RED DRAGON footage released

[Glen Vandermolen]

RED EPIC DRAGON - IT'S THE REAL DEAL ! on Vimeo

[Murray Christian]

Impressive numbers. It'll be interesting to see if it'll unseat the Alexa as the old-school DoP fave though.

It's quite...flat looking in that stuff. Which is fine. I'm sure other things can be done with it.
Someone observed once that this period is the Red era and that sort of flat look is in fashion at the same time and it might be at least partly because that's what you get from a Red. A lot of low budget people exposing and grading that sort of footage for the first time (ie people being stuck with something flatter than they might have wanted).
It's a bit of a stretch to say that's why the fashion exists. But I do know of productions where that happened (back in the Red One days especially).

[Simon Denny]

Wow, it's going to be great. I wonder how much?

[Bob Hart]

As I understand things from the reduser post by Mark Toia, originator and editor I think of the linked clip, he did not massage or enhance the footage. Massaged and graded, I would not expect to see future footage looking too flat.

Grading off the look versus off the raw image goes back to the SI2K and probably before that. The debate may be in for a reprise with the new camera.

The "flat" look, may be like extreme shallow depths of field that new players obsess after until they get the novelty out of their system. It may be one of those "because you should, not because you can" things that will eventually run its course.

[Jon Fairhurst]

Looks great.

High speed. Huge dynamic range. Lots of bits. Lots of pixels. No aliasing. The main limitation will be the person behind the camera and/or at the grading console (and script, and actors, and weather, and costumes, and set...), rather than the camera.

[Douglas Call]

I would like to see Alister Chapman's take on this Red Dragon Video & the comments. I noticed that Mark Toia himself admits he doesn't understand the Sony F65's sensor which makes me wonder about his credentials. You should start talking till you know what your talking about. I think he needs to read this article about the Sony F65 8K capable sensor. Image Sensors World: Sony 4K Digital Cinema Sensor Better Than Film

[Joachim Hoge]

Douglas, did you read Marks post when he released the footage?
It doesn't sound like it from your comment. He never said he doesn't understand the Sony sensor, he actually played back both F65 files and Dragon files to compare. He also ran a 2K scan of some Kodak Asa 250 alongside the dragon 4000 Asa footage and said the noise looked very much like film grain.
He has spent a decade telecinjg film stocks before he got into digital filmmaking.

He knows what he is talking about, more so than A. Chapman (no disrespect, to mr Chapman, I've read a lot of his writing on Sony and that helped me a great deal I the past)

Mark even stated that he thinks the F65 has the best sensor among the cine digtal cameras, better than his RED EPIC MX, but he claims the Dragon surpasses the Sony by quite a bit.

Then when you consider the price and size as well, it's quite an achivment from RED IMHO.

The upgrade if you own and Epic is $9500, new body is around $30000, but that will become cheaper when the Epic X cameras will be available

PS his credentials is nothing to worry about, believe me

[Douglas Call]

I'll reserve judgement until both the Dragon & F65 have been tested during a side by side shooting test so one can see the same subject under controlled lighing through both sensors to get a true perspective of each cameras benefit. Then of course comparing their files side by side makes very good sense since they were shot under identical conditions. This type of test would be very instructive also because it would highlight the differences that each camera can bring to the screen. This means the chance for subjective observations is based on a fair representation of both cameras performance given a specific shooting challenge. This seems like a more useful and instructive comparison of such high end cameras. Certainly not a bad idea when your talking about the prices you have to pay for either of these cameras when including the cost of them both fully kitted out.

[Joachim Hoge]

Can't blame you for that Douglas.
Personally I don't need to see that as is it seems pretty clear to me that these are the top 2 cameras now.
They both produce amazing images (or the Dragon will, when released), but the Red fits my bill.

It can do 100fps in 6K with a 16 stop DR with no penalty in DR from 250-2000 ASA.
I often shoot overcranked, and often in remote or difficult accessible locations. I could never drag the F65 where I could bring the Red Epic.

PS The color science on the Dragon is not even finished yet, so it should improve even more before release, but who knows.

[Douglas Call]

Originally Posted by Joachim Hoge

It can do 100fps in 6K with a 16 stop DR with no penalty in DR from 250-2000 ASA. I often shoot overcranked, and often in remote or difficult accessible locations.

Does the Dragon have a mechanical Rotary Shutter? Now with Version 2.0, 2.2, and 3.0 refinements, the F65 currently will handle High Frame Rate 4K RAW at up to 120p with no windowing. And 12-bit HD recording with 4:4:4 color in addition to it's 4K 16-bit linear RAW recording.

New F65 Firmware Features listed here:
http://www.zsyst.com/wp-content/uplo...0V11-10-30.pdf


F65 Version 3.00 Upgrade Available Now:
Sony is pleased to announce that we will be taking service reservations beginning on July 15, 2013 for the F65 digital cinema camera's CBK-65EL V3.00 upgrade kit. This technology refresh includes powerful new features: connectivity to Sony's DVF-EL100 OLED viewfinder, individual configuration of HD SDI outputs, 48 fps support and new Wi-Fi remote control improvements. The kit entails the installation of a new circuit board, as well as firmware and software reprogramming for the camera, the SR-R4 SR Master recorder and the SRK-CP1 Control Panel.

Talking about clean files:
The F65 can capture 4K F65RAW @ 60fps with a data capture rate of 5.5Gbps (Sony SR-R4 recorder). This is a 738MB/s file size how does that compare to the Dragon's data capture rate and file size capability? Don't forget the Sony F65 has upgraded firmware that can handle 8Kx2K format!

[Joachim Hoge]

No it does not have a mechanical shutter, it does however have half the read-refresh rate of the MX sensor so skew is half as much as previous sensor. It helps quite a bit, have a look at the spokes of the drifting cars to see the improvements.

RED Are also about to release the Motion Mount, that incorporates 8* electronic ND that also overtakes the sensor timing to give a true Global shutter.

File size isn't everything for every type of production, one codec could be more efficient than the other. Our 1DC uses jpeg2000 and its nowhere near as efficient as the redcode.

I'm not trying to make this into a pissing contest, and if you read my previous post I said the Epic fits the bill for me, as the modularity of the camera means I can use it in hard to get to locations by just putting it in my backpack with a few lenses. Or I can rig it up as a full studio cine style camera.
Red is making 2 different modules that let's you record prores in addition to the Redraw.

Some say the Dragon surpasses the F65, some highly doubt it. I really don't care, the Dragon is an amazing camera in a very small package, the F65 is an amazing camera too, but in a much bigger package that doesn't suite my shooting style.

I'm just a bit tiered of people (not directed at you Douglas) bashing a camera that is not even released and not having their facts straight. I'm just trying to do a little enlightening. If people can't see that the Dragon is a great step forward in sensor technology I don't know what they expect.

People also complained about color shift in the highlights, they are easily fixed in Redcin-X by turning DRX on. The beauty of RAW, but also it's curse. You have to learn how to deal with it..
(Mark said he forgot to do that to his highlights in his hurry to get the demo finished)

[Douglas Call]

I agree that a darn good piece of video gear is nice no matter who manufactures it.

Actually you have me interested in just learning more about the Dragon. In a positive way. Like I said before I like to know what cameras can bring to the screen. That means there are cases and conditions where either camera is optimal but it just hard to find information on the Dragon which is more the reason I was asking some of the questions I did.I guess the Dragon isn't quite fully released yet.

I remember that one of the strong selling features for the Sony F65 was no jello look or whatever they call that distortion because it had the mechanical rotary shutter allowing it to avoid that condition. That's just a feature of the F65 in the same way that the Dragon is far lighter and mobile. That's why I keep saying what the cameras can bring to the screen in a positive way.

I don't have a problem with having a smaller 4K capable camera that can get great video to take in situations where it's difficult to take the size and weight of camera like the Sony F65. I haven't had time to research the F65RAW codec to see it's pros or cons so I can't really make a statement there.

Same with the Dragon I'm not even sure if Mark Toia was comparing video files that were recorded with the identical codec for both the Dragon & F65 so obviously I can't make any judgment about that aspect.

[Joachim Hoge]

And You gave me some info on the F65 I didn't know, (the high frame rate in 4K to name one).
That's the great things about forums when the discussion is civilised, something I always liked about dvinfo, and although I frequent the reduser more these days and it can be a bit biased there for sure. But it's a forum where you have a lot of owner operators and one usually are quite attached to ones gear which can be both good and bad.
As said before, the Epic fits my style and I'm free to admit I never shot with the F65 (I do have a guy I know that ones one though), but I have shot extensively with our Epic for the last 2 years so I'm biased as well.

To me as an owner operator it's a no brainer, the Epic was within reach buying it together with my partner. The F65 not (and its too big for our needs)

Anyways, it's exciting times we live in, it's not too long ago since the Canon XL-1 was the best camera I could get.

PS I just watched some hand held footage I shot with the Epic from a helicopter in Russia and I did see the jello effect now and again. Wouldn't have happend on the F65, but I might not have been able to do the shot with that camera. Every camera is a sacrifice in some respect, so you have to figure out what works for you.

[Douglas Call]

The flip side of your helicopter experience is I wouldn't have been hand holding the F65 or capturing any video footage in the helicopter which shows why it's great to have a diverse set of great tools available for each task.

Actually I'm secretly waiting for the Red 4K Laser Projector that's suppose to be coming out sometime soon. It's suppose to be selling for like $10,000.00 !

[Sabyasachi Patra]

The technology has become good and now it is upto us to create great imagery. I would love to see a side by side comparison.