Any AUTO-FUNCTIONs on RED? Focus or Exposure?

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Smile

Jannard said:
Barry... we will include a waveform. And some other goodies as well.

Jim
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Jim, you HAVE to be a camera nut cause only a camera nut would care about putting a waveform on the display

Thanks for doing this.. It means a lot

Jay
 
Jim,

Have you gotten far along enough in the design to know if the camera will support the use of Anton Baur batteries? I think I can speak for a lot of the pros when I say I sure hope so!

Jay
 
Now that we're talking about everything that's going to be on the display:

Audio meters. As long as we're doing analog audio IN, I'd love to be able to send a duplicate of the viewfinder video (using an HDMI splitter or something alike) to the audio recordist, so he can check levels without having to be near the camera.

And of course a live video out without all the data is an obvious but important one.

Bar3nd
 
Jannard said:
Barry... we will include a waveform. And some other goodies as well.

Jim
Click to expand...

Holy S**t.

If you could see the stupid smile on my face.

Every new feature you include is one more item I can sctratch off my purchase list. As a small businessman you don't know how appreciative I am for that :beer:
 
Gibby said:
Emanuel,

I have no direct knowledge of this, but my impression is that RED's histogram and waveform will be available on the on-board screen and also be available for output to a second monitor. It would make good sense to have a choice of having it available to either one, or both at the same time.

Gibby
RED #8
www.cut4.tv
www.4umat.com
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Steve,

Anyway, thank you for your answer.

I fully agree with you.

Cheers! :beer:
Emanuel
 
waveform

waveform

About the waveform, how fine will the adjustments be? I mean what are the smallest increments that you can adjust it. And is the waveform free software from RED or is it off the shelf software. I assume it is not hardware based.
 
Forgive my ignorance, but while I understand the visuals of a histogram graph on the display (my digicam has one), I do not understand what a waveform display means or what it would look like (in video anyway - audio I understand very well).

Does anyone have a link to a picture or mockup showing what you mean by a waveform display for a video monitor or LCD as could be used on Red?
 
Here you go:

waveform.jpg


A color waveform.
 
The waveform is basically "Luminance" against "Horizontal Position" ... so high values on the left of the waveform = high levels on the left side of your image.

Obviously it lets you see clipping/peaking, but also you can see approximately where in the image the peaking is taking place. And also judge balance between highs, mids, low, etc ... often difficult to judge as your monitor can make a scene look brighter/darker than is actually being recorded (often due to different gamma profiles).

Kris
 
macgregor said:
Here you go:

waveform.jpg


A color waveform.
Click to expand...
Thanks for all your responses!

So let me just see if I read the above image correctly then:

There is a bit of clipping going on about two thirds across the image (over the 100% marking) as well as a little bit of shadow detail loss under the 0 mark. The "brightness" of the image increases from left to right until it begins to clip, ten there is probably a hard luminance edge after that to the right which gradually fades down again towards the right side of frame.

So I would guess the image is composed to use the rule of thirds on something which at its centre is peaking full bright/white.

To correct the image based on the waveform you would need to maybe use an ND of some sort or stop down, but the flip side of that would mean you lose more shadow detail as some of it is already at zero?

Hope I have the concept down! :)

Anyway, thanks for the info all, now I understand why people would find such a display useful (it's kind of a directional histogram in layman's terms!).

One small question on the above image - what do the stepped green lines indicate?

Cheers,

Paul
 
Mr Visceral, that image has been calibrated for computer screens, where 0 RGb is under the 0 of the waveform, and where pure white is above 100.
 
your interpretation is pretty spot on :) the top isn't clipping though, as it's not a HARD line .. it's close but hasn't lost it's detail. There is some black clip on the far left and right of frame, but there's no reason to believe that this isn't deliberate. Black clip while recording = loss of shadow detail (too wide dynamic range, you'll need more light fill) .. but black clip on a graded image isn't unusual in the slightest- obviously it's by choice (if done by someone who knows what they're doing ;)

[EDIT]
just noticed that there is some clip-like details around the 110 line ... this MAY be details (highlight points) which clipped at the capture stage but have since been pulled down (lower than the big bright area) in post. IF this interpretation is correct, it's not a bad example of why you really don't want to clip 'any' of your r/g/b channels at the capture stage, as you'll have this 'plateaux' effect.. lowering in post doesn't get that detail back.
 
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I was pretty sure from the outset that red would be a fully professional camera with no auto features. It did not stop me hoping though. BUT!!!

The comments by the founder of red that we will have a histogram AND a waveform monitor had me looking again at both these items.... from a beginners POV. Exposure, focusing will i grasp one and not the other?

You know what? i have just done a u turn completely. I looked again at some tutorials and the whole concept is how a professional would do things right. The focus assist features has not being discussed yet either but i very much like the way things are going, i think we are going to get something that aint gonna be rocket science (like too technical or difficult) but just a new way of operating and getting top notch focusing and exposure.

i too followed the pic and understood it easily enough. If i picked red up right in other comments we will also have a pre set picture ( a white balance to work with as you switch the camera on) say for outside and interior perhaps with several options for both? Then fix in post if required.

With a fair amount of practice this looks quite achievable for me to use. Nothing worth doing right is rarely easy but i feel a whole lot better since yesterday. My fears of not being able to use a red one are disappearing fast.

Am i being lured into my own false sense of security?

Michael
 
Well, part of this may be coming from the mistaken notion that Red is meant to be all things to all people. And it isn't.

Look at the name of the company. It's not Red Do-Everything Camera Company. It's Red Digital Cinema Camera Company. Which implies that they're not aiming to make Red usable for run and gun, or ENG, or news, or anything like that. They know very well what they're setting out to do -- they're making their own version of a Panavision Millennium for the Digital age. An affordable Viper/Dalsa.

As such, autofocus and OIS really don't have anything to do with their mission and goal.

At least, that's the way I'm reading it...
 
I remember the first thing my teacher said handing me a digital camera in film class... "Turn off ALL auto functions". From then on it's been a hassel making sure these auto stuff is all off. They always seem to pop back up once you turn your camera off and back on.... Looking forward to an auto free world!!!

I think Michael Mann had a problem with that once on Miami Vice... The image didn't look right and they were all scratching their heads figuring out what was wrong... Turned out somebody had pushed some auto stuff on by mistake.. (If the Viper has no auto functions, please correct me on this... I just remember reading something about that..)

By the way this forum is highly educational. That waveform stuff. Pretty cool! Looks like we'll be advanced Red users before ever using one. Don't even need to read the manual... But then again. I'm a man! Never picked up a manual in my life.......... except IKEA stuff... who makes that stuff...

And Jim... Whatever you do.. don't have an auto-shutdown function..........
 
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