footage shot in really crappy circumstances, or can the camera just not manage in a darker situation without expert supervision and hand holding?)

[Jay A. Kelley]

Thanks for all the wonderful feedback and serious thought on my suggestion guys. Here's what I've come away with:

RED Team has considered this, but there are some high budget movies shot on RED coming out soon anyway. This will be prime sample footage

Excellent footage shot by US, REDUsers (And there is already some out there) seems to go a longer way then stuff posted by RED when it comes to reviews.

So it does not seem to be an idea that will stick..

I agree.

Thanks again

Jay

[C.J.Harvaraj]

it can be a good marketing move too. sony f900 shooters go, "oh they shoot THAT in red? get me a a red NOW!"

[mezmo]

Maybe a 'How To' DVD?

It seems to me on viewing some of the noise in the material posted
that a lot of shooters are unaware of ratios/exposure and just how much
light is required at sensor in order to achieve a good and well sampled, clean picture at ISO 320.
Some instruction on basic lighting and a simple light reading process for
less experienced shooters to arrive and determine a lens setting for ISO 320 on Red may be of some use.
Some instruction on how to achieve good contrast ratio in shots by way of
lighting/framing/filtering could also be helpfull.
Some detailed instruction on Redalert/Redcine, getting creative with post processing/curves and other output settings.

I don't think this is unusual ask for a camera company like Red with a new camera concept and thousands of new customers coming into the Digital
Cinema and 4K RAW acquisition business.
Mezmo

[Jay A. Kelley]

In the Panasonic world, there is a manual for the SDX900 called the "Goodman's Guide" This manual is, IMHO one of the best things ever put on glossy paper!

Jay

[SF Geek]

Jim posted about looking at the footage in Redcine in Full Res High quality. I don't know anybody that's able to do that yet.

[donatello b]

perhaps 3-7 "pre-sets" for properly exposed clip in Redcine would be of help ?
or different "looks" to load in ...

watching others adjust clips in Redcine over past 3 weeks- they do not look at the histogram, they adjust shots so it looks good on their laptop LCD's which might look good on it but looks terrible on another monitor ...
and then i've seen persons here adjust on 24" iMac - they cruch the blacks , clip the highlights and then complain about blown highlights and no shadow detail ???

[Jannard]

Jim posted about looking at the footage in Redcine in Full Res High quality. I don't know anybody that's able to do that yet.

Everyone can look at at Full high res if the image is not playing. Stop the motion, change to Full high res, view the image for absolute quality, change back to 1/2 res high for viewing motion.

Jim

[BASSAM MSSALATIE]

I know many that "snap up" their footage by dragging the levels to the ends of the histogram and can't figure out why the highlights are clipped. I NEVER move the "white side" and rarely move the "left side" to get an image to stand up. I almost always use curves (S-curve) and leave the endpoints alone.

Jim


i think as you said Jim .it is very easy .it is Basic Photoshop Standards
for anyone want's modify image for the first time. we need at least small experience with photosho levels and curves Highlights and midtones
where is the brightness and how to retouch it . it's all about image processing

[Esmaile Neissi]

Jim, pretty nice low key shot,
what was your lens & F-stop Jim