F35: Preferring F35 over Dragon

V

VinceinLA

Carbonite Member
This is just one example of Dragon footage I've seen coming out lately but it shows what I'm getting at. The F35 still has something Red can't seem to achieve. I know that highly unique CCD has a lot to do with it. Of course this could be graded better but other than the lower light capabilities, there really isn't much desire for me to shoot with one. The skin around the :58 mark shows how Red's stuff can bite you without easy explanation.

https://vimeo.com/127009006
 
The Dragon is definitely a flawed beasty, and certainly not the thing RED originally intended to deliver.

You can get perfectly good pictures out of the Dragon, but with anything raw you need to be very careful how you treat your footage. I have seen stuff shot on F35 that looked a bit rubbish too. I also have several things I have shot where production have done pickups without me on a totally different camera and anyone watching might make assumptions about the F35/F65 too based on footage which didn't actually come out of either of those cameras...
 
I would almost certainly lay more blame at the feet of the colourist. There's a trailer somewhere for something that I shot F35 and the grade on the trailer makes the exposure and camera look utterly piss poor - the original footage is much nicer
 
I think it looks really nice but yes it's the colorist - the more I am doing this - the more I know I have to give graded dailies to push the colorist towards the direction of what I have learned - I'm not saying i know that much, but I am learning and obsessed - and I think a lot of colorists are rushed and they are the last step - and they have a client saying " it's good enough" and they just want to do it and move on. It's not a passion probably to grade other people's footage - it's a job to most.
So you kind of have to make sure they are treating yourself well.

also you can download the footage and bring into resolve and grade the h.264 and still grade it better - there is still a lot of wiggle room to try things.
So don't dispair

but overall I think it looks really nice.

my issue with the dragon is it's very bad in low light - the fan noise, and it doesn't seem to create a color gamut that different than the original Epic MX and Red One MX sensor. All their promise was a giant let down. But that's what we should expect.

fool me once, fool me twice. bla bla
 
I would say colourists are much like DoPs - some days are great days, where you're full of excitement, etc... other days you know the job isn't a great one and you are just there for the money and to get it over with.
 
God is in the room, with his arm around you, when you are watching porn. Looking deep into your darkness. Is that so difficult to accept?

Oh, and also disturbing was the severe inability to hit focus.
 
Pet peeve of mine. I absolutely HATE any type of flashback to this time period when people are clean shaven. What a ridiculous production error. It negates all efforts in my book. When I see a guy in a prison on the floor and they are talking about being served food on a plate...and the fellow has a perfectly shaven beard....

its the most ridiculous thing ever. Just slap "cheesy" all over it.
 
We use Sony cameras. They don't serve our kind over there ;)

It is incredibly difficult to judge ANY camera if you're looking at anything other than footage presented to you by the person shooting it, with a full explanation of what you're looking at.
 
JMtheDP said:
We use Sony cameras. They don't serve our kind over there ;)

It is incredibly difficult to judge ANY camera if you're looking at anything other than footage presented to you by the person shooting it, with a full explanation of what you're looking at.
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Yeah, except there are only two posts in this thread where the camera is really discussed. Vince's first post (and all I've ever seen him contribute to DVX is expounding his distaste for RED - that's a fine opinion, but it's getting old) and your first one. Every other post is making assumptions on the quality or devotion of the people who made it.

Seems pretty classless to me, especially since some of these people won't even post under their real names.
 
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For what it's worth, some people on this board, like myself, have been attempting to get our screen names switched to real names, but the mods don't seem to pay attention to those requests.
 
I have my real name in my sig and have done for some time - I actually have been trying to get my name on REDUSER changed to my real one too for about two years but they ignore my requests every time.

Will, they're usually fairly well behaved around here, honest :)
 
JMtheDP said:
I have my real name in my sig and have done for some time - I actually have been trying to get my name on REDUSER changed to my real one too for about two years but they ignore my requests every time.

Will, they're usually fairly well behaved around here, honest :)
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Yes, I wasn't talking about you specifically James.

People around here are usually pretty good - but stuff like this really grinds my gears, ya know? Someone worked really hard on this piece and while that doesn't put it or them above constructive criticism I don't think it warrants the snobby remarks in this thread or others like it that occasionally come up around here.

I've been here for over 10 years - the vast collective of users here (and I'm not signaling anyone out specifically) could only dream to shoot this well. Maybe asking questions instead of taking pot shots behind a handle would go along way. That's all I'm trying to say.

Peace out.
 
was this a poo poo thread? I thought it was pretty tame. we obviously were trying to not poo poo the filmmakers directly. I wasnt. I still think the grade could have used a 2nd pass. I stand by my statements. And if you make a religious film expect the standand apostle reaction.

And on the note of colorists...i have yet to meet colorists as passionate on a whole as cinematographers. That is a sweeping generalization. There is something so emotional about footage one shoots.

Thats probably not true but the only one who usuallly cares the most is ourself.
 
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Okay, I'll be the schmuck, but I read that thread at reduser, and I don't get that all that praising is how more constructive?
 
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