My Role: Creative, direction, cinematography, editing and post
BLOG POST
Red very kindly hosted us at their headquarters and let me borrow the fantastic Raptor X. I wanted to do high action motion tests of the Global Shutter combined with their new Extended Highlights feature (still in Beta), so I made the martial film above. There have been reports of artificating with Extended Highlights and motion, so a fight scene would bring out all the motion flaws for analysis.
One oversight I made was forgetting to change the shutter angle to 90 for the big fight scene, so it's shot at 180 shutter angle, which lacks the crispness of 90. But it was just a two person crew, so it's easy to overlook things 😫😭
GLOBAL SHUTTER AND EXTENDED HIGHLIGHTS
• Global shutter has film like motion cadence because it captures an entire image at once, similar to film which uses a physical shutter to expose the film one segment at a time. A large majority of digital cameras are CMOS sensors that capture one line at a time, which can result in a skewed image with fast camera movement and cannot properly capture bursts of light like a still camera flash.
• Traditionally, Global Shutter has taken a backseat because it comes at the expense of Dynamic Range. It’s usually one or the other. Raptor X is the first high dynamic range global shutter camera.
• Extended Highlights gives an extra 3 stops in the highlights. While it captures multiple images, it is NOT the old HDRx, but a process that is much more complex and advanced that gives a far better result. The process was explained to me, but I cannot post it.
• Extended Highlights can be turned On or Off in Davinci Resolve or Red Cine X.
• 'Global Vision's Extended Highlights feature will double the data while halving the frame rates at a given resolution.
The images below are motion tests with Extended Highlights ON and OFF
LEFT COLUMN IMAGES = Extended Highlights ON • RIGHT COLUMN IMAGES = Extended Highlights OFF
In most situations even with fast, random motion, Extended Highlights motion blur is identical ON or OFF.
LEFT COLUMN IMAGES = Extended Highlights ON • RIGHT COLUMN IMAGES = Extended Highlights OFF
In my tests, the only time Extended Highlights motion blur has artifacting, is with fast action on a bright background. I sent these artifacted sequences to Red and they informed my footage was used to improve "The Blend" for the next firmware release. Extended Highlights is still in Beta as of 10.11.24, but I've been told that The Blend is a high priority at Red.
In my martial arts test out of 85 shots, I turned off Extended Highlights on 6 shots due to artifacting. In real world use, there wasn't really a need for Extended Highlights in the martial arts film and Standard Mode is fine, but this is a test of sorts.
DYNAMIC RANGE
• Arri Alexa traditionally has the best highlights which are amplified by their patened Dual Gain ISO process. Red's Extended Highlights process increases highlights by 3 stops, on par or even surpassing the Alexa 35. The Raptor X is cleaner in the shadows via independent tests by CVP and others.
Test images courtesy of CVP and Thai 8K HDR Variety
DYNAMIC RANGE TESTS
No image should ever be exposed like this, but I wanted to see how much Extended Highlights can bring back on over-exposure.
Here's a more real world test: Blown out windows pulled back in Davinci Resolve. Standard Mode does pretty well, Extended Highlights does save the blue sky.
NOTES, THOUGHTS AND SOME INFORMATION I LEARNED:
• I learned that Super 35mm cameras capture highlights better while Vista Vision is better in low light. So to have a Vista Vision camera with great highlights is diffcult to engineer.
• With Reds, to capture the full dynamic range, the camera needs to be set at maximum resolution.
• It was suggested by someone very knowledgeable on Red, to shoot 3200 ISO to protect the highlights on sunny day exteriors. I've always hovered around 1280 to 1600 for sunny days, but I'm going to test that this week.
• Red is trying to have a combined / one frame option for Extended Highlights vs. the current two frame method, but they said “No promises” on that. A combined frame would hopefully be less computer intensive.
• Extended Highlights needs to be pulled back in post. I wish Red could come up with an S-Curve that’s specifically for Extended Highlights.
• Aside from following 12G SDI protocol, protect your 12G port by power your monitor with its own battery such as a Sony L-Series (vs D-Tap) and set SDI output resolution to 1080p, unless you need 4K.
• For a cinema camera, it’s tiny.
• 8K negative is great for a 4K finish.
• IPP2 color science is very nice.
• Low power draw for a cinema camera at 65 watts. I love this. Much less battery swapping and smaller builds.
• Vista Vision is awesome. It’s 1.14X wider Horizontal Field of View than Full Frame cinema cameras.
Image courtesy of Phil Holland @ PHFX.com
In summary, I think the Raptor X is a truly amazing and ground breaking camera. Aside from the great specs and the pretty image, I really love the small size. It would be much tougher to shoot my martial arts film with a large or even medium sized cinema camera, epecially since I went full Monkey Man on the camera movement and just whipped it around like crazy. The small size also allows me to work much faster as I can use smaller rigs and switch between them much quicker. Pairing the Raptor with behind the lens ND solutions like KipperTie and the Red E-ND saves so much time. Raptor X is also a great value as it meets and often exceeds cinema cameras two or three times the price.
I do hope for the return of Social Media camera forum interaction, which Red pioneered. It was nice to chat with knowledgeable Red employess and it added personality to the brand. While the pace seems to have slowed under Nikon, I believe the manufacturing and QC will become top notch as the Japanese are masters of manufacturing. I'm looking forward to seeing what Nikon does.
Huge thanks to Red for hosting myself and my friend Allen Dee. And for letting me borrow the amazing Raptor X