(rock music)
- Hey guys, I'm Patrick.
I'm the Lead Editor and
Producer at LumaForge,
and today we're talking
about the RED Dragon-X.
Now, here at LumaForge,
we shoot on RED Ravens,
we've been using them
for a number of years.
And the thing I love about the Raven,
is the fact that it comes
in a ready-to-go kit.
So this allowed us to
immediately go out into the field
and start shooting, which was awesome.
Thankfully, the Dragon-X also comes with a kit.
So the question is, is it time
to upgrade to the Dragon-X?
So when we got our hands on one,
the first thing we found
out was that the sensor size
is actually larger than
that of the RED Raven.
You've got the ability
to shoot a larger image
with the exact same lenses, and,
because I'm working in a
faster body, the DSMC2,
I can write more data to
the card at any one given
point in time, which
means that I can shoot at
higher frame rates at lower compression,
or I can shoot at regular frame
rates at lower compression.
All this means that I have
the ability to shoot with
less artifacts from compression,
and I've got the ability to see
more detail and texture in the image
for the same image size and composition.
Next, we discovered that
the Dragon-X actually has
an interchangeable lens mount.
The RED Raven comes with
an EF Mount built in,
but with the Dragon X, we
have the chance to move
to things like Nikon
or PL if we so desired.
One of the hidden benefits of having
interchangeable lens mounts
is the ability to change
your OLPF, or Optical Low Pass Filter.
So the question is, what is an
optical low pass filter, right?
Well, it's a little
piece of glass that fits
between your lens and your
sensor that does two things.
It prevents dust from
getting to your sensor
and it filters out UV and IR light,
which is ultra-violet and infrared light.
Now, if you didn't have one of
these in front of your sensor
you would have all sorts of weird colors
that your eye, as a human,
is not used to seeing,
hitting the sensor and being
processed on a computer.
It just looks really, really weird.
So you need to, need to have
an optical low pass filter
in your camera, in fact most cameras
come with them built in.
So why would you want to change them?
Well, we get to play with
three different OLPFs
with the RED Dragon-X.
The first one is the Standard.
The Standard is very
good in many situations.
For the most part you aren't
going to want to change
this one out most of the time.
However, there are situations,
like we're in right now,
where you're working with high contrast
and you're in a low light situation,
and the Standard may not
allow enough light in
without causing noise, so
there's the Low Light Optimized.
The Low Light Optimized
gives you less noise
and actually opens up
more light to the sensor
than is available on the Standard,
by having a sharp cutoff
on the IR portion of the light spectrum.
Now, the way that they do
this is by reflecting light
off of the OLPF, which
can cause all sorts of
lens reflections back onto the sensor.
The Skin Tone-Highlight filter is great
when you're in abundant
light and you're wanting
to get your colors as
accurate as possible.
The Skin Tone-Highlight is
called the Skin Tone-Highlight
because it requires an abundance of light,
but it does reproduce skin tones in a way
that the other two just don't.
Now, believe it or not,
the Skin Tone-Highlight
used to be the standard
across all RED cameras,
but, because it requires so much light,
it actually increases the
noise floor of the sensor.
So if you don't have a whole lot of light,
you are going to see
significantly more noise
with the Skin Tone-Highlight than with
the Standard or the Low Light Optimized.
Now, a cool thing about the
Skin Tone-Highlight is that
instead of reflectivity,
it uses absorption
to prevent IR and UV light
from hitting the sensor,
which means that you have
less reflection artifacts
from the lens, with a direct source.
So just like the OLPF
give you creative control,
RED also gives you
creative control over color
using their brand new IPP2 color pipeline,
now built directly into the Dragon-X.
IPP2 gives us a new life that we never had
with any previous sensor
in any previous body,
because we have new debayering algorithms
which change how texture
and detail are perceived.
Additionally, you can
control how the contrast
is mapped for the entire image.
And we've got new algorithms
for how highlights are handled.
And, while you've got
the access to both the
highlight roll off and contrast controls,
you can also bring in
creative LUTs into the camera
alongside your IPP2 controls.
So, whereas on the RED
Raven you can either have
a camera LUT, that brings
you from log to rec. 709,
with the Dragon, you can
go from log to rec. 709
using IPP2, and then bring in a camera LUT
to do any sort of flavoring of
the color that you want to do
right there, inside of camera,
you don't have to wait to post.
It's really pretty awesome.
Thanks to IPP2, we now
have the ability to do
color graded dailies inside the
camera right out of the box.
With the RED Raven I could record proxies,
but I was limited to 2k
and I had no ability to
burn in any other sorts of
color pipeline information.
It just was what it was.
Now, with the Dragon-X, I can
record in 4k from my proxies,
or I can record in 2k
and I can burn in either
just the log image using IPP2's controls
minus the 709 conversion,
or I can do IPP2 with
my rec. 709 conversion,
and any sort of CDL changes
or creative LUT that I've
applied to the camera.
That all can be burned in
directly into my dailies,
which means that when I go into post,
I've got exactly the DPs and
tints baked into the image,
for the producers to see.
I don't have to worry
about doing any grading
to make the image look right.
Now, the beautiful thing
about working with RED
is that I can, at the end,
re-link back to my R3D files
and I've got full control
in the coloring process.
So the question is, is the
Dragon-X right for you?
If you're budget conscious,
you might still go with
the RED Raven just because
you can get that full
blown kit for $15,000.
But the Dragon kit is only $20,000.
And, if you're still on a tight budget
and you don't need all of that stuff,
you can get the Dragon-X
brain for the same price
as the RED Raven kit.
So what do you think about
the features in the Dragon-X?
Let us know in the comments below.
And don't forget to like,
share, and subscribe
for more LumaForge goodness.
Thanks so much.
(rock music)
