HOPE

[Jon MIchael Puntervold]

I hope the Dragon will bring the look/"feel" of Red footage somewhere between the Alexa and the current Epic. The Alexa is too stylized and soft to my taste, and the current Epic is a bit "hard"/too natural to my taste.

I like a lot of the original M footage I've seen, the contrast curve seems a bit more "natural" or closer to the Alexa look people like, although I understand that the sensor was not as versatile as the current ones.

I hope Dragon will bring the esthetic wow factor back in Red. The sharpest and most beutiful cinematic images money can by. As far as I'm concerned, it's almost a necessity with low cost cinema cameras such as the black magic one around the corner...

And the Alexa is eating up the rental marked...

I trust Red, I've spent a lot of money on the new Red cameras. And I earn money on them, but I hope, I really hope that Dragon will fix all the current issues (i.e. magenta highlights) and bring us an image that is undoubtably the best option for the DP. I really understand the love for the Alexa's easy beauty, like traditional film. But it's a bit to much "look" in it, for my taste. But something between the current Epic and the Alexa.
Dream, dream, dream. Creamy dream.

[BRANDON JAMESON]

That would be the Thomson Viper FilmStream Camera.

[Gunleik Groven]

Hi Jon...

While I do agree that the M is a "better" sensor on the R1 on than the MX for a number of reasons, I don't think that is the case with the Epic.

We should talk soon!

Hope to see you and work through some stuff...


G

[Marc Wielage]

I hope the Dragon will bring the look/"feel" of Red footage somewhere between the Alexa and the current Epic. The Alexa is too stylized and soft to my taste, and the current Epic is a bit "hard"/too natural to my taste. I like a lot of the original M footage I've seen, the contrast curve seems a bit more "natural" or closer to the Alexa look people like, although I understand that the sensor was not as versatile as the current ones.

I believe this look is all adjustable and controllable in post to a large degree, assuming a good colorist and good color-correction software (and of course, a good exposure and image on the original files). To me, we're getting to a point where these different cameras are kind of like choosing different film stocks in the photochemical days. 100ASA, 200ASA, 320ASA, and 500ASA films all had their own specific looks, as did Kodak vs. Fuji. These can be evened-out to a point in post, but they do each have certain subtle characteristic looks to them.

[Jordi Figueras]

Hi Jon...

While I do agree that the M is a "better" sensor on the R1 on than the MX for a number of reasons, I don't think that is the case with the Epic.

We should talk soon!

Hope to see you and work through some stuff...


G

Hi Gunleik!

You've already stated that you think the original M sensor is better in the RED ONE than the MX... I'm quite interested if you could explain why you think so? Even we all know that the MX has a couple more stops of dynamic range (I'm I right?) and a better sensitivity (800 ASA) and a lower noise floor... I'm really interested, 'cause I still own a RED ONE with the original M sensor.

Cheers!

[Gunleik Groven]

Beauty is the eye of the beholder...

But of course you are right. From a technical measurement the MX is largely overall a "better" camera.
To me it feels like it is a bit "pushed beyond its computing limits" on the MX, leading to amongst others less "meat" and gentility in skintones and gradients.

I really like the MX, too. But it feels a bit more "unorganic". That is of course partly due to less noise, but I don't think that is all that is to it.
I still find the M and MX R1s very easy to match when shot for their common sweetspots.

The MX feels "thinner" and falls off quite rapidly in the bottom and is also not so nice (methinks) in the last stop before clip.
It feels a bit "underpowered" for lack of better words.

Not that you cannot make beautifull images with it.
Just saying that you can that with the M, too and that it opens for some "other" gently toned imagery. Even though it hates to be overexposed too much and gets noisy in the bottom earlier. I still like what I get from it.

On the Epic (OTOH)
There is just so much more info. You have to choose how you weigh it to get it as gently out as the M (if that is what you desire) But it is possible by far.

[Dan Hudgins]

Does the MX sensor board use log encoding for 14bit data saved as 12bit, and the M sensor board encodes 12bit linear sensor data as 12bit in the recording?

I noticed when MX came out that there were people that noted more banding in the sky and such as that is what might be expected from log encoding as there would be less data in the highlights, less of an issue at higher ISO but somewhat noticeable at the lowest ISO maybe.

If it was mostly the encoding that changed then are the M and MX sensors more or less the same item?

The net result is that if the sensor is the same, then shooting 320 with linear encoding 'could' look more solid than 800 with log encoding, perhaps, and that might be what you are seeing.

The log encoding would work better maybe for 800 because of the wavelet issues with low exposure levels, when you log encode you get the values at ISO 800 up where they would have been for linear ISO 320 so you avoid the shadow issues to some degree, that is ISO 3200 should look better with log encoding 14bit than linear encoding 12bit.

If the new Epic 6K model has a selection for linear OR log encoding, then you would have a choice of the impact of REDCODE (tm) on the images rather than being stuck with just one burned in look, maybe.

[Gunleik Groven]

AFAIK RED does not use log encoding. The trick of getting 13.5 stops out of a 12 bit linear AD (that was touted a lot early on) is a bit of whizzardry, that I think is what I see as the main different on the MX and M on the R1.

The Epic OTOH has the data overhead to eat those stops linearily + VAT, which I think is a very noticeable difference in post between the two, + highlightshandling and lowlightshandling. Not neccesarily "noise" per se, but the way it gently gets up and down being "fat" all the way.

Love the MX on the Epic...

G

[Mark Toia]

I hope the Dragon will bring the look/"feel" of Red footage somewhere between the Alexa and the current Epic. The Alexa is too stylized and soft to my taste, and the current Epic is a bit "hard"/too natural to my taste.

I like a lot of the original M footage I've seen, the contrast curve seems a bit more "natural" or closer to the Alexa look people like, although I understand that the sensor was not as versatile as the current ones.

I hope Dragon will bring the esthetic wow factor back in Red. The sharpest and most beutiful cinematic images money can by. As far as I'm concerned, it's almost a necessity with low cost cinema cameras such as the black magic one around the corner...

And the Alexa is eating up the rental marked...

I trust Red, I've spent a lot of money on the new Red cameras. And I earn money on them, but I hope, I really hope that Dragon will fix all the current issues (i.e. magenta highlights) and bring us an image that is undoubtably the best option for the DP. I really understand the love for the Alexa's easy beauty, like traditional film. But it's a bit to much "look" in it, for my taste. But something between the current Epic and the Alexa.
Dream, dream, dream. Creamy dream.

Oh my... You miss guided soul... I do feel so sorry for you. Not knowing how to make RED images look like Alexa images... It's so easy.

Send me an ALEXA shot, And I'll match it perfectly.. send me a SONY F65 shot and Ill match it perfectly...
I've shot so many TVC's with mixed camera footage coming in these days, from Alexa, Phantom, Canons, Epics, ... and we grade them all up the same. I can pull RED back to any of these other formats...

I cannot believe that you have written this to be honest... ? I've never ever seen this super amazing ALEXA footage that people keep telling me about. I have a lot of it here now stored away in hard drives and it does not look any better than anything else. ?

paused...
ok, Im back...
I'm looking at a string of ALEXA footage right this second, just dragged it up in Premier and I have quite literally dropped a 5k EPIC file next to it... Same shoot, different cameras, different lens.... I'm now spending 30 seconds on grading it to match the Alexa footage. Done.. Perfect. now they are the same. Not very hard... I had to blur the RED footage 1 pixel... as the Alexa footage is no were as sharp... but over all... the tones are identical.
Colour temp a bit warm in the Alexa footage to start with... But hey, it's a colour baked Pro res.. what do you expect. , but still looks fine.

Now I couldn't get the Alexa footage to look as sharp or as clean as the EPIC footage, reason why is because EPIC shoots images 4 to 5x the size of Alexa standard output.

NOW!... If your not grading your footage at all... and just transcoding and using as is, or just using the ALEXA footage as is... not grading that either... Then Alexa has a nicer standard colour lut... But when you get into a grading situation, The EPIC runs rings around PRORES Alexa footage for colour and gamma range... Fact. Why... because one is 10 or 12 bit Prores at MAX res HD... and the other is 16bit, 12 milllon pixels RAW.... So of course to be fair to the Alexa you will have to degrade the RED RAW files to get them down to Alexa spec and look... But once again, so so simple to do.

It's so so easy to drag EPIC footage back to ALEXA spec... Almost impossible for Alexa to look like RED EPIC footage.

[Gunleik Groven]

I'm all with you Mark, but is Epic #2.... ?

Hard to tell through the jpegs and all, but that'd be my guess...