nofilmschool » hdrx

RED EPIC-Shot 'City In The World' Paints a Darkly Beautiful New York City in HDR

Dave Kendricken — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 04:18:31 +0000

I’m as captivated by striking portrayals of urban nightscapes as anyone, ranging back to the existing-light-only Nocturne, to the aerial ghost-eye-views of FIREFLY. There’s just something breathtaking about seeing the biggest centers of life and activity during the desolate, slumbering hours. Filmmaker Colby Moore has added another quieting noct-urban document to the list. City In The World lays some high dynamic range RED EPIC sights on the city that never quite gets to sleep. Check out some of New York City’s dark side below, plus some details from Colby about his non-HDRx workflow. (more…)

Happy New Year! Magic Lantern Delivers Second Canon 7D Alpha, More Cameras on the Way

Joe Marine — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 18:37:11 +0000

As we approach midnight in most places around the world (with some already celebrating the new year), the hardworking team over at Magic Lantern has delivered more updates to the trusty Canon DSLRs. We now have a second alpha for the Canon 7D — a camera that we previously thought was unhackable — and more updates are on their way with support for the Canon T4i, 6D, and 40D. Check out all of the exciting developments below. (more…)

Significant Magic Lantern Update, Version 2.3 for Canon DSLRs, Now Available to Download for Free

Joe Marine — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 22:01:12 +0000

Magic Lantern, the well-known third party firmware solution for Canon DSLRs that we discussed a few weeks ago, has finally released their newest firmware version 2.3 as a free download. Since it takes a tremendous amount of work to put together these firmware updates, they were asking for a donation in exchange for the download, or you could compile the firmware update yourself for free (which isn’t very straightforward). Check out the video below to see some of the great features that have been added in this version. (more…)

Magic Lantern No Longer a Hack, V2.3 is a Mature Release with More Features Than Any Canon Camera

Joe Marine — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 16:45:50 +0000

Magic Lantern, the ~~hack~~ third party firmware solution for Canon cameras, has come a long, long way since its first release. Stability and new features have been the top priorities for the team, and it looks like with the newest release they are delivering on both counts. Even though Canon has been increasing the feature set of the higher-end cameras like the Canon 5D Mark III and the 1D X, they have been trying to differentiate the video and photo product lines as much as possible. For those familiar with the traditional features of a video camera, using DSLR presents quite a few challenges. The goal of Magic Lantern, however, is to introduce in firmware all of these quirks that make shooting with real video cameras that much easier. (more…)

With New Magic Lantern Firmware, Canon DSLRs Get Real-Time HDR Video*

Ryan Koo — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 17:28:17 +0000

Is real-time High Dynamic Range imaging, ala RED’s HDRx, coming to Canon DSLRs with the next version of Magic Lantern firmware? Well, yes and no — thus the asterisk. The system they’ve developed splits a 24p stream into two 12FPS exposures, one high and one low, and then interpolates the frames. It’s an interesting hack, demonstrated here: (more…)

New AMP HDR Camera Records Up to 20 Stops of Dynamic Range

Ryan Koo — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 23:22:08 +0000

In the High Dynamic Range imaging arena, it looks like RED’s HDRx mode just got some competition. But while RED’s technology cleverly combines two different exposures taken with the same sensor (fractions of a second apart), newcomer AMP uses a beam splitter to divvy up incoming light onto three separate sensors. We’ve seen beam-splitting HDR before, but this is a single unit that currently claims 17.5 stops of exposure, with up to 20 being claimed for the production unit. However, while the demo video says it “reveals reality,” in fact tasteless HDR can render reality into a garish mishmash: (more…)

A Perfect Video Demo of Why RED's HDRx is a Game-Changer

Ryan Koo — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 17:15:36 +0000

I just got through watching Doug Liman’s Fair Game, and was impressed with how the film dealt with the Valerie Plame affair without dumbing it down — it was a refreshingly “adult” Hollywood feature. However, what I wasn’t impressed with was the RED cinematography, with Liman himself serving as DP. It looked fine, but it didn’t look great, to my eye. In camera tests to date we’ve seen that the RED has plenty of shadow detail but lacks the highlight details of film, and it’s the slightly blown-out look of skin tones and other highlights that has has me “meh”-ing some RED cinematography. Enter RED’s game-changing exposure hack, HDRx. The following video was posted to the Cinematography Mailing List a while ago, but it’s a great explanation of HDRx in action on the RED EPIC, and also offers a glimpse of Assimilate’s post-production software SCRATCH at work: (more…)

RED EPIC HDRx Makes 'Impossible' Shots Possible

Ryan Koo — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 18:32:07 +0000

We’ve taken a look at RED’s High Dynamic Range mode, dubbed HDRx, in the past. But now that over a hundred EPIC-Ms are out in the wild, shooters are putting the camera through its paces in the real world. According to most tests the ARRI ALEXA has around 1/2 to 1 full stop more dynamic range in native mode (14.5 to 13.5), but with HDRx RED is claiming up to 18 stops total. Here’s a shot that wouldn’t be possible without HDRx: (more…)

What Exactly is 'HDRx,' RED's In-Camera High Dynamic Range Mode?

Ryan Koo — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 15:52:27 +0000

For those unfamiliar with RED camera-native files, a common first reaction to ungraded footage is “this looks really flat.” Indeed, that is exactly the point: by capturing as much visual information as possible, the camera gives the colorist the most flexibility in post to push the image toward a desired look. Now, with a new mode called HDRx, RED has found a way to conjoin two adjacent exposures in order to give rise to a real-time High Dynamic Range moving image. So in terms of dynamic range, what’s one of the hardest shots for a camera to expose? Quite possibly a dark interior with a bright sunny day outside. To prove the mettle of their HDRx mode, RED released the following clip: (more…)

RED's $7k SCARLET Camera Becomes $12k EPIC-S

Ryan Koo — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 14:31:33 +0000

Since announcing the SCARLET and EPIC camera lines over two years ago, RED has pushed the ship dates back and changed a number of features. While the list of films shot on RED has been growing ever longer, indies have been waiting (patiently or not) for the lower-end SCARLET entry. I’d previously noted that RED was abandoning the prosumer market because of HDSLRs, but seemingly in order to ship even better high-end rigs. Now comes word from head honcho Jim Jannard that the Super 35mm-sized SCARLET has been renamed the EPIC-S and re-priced accordingly.

UPDATE as of October 2011: it appears RED has re-re-named the EPIC-S back to the SCARLET and will be announcing it officially (and shipping it) November 3rd. Stay tuned.

The old details: (more…)