Enter the Dragon - 20-Stops of Dynamic-Range
- Thread starter Simon Shasha
- Start date
"You must have skipped the part about: "Don't look at image quality here... this is a dirty debayer with no black calibration, no offset correction and no processing on a special 21 stop DR Chart from DSC.""
No. I didn't. Calibration and noise elimination are two entirely different things. After literal years of R&D, they chose to put this image out, and I'm responding to what's in it. Are we only allowed to notice positives, without negatives?
Perhaps it'll give a clean 15-16 stops. Or perhaps it'll give a clean, usable 12.x stops, as the image actually shows. The ball's in their court. This is an experiment at this stage, and nothing will be shipping for a long, long time.
No. I didn't. Calibration and noise elimination are two entirely different things. After literal years of R&D, they chose to put this image out, and I'm responding to what's in it. Are we only allowed to notice positives, without negatives?
Perhaps it'll give a clean 15-16 stops. Or perhaps it'll give a clean, usable 12.x stops, as the image actually shows. The ball's in their court. This is an experiment at this stage, and nothing will be shipping for a long, long time.
George Tsai
Member
apparently you only notice negatives. And calibration actually affects how the camera processes noise. While I was expecting to see more of an image than just a dirty dsc chart at this point, Red is well known to be ambitious on their dates and they admit this to be one of their many failings. What they're doing is obviously not easy, their R&D history is extremely short for what they are doing as well as compared to any other developers out there.
This is obviously not a sample image of best of what the sensor can do and to make a judgment as it's a final word are from those that are oblivious. This is a what potentially could be in the coming future, a sensor capable of much higher dynamic range.
Ryan Patrick O'Hara
Veteran
They said the lens mount had a light leak... which was strange to me because, it's not that hard to get a lens mount light proofed... however, that would be like flashing film and if similar, would increase the lower end DR, because the darks get lifted.
Just throwing it out there.
Also, no matter what the DR, it will likely be higher than now, and that's ok with me. In fact, I'm sure I'll be adding contrast and whatnot, because unless shooting uncontrolled exteriors, I never had ANY issue with 12-14 stops on my interiors where I could fully control lighting. Just saying. .... again.
And yes. This is the first image off the sensor they have shared. Expect another 6 months at least.
George Tsai
Member
Not too strange, just speculating here but as engineering is concerned easy access to internals often helps with development process, so if they're only testing firmware and hardware and not looking at the image quality at the moment light leaks might not be priority
Tho I wouldnt say that it increases the lower end DR, but rather lifts the blacks and wash out the lower end of the chart.Simon Shasha
Well-known member
Relax, mate. I did write; "How many of the stops can be effectively used is anyone's guess - from the picture though, I'd say 16, or 17 stops."
stefancolson
Well-known member
Not too strange, just speculating here but as engineering is concerned easy access to internals often helps with development process, so if they're only testing firmware and hardware and not looking at the image quality at the moment light leaks might not be priority
There isn't a roll of gaff tape sitting around at RED HQ somewhere?
KyleProhaska
Veteran
I wasn't talking about you. I said people on FB and Twitter...the rush of comments people made without even reading the thread thoroughly. They just saw the image and went batty lol.
pulpfiction007
Veteran
Seems to me they posted it just in time a month or so before the new F's start shipping.
Ha ha...good call
bgundu
Veteran
Seems to me they posted it just in time a month or so before the new F's start shipping.
They promised months ago that a Dragon announcement would happen before the end of the year. I believe the original plan was to have a little more show and tell by now but Dragon has proved to be a lot more and hence the delay. In any case, I'll be trading in my Scarlet, but I doubt it will be anytime soon.
George Tsai
Member
yup, at NAB earlier 2012 they projected that they would be rolling out dragon upgrades in December to early Epic owners
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Kolor-Pikker
Well-known member
Considering that image actually exists, both questions have already been answered: Yes, they apparently do have the electronics to do this, and yes, to debayer the image, the codec must have allowed for that much data to be stored in the first place.
Vultch
Well-known member
This site sometimes - yesterday morning European time I posted a message on the AF100 forum on the Red dragon I believe I was the first to post on this site on this topic, the post was polite and linked to the red user site and the pic plus the stated 21 stops etc, only to have my post removed some hours later.
Yet other posts on this subject exist virtually identical in content (Sony F 5 and F55 forum).
I have no loyalty to Red I don't own one yet I can already see some who have an axe to grind.
If Red can't deliver on their claims then their posting will damage the companies reputation. I don't believe they would be so foolish, Red were under enormous pressure when Sony launched the new F 5 and F55 with many Red owners asking "where are Red in the game", now we know. I just sense a real anti Red feeling / vibe here.
Yet other posts on this subject exist virtually identical in content (Sony F 5 and F55 forum).
I have no loyalty to Red I don't own one yet I can already see some who have an axe to grind.
If Red can't deliver on their claims then their posting will damage the companies reputation. I don't believe they would be so foolish, Red were under enormous pressure when Sony launched the new F 5 and F55 with many Red owners asking "where are Red in the game", now we know. I just sense a real anti Red feeling / vibe here.
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Grug
Veteran
can't say I agree, I've had to scrap most of a shot involving a transition from an extremely bright exterior to a regularly lit interior, because the 13.5 stops of the F3 weren't quite enough to salvage the shot.
sure, if I'd had the budget I'd have brought in HMIs to balance the interior, but when that isn't an option more dynamic range can save the day - so it's absolutely a feature I think many could put to use.
Samuel H
Major Contributor
And still, HDRx isn't used much, is it? I started a thread here wondering why that is: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?299568-Question-about-RED-s-HDRx-why-don-t-people-use-it
S.Blanchardon
Well-known member
From what I've read over the Reduser forum :
- No more update program for Scarlet owners but a trade-in program with Epic Dragon
- Need for more ultra fast ASIC's (so need for a new cooling scheme IMHO)
- More than the previously 6000$ to do the upgrade
-> RED should not upgrade EPIC's but design a new camera body with new optimized powering and cooling scheme.
If they keep the current thermal dissipation design of EPIC and Scarlet they will inevitably run with overheating problems unless they make the (stupid) front fan runnnig faster...
- No more update program for Scarlet owners but a trade-in program with Epic Dragon
- Need for more ultra fast ASIC's (so need for a new cooling scheme IMHO)
- More than the previously 6000$ to do the upgrade
-> RED should not upgrade EPIC's but design a new camera body with new optimized powering and cooling scheme.
If they keep the current thermal dissipation design of EPIC and Scarlet they will inevitably run with overheating problems unless they make the (stupid) front fan runnnig faster...
I think this is excatly what will happen, with another upgrade scheme for both Epic and Scarlet users.
I love the idea of modularity, but unless you get it perfect from the start, it can be a headache... and the current "brain" system is by no means perfect.
Kolor-Pikker
Well-known member
It doesn't matter whether the technology is available in a ready-to-use format, but that it's there at all, stuffing it all into a small box is merely a detail that Mr. Moore is very good at solving. Assuming they used 16-bit ADCs, that would still cap the DR to 16 stops, so how are they reading 20 at once?
LOL that's the first time I've seen somebody link to themselves as if it's a source.
Pimp that blog.