ProVideo Coalition.com: Stunning Good Looks by Art Adams

Recently I was contacted by a production company in New York City who were looking for a local DP. “We want to shoot 120 fps on the RED in front of green screen,” they said.

As I’m a relatively honest fellow, I felt I had to raise a technical point. “120 fps on the RED is fine. Green screen on the RED, no problem. BUT—you don’t want to mix them.” I explained why, and I told them that if they’d tell me about their workflow I’d find another method to get what they were looking for at or below their current budget.

“Excellent! We’ll get back to you soon,” they said, and then they hung up and dialed a line producer of my acquaintance. “Give us a list of DP’s in your area who know the RED.”

Jim Jannard is a master of marketing. He made billions of dollars selling sunglasses, and he’s a genius at making people want his products. Unfortunately he did too good a job with the RED, because I occasionally find myself in the position of telling a production company that the RED won’t meet their needs… and they believe the marketing rather than the DP. While the RED is certainly the best $17,500 camera ever, it is not the best all-around camera in existence.

The camera has very high resolution. It utilizes a 4k sensor, although as it uses a Bayer filter sensor the real resolution is only between 2.8k and 3.2k, depending on the quality of the lens used, due to loss of detail during the demosaicing process. That’s more than enough resolution for film output, and that detail has convinced many that simply owning this camera will allow them to open their own studio.

To some extent they may be right. RED has certainly brought film resolution HD to the masses. Whether the masses have the lenses and support equipment to actually use their RED cameras is another matter entirely. The important thing is that the promise is there.

The RED revolutionized another aspect of HD production: it was designed from the ground up to function “film style.” The captured images are intended to be color corrected later, adding a world of possibilities to the final look. I know two directors who love working this way as there is no engineering station to cart around during production and no waiting to tweak each shot with a paintbox. We just shoot. We work faster, actors remain fresher, and we can finalize the look of the end product in a proper viewing environment instead of under a tent of flags in the middle of a park in broad daylight.

When one considers that the RED has brought to the masses a film-like workflow and style of shooting, it truly is a revolution unto itself.

The bottom line is that it’s still a $17,500 camera, and you don’t make a 4k film resolution camera at that price point without cutting a few corners.

The sensor is slow. RED says to rate it at ISO 320, but a lot of DP’s find that it works better at 160-200. It’s very hard to calculate an ISO rating for an electronic imaging system as ISO is based upon the toe of the film exposure curve, and HD doesn’t have a toe: HD gamma is a straight line down into the murk of noise. Still, setting a light meter between 160-250 seems to work for most people, depending on taste and comfort with noise.

The sensor only offers about nine stops of usable latitude before noise overwhelms the shadows. The RED often looks like it has more latitude because it’s easy to protect for the highlights and open up the mid-tones in post as long as you don’t open them up too far. The great benefit of the RED’s workflow is that those nine stops can be pushed around later in post, while ordinary cameras “bake in” the look to such an extent that you are largely locked into whatever look you create in the field.

The RED is not very sensitive to blue. It’s native white balance is 5000k, and under blueish 5600k light it captures a full nine stops of dynamic range. Under tungsten light, though, the blue channel is starved for exposure, as there just isn’t that much blue in tungsten light. Most HD cameras hide this weakness by boosting the blue channel gain, which is why the blue channel always looks noisy when viewed on a high quality studio monitor, although most cameras seem to be more sensitive to blue than the RED. Equally annoying is that the tungsten channel is overexposed under tungsten light: objects containing red will clip sooner under tungsten light, limiting the camera’s dynamic range to about 7.5 stops.

Adding blue to the lights or in front of the lens will ameliorate this problem somewhat, reducing blue channel noise and increasing red channel latitude, but at the expense of reduced overall exposure sensitivity.

The RED’s entry-level software is bug-ridden and inconsistent, at least at the moment. For example, the new RED ONE camera software build, no. 20, appears to largely eliminate blue channel noise under tungsten light as well as improve Rec 709 color rendition, but only if used with the current version of RedAlert. RedAlert is design to process one clip at a time, although the underlying engine can be used to process batched of clips using an included command-line tool called RedLine. RedLine, though, doesn’t allow for color correction.

RED’s free batch color correction tool, RedCine, has not yet been updated to work with the new build 20 colorimetry as it is maintained by a completely separate group from those who implemented the new colorimetry in the camera software and RedAlert. A new version of RedCine is due to be released soon, but meanwhile… you can get a taste of the new look, but you can’t use it very easily. If you can’t afford $100k+ for Scratch or SpeedGrade then your options are occasionally limited.

At high speeds the RED utilizes a smaller portion of the sensor in order to pull the image data off fast enough. As the effective size of the sensor decreases, though, resolution drops dramatically. The true resolution of 2k RED footage is probably closer to 1.5k, so at 1.9k (1920x1080) it’s not going to look terribly sharp. In a lot of situations that may be okay, and some post sharpening may solve the problem acceptably. It other cases, such as shooting in front of green screen, that softness may be a deal killer as it will make matte edges look a bit unreal.

The RED may be difficult to color correct if you desire bright, saturated colors. Anecdotal evidence suggests that RED footage will take a bit longer to tweak in the color correction. I can speak from personal experience when I say that some colors, such as purples and oranges, may not translate well without a lot of secondary work.

None of the viewing outputs are truly accurate. The monitoring output is 720p only, which makes critical viewing of a 4k image awkward at best. The image always looks better on a computer, though, so when in doubt it’s best to pull the hard drive off the camera and open a clip up in RedCine or RedAlert. A lot of picture oddities, such as weird color shifts and moire patterns, disappear when viewing the image on a computer display. Not being able to monitor accurately is a mixed blessing, as once you realize you can’t truly see what you’re doing, but that the image you’re capturing always looks better later, it’s easier to step away from the monitor and just shoot.

The RED is not a documentary camera. Its handheld ergonomics are appalling, and it’s very difficult to judge focus through the viewfinder. What might look sharp at the time may not look okay on a 40’ wide screen. It’s not a good camera for following an unpredictable subject handheld and under low light.

The RED functions best in a traditional film-style shoot environment, with a camera assistant following focus, a fair bit of light, and a data-wrangling station nearby. This isn’t a bad thing at all: the fact that we can shoot HD film-style inexpensively is a blessing that the larger, more established camera companies weren’t going to give us any time soon. But the RED is still a $17,500 camera—so don’t expect it to do everything. What it does do, it does very well indeed—but it is not the last camera you will ever need or use.

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One correction, RedCine is indeed available for build 20. You are no longer limited to RedAlert

Posted by Geoff Bailey on 08/28 at 08:52 AM

An excellent and fair article. Thanks.

Posted by leeberger on 08/28 at 03:03 PM

Art, are you sure you’ve really captured the idea how to work with a CMOS camera and the raw footages? Let me be provocative. If one can’t get more dynamics out from Red One than 9 stops, one does not know how to use the tool.

So, let’s sort this our and start from the fundamentals. As Art says the ‘gamma is a straight line down into the murk of noise’. This is not a drawback but instead the key feature. Consequently the next line from Art: ‘still, setting a light meter between 160-250 seems to work for most people, depending on taste and comfort with noise’ is about driving a car backwards.

Why? Well, as said the gamme curve is a straight line, which in more precise terms is to say that the data recording the amount of light is directly proportional the light on the sensor. The practical advantage is, as long as one is below clipping it does not matter whether one overexposures in the traditional sense or not. For, one can always revert back by scaling in post. Notice, this is true ONLY for the raw image.

But, there’s also a definite advantage in shooting to the right. The point is, every additional stop of light increases the bit depth and the dynamics. Exposuring one stop below the maximum on the right implies one employes only a half of the available tones. Two stops below means only one quarter of the available tones are recorded. As the post systems have always more bits available than what the camera can store, the camera is the critical part of the chain ans one should always try to maximize the amount of tones recorded. Maximizing tones imply also the maximum distance from noise which is what is called dynamics.

The practical workflow is this. Set the exposure using the raw metering. This means that the image on the LCD/EVF is typically too bright. But, to get an idea how the image will appear in post, don’t touch the exposure but instead dial the ISO setting downwards. The ISO setting is then recorded to metadata and when the R3D raw files are opened in REDCINE/REDALERT, this ISO number appears as the default value. Obviously, if needed the value can be changed at will without any sideeffects, thanks to the linearity of the sensor.

It should be now clear that color grading raw files will likely take more time than processing something like RGB images. But, for a good reason: dynamics is maximized. Once the gamma curve is hardwared to the recorded file all these nice features are lost.

So, once more, the ISO setting is only for viewing. It’s silly to first set the ISO value and then make the exposure to depend on the ISO value that is there only for previewing. Better to forget neutral grays and all the traditional issues and focus on the highlights. Everything else can be handled in post. And when doing so nothing is lost but instead quite the opposite: everything is gained.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/29 at 11:28 AM

I’m wondering/puzzled as to whether Larry is expecting a direct response from the person he refers to in the third-person. Or whether he invites readers to respond.

Posted by wsmith on 08/31 at 10:20 PM

Yes, it was indeed bit difficult to formulate the comment for on one hand would like be generate a cultivated discussion among the readers of this nice forum that benefits everybody. On the other hand this and the previous text by Art raises the question whether he criticizes Red One because he tries to fit the metrics of filmcameras to a modern digital camera having a CMOS sensor.

The obvious risk is that the comments blow out of hands and the discussion forcuses on people instead of techincal issues. Of course it would be nice if Art among other made comments. Especially so, as he show some strong words and opinions in his article so one may perhaps expect he is prepared to defense his view if needed. Still would like to stress out that no intention to hurt anybody’s feelings. It’s all about technical issues that deserve to be clarified.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 09/01 at 11:09 AM

Art,
Great article having worked a lot with Red I usually find the sensitivity to be right around 175 in Raw. Thanks for cutting through the hype that is Red Digital and bringing some great answers. DPs, learn your cameras and work within those limitations to make great images! I agree 10000% with software bugs, workflows etc… and I would ad to that build quality for accessories as well..ugh!!
Matt Jeppsens rant from the point of a weary AC, comes from a shoot where we saw a lot of these problems crop up.

Posted by Kendal Miller on 09/01 at 01:31 PM

Larry,

You’re describing exposing to the right, which is a valid way to work with this camera, but not the only way. Under controlled lighting circumstances, using a light meter (and rating the camera at a certain ISO) is a more desirable way to work for many DPs. (And recent revelations about color shifts under different exposure conditions is a very valid reason to work this way.)

And don’t take Art to task for his ‘9 stops’ figure—in another article (about build 20—‘Build 20 Torture Tests’ at http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/aadams/story/red_build_20_torture_tests/) Art describes how he arrives at the 9 stop figure (9.5 under daylight, if I recall correctly). It’s quantitative, and it’s good.

When it comes to latitude, the only subjective part is where you think the image is ‘lost to noise.’ If you tolerate noise better than most, you may think the camera has as many as 11 stops (that’s the most you should claim, though—Red released response curves for the sensor that show 11 as the theoretical maximum).

Personally, I like super-clean images, and I don’t mind 9 stops of latitude. It’s more than I would get out of any other camera I would buy, by a decent margin. (And frankly, the only time I’ve been unhappy with my Red is when it’s been starved for light, and the image gets noisy.)

Cheers,

Ryan

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 09/22 at 01:11 PM

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