Is DR that important?

[Benjamin Hilton]

5 hours ago, zlfan said:

it seems to me that the camera is not a differentiator like it was 20 years before, no matter what kind of style. intensive camera movements also can be mimicked by indie makers using s1h with good ibis, or gh7, or gimbals, or digital reframing and power window if shot in 8k or 12k. 

I think right now that hiring many actors and applying large scale green screen are the key differentiators, although these will make dps less essential to the whole product process. 

 

 

Honestly cameras haven't been the differentiators for quite some time on productions. Good productions generally just require a lot of money and talent (unless you are into micro budget stuff) and cameras have always been one of the cheapest things on the budget list. 

[zlfan]

On 8/1/2024 at 7:49 AM, Benjamin Hilton said:

Honestly cameras haven't been the differentiators for quite some time on productions. Good productions generally just require a lot of money and talent (unless you are into micro budget stuff) and cameras have always been one of the cheapest things on the budget list. 

for big budget production, camera is not a concern and a small part of the budget. for indie film makers, camera still is a big part of the budget. it is safe to say that big budget production still want to differentiate itself from indie shorts. this includes camera and the style only high end cinema cameras can provide. shooting a long take of the main character walking though a narrow street packed with group actors lighted with hundreds of meters of led tubes and reflectors is another differentiator. I have seen so many such scenes that do not matter much to the story line. also, large scale of green screen and heavy time consuming vfx, like dune 1/2. 

on the other hand, for the last ten years, tv series are getting so good, that its cinematography is better than that of most of the movies in the 1970s and earlier times. indie short films are also very good now. Denis Villeneuve spent his earlier and mid career in indie film making, then breaks through into the block bluster making. this is very rare case almost impossible 30 years ago. 

 

[zlfan]

On 7/22/2024 at 2:29 AM, zlfan said:

 

for a scene to look really good, actually the lighting needs to be controlled to be within 10 stops. otherwise, the results will be like in this video, even the camera is the legendary 15-stop usable Alexa 35. 

[TomTheDP]

I am not sure how to determine if something is "that important". Just depends on your wants/needs. 

The difference between a RED Komodo and an Alexa can be seen when shooting in naturally lit situations that have a larger amount of difference between the midtones and highlights. The Alexa will just be able to keep richer skintones while also keeping more color in the highlights. Does that matter? I am not sure. 

Also the reality is these cameras dynamic range is never that great. The Alexa looks noisy a stop under the native ISO. You get close to 6 stops in over exposure. That is a very harsh rating of the camera but it is true. That is about 5-6 stops to play with for a noise free image. Most cameras have much less than that in the highlights and usually have less pretty looking noise patterns and color when you underexpose. 

That said I have certainly shot nice looking stuff with a GH2 and also an FX6 and also an Alexa. 

[fuzzynormal]

I'm not watching the "myths" video posted here, but I really want to know how those differences in DR that are illustrated in the thumbnail would matter at all when it comes to storytelling?  Not much, imo.

DR important?  Does it have roughly 12 steps?  Good 'nuff for me.

As for movies, I grew up watching $1 films at the end of their distribution run at the local "grindhouse."

Movies always looked like shit in my world.  Didn't care.  Looked good enough to tell a story.

Heck, one place I would go to that was built in an abandoned cotton gin had a single screen, and ran Pulp Fiction for 11 months straight.  Guess what that projected film looked like on week 48.

Also, the glory years of American cinema as an art form is the 70's.  Y'all watch any 70's movies?  They mostly looked like crap compared to the IQ of today.  Watch Deliverance, for example.  That's a more compelling movie than most anything that's been released from Hollywood in this current era.

Excuse me.  Got some clouds to go yell at.

[MrSMW]

9 hours ago, zlfan said:

on the other hand, for the last ten years, tv series are getting so good, that its cinematography is better than that of most of the movies in the 1970s and earlier times

Personally, I’d say that a lot of ‘TV’ productions are simply just feature films on steroids ie far too long for anyone to watch in a single viewing (well for normal people anyway) so are broken down into 45 minute episodes.

In fact I’d go as far and say some are more cinematic than many of their big screen siblings.

And then there is this nostalgia for older movies.

My teenage years were the 80’s so those are the most memorable and iconic movies for me, but other than a few exceptions (mostly Spielberg), they look like shit next to even your average Netflix series today.

I guess it’s like anything and there is good and bad…

There is old stuff that looks great that will never be and probably cannot be, ever replicated due to the use of the tools of the time and then there is stuff today that was not possible even just a few years back.

Something I have never prescribed to is the rose-tinted spectacle that everything was just better in the good old days.

However, give me back the 80’s 😜

[ac6000cw]

On 8/3/2024 at 6:38 AM, MrSMW said:

Personally, I’d say that a lot of ‘TV’ productions are simply just feature films on steroids ie far too long for anyone to watch in a single viewing (well for normal people anyway) so are broken down into 45 minute episodes.

In fact I’d go as far and say some are more cinematic than many of their big screen siblings.

I agree - including being made in wide-screen 'cinema' aspect ratios. I'm not so keen on some of the HDR stuff, though - even in subdued lighting, searing whites and crushed shadow detail isn't much of an improvement over SDR video.

Now that almost everything is captured using video cameras (excepting the occasional actual 'film' production - but even those normally end up digitizing the negatives, so it basically becomes video with an embedded film-emulation LUT 😉), the only real difference is the size of the production budget.

Way back when cinemas were the dominant form of recorded visual entertainment, they ran 'serials' as well (often as fillers between the main features) - for the same reason as TV does, to keep people coming back for the next episode...

I'm just about old enough to remember when evening programs at my local cinema consisted of two different movies with an episode of a serial in-between (and adverts) - not so different to an evening watching TV really.

[TomTheDP]

For me when you get to post and you start messing with the files you realize why larger productions opt for an Alexa/RED. 

We have options now like the Raptor that only weigh 4 pounds and can be powered off a small v mount battery. I would say the Raptor dynamic range is very similar to the S35 Alexas. What it delivers over them is that it holds the dynamic range in the shadows. At 800 iso the Raptor is much cleaner than an Alexa mini, but with much less highlight retention. You can boost it to 2000 iso maybe even 3200 iso and still get a nice image. The Raptor pictured below could be rigged even smaller (smaller monitor, smaller lens, no top handle). There isn't much you can do to get an Alexa smaller though. Even the mini is 8 pounds with just the body and viewfinder and is also a powerhog. The Alexa 35 is even larger.



I did a feature a couple weeks ago on the Raptor. As convenient as it is to use I think we would have been better off with an FX3. The crew was so small that any convenience is a big deal. This was our rig, I traded size for battery life. 




All this to say I really do notice a difference shooting with Alexa/RED 

But after putting the files to a REC709 colorspace and adding a lot of contrast which is what I usually end up doing, the results between that and a mirrorless can definately be hard to tell if it was shot resonably well. The truth is you can sometimes shoot things better with a mirrorless. It saves you time, which then gives you more time to fine tune the things that actually matter (lighting, composition, etc...)

 

[zlfan]

On 8/6/2024 at 7:35 AM, TomTheDP said:

For me when you get to post and you start messing with the files you realize why larger productions opt for an Alexa/RED. 

We have options now like the Raptor that only weigh 4 pounds and can be powered off a small v mount battery. I would say the Raptor dynamic range is very similar to the S35 Alexas. What it delivers over them is that it holds the dynamic range in the shadows. At 800 iso the Raptor is much cleaner than an Alexa mini, but with much less highlight retention. You can boost it to 2000 iso maybe even 3200 iso and still get a nice image. The Raptor pictured below could be rigged even smaller (smaller monitor, smaller lens, no top handle). There isn't much you can do to get an Alexa smaller though. Even the mini is 8 pounds with just the body and viewfinder and is also a powerhog. The Alexa 35 is even larger.



I did a feature a couple weeks ago on the Raptor. As convenient as it is to use I think we would have been better off with an FX3. The crew was so small that any convenience is a big deal. This was our rig, I traded size for battery life. 




All this to say I really do notice a difference shooting with Alexa/RED 

But after putting the files to a REC709 colorspace and adding a lot of contrast which is what I usually end up doing, the results between that and a mirrorless can definately be hard to tell if it was shot resonably well. The truth is you can sometimes shoot things better with a mirrorless. It saves you time, which then gives you more time to fine tune the things that actually matter (lighting, composition, etc...)

 

i totally agree with your analysis. 

i think the bottleneck is the end user's monitor/tv/screen+projector now. if these can reach to the level of very high end production monitor or even better, like 12 to 14 bits, ips, oled, 120 inches, dr of 15 USEABLE stops, then a35 and raptor etc are really essential. 

[TomTheDP]

8 hours ago, zlfan said:

i totally agree with your analysis. 

i think the bottleneck is the end user's monitor/tv/screen+projector now. if these can reach to the level of very high end production monitor or even better, like 12 to 14 bits, ips, oled, 120 inches, dr of 15 USEABLE stops, then a35 and raptor etc are really essential. 

Thanks, I was just reading an article, can't remember where, but it was talking about even if you are mastering for HDR you may not be using all the DR it offers as it might not be the look you want. I tend to love really harsh contrast which doesn't really need HDR dynamic range. The thing is even movies like Arrival which are really soft and show off more dynamic range looked fine in regular REC709 or theatrical displays(which probably have a bit more dynamic range than traditional REC709 I imagine). 

[zlfan]

 

this video is so dark on my laptop. it is 4k HDR 10+. 

[zlfan]

why HDR in door? does not make sense to me. 

gh7 has a nice look here though. 

[Davide DB]

Do you like it?

I see a strong blue cast coming from the bad indoor artificial lights. 

I can hear the DoP scratching his head...

[zlfan]

On 8/15/2024 at 2:58 AM, Davide DB said:

Do you like it?

I see a strong blue cast coming from the bad indoor artificial lights. 

I can hear the DoP scratching his head...

I feel it is a little too blue too. generally I like the look. it kind of making gh7 sort of cinematic. 

[stephen]

Reviving the topic

On 7/11/2024 at 3:07 AM, zlfan said:

from the data acquisition to data presentation, what is the bottle neck now, in terms of dr?

Most people talk about DR only as a camera parameter but you quite correctly understand it as a process

Here is my answer:
In short most of the time limiting part is the display (smartphone, computer, etc.) / theatrical screen or other media. Plus the color space in which we export.

Camera DR is just one part of the puzzle. We have DR of:

1. The scene we are photographing or shooting in video.
2. The camera or recording device.
3. The medium that displays the recording being photographic paper or computer display or thearical screen or smartphone display.

For point 1: A lot of times the scene has itself limited- dynamic range - 3-4-5 stops.
For point 3: DR is related to the light intensity / brightness of the display medium. Traditional theatrical screens have only 100 nits of brightness and as result  only 5-6 stops of DR. Traditional computer screens 300-400 nits which give us 6 to 7 stops of DR. Only HDR LCD screens and theatrical screens with laser projectors can show HDR video or imagery where color space allows for a wider dynamic range and medium is capable to reproduce this DR. In HDR video we can see up to 10 stops of DR. Since REC709 color space was introduced to deal with SDR TV screens it is also limited to 6-7 stops of DR.  If we watch REC 709 footage on a HDR LCD screen we are still limited to those 6-7 stops. In this case limitation comes from the color space in which video has been exported.

That's why a camera with limited DR - only 8 for LUMIX GH1 can look perfectly OK. In case exported footage is in REC709 it will need only 6-7 stops of DR. 

Where do the rest of camera DR go if we export in limited 6-7 stops of DR ? They are compressed / mapped to those 6-7 stops of the exported footage. Few more details in the shadows or highlights or both.

Higher camera DR gives us more LATITUDE. You will often see latitude test go together with tests of for DR.

Fuji Velvia which I used extensively in the past and was the top film emulation for landscape photography had only 6 stops of DR and 1/2 stop of latitude. If your photo was 1 stop underexposed or overexposed it was practically ruined. You have to wonder how people were able to shoot such a film and appreciate the results 🙂 When we talk about film DR we should always specify which emulsion we are have in mind.

Now what happens when you have a scene with large dynamic range - 12-13 or more stops but your camera and / or export color space are limited to 7 ? Or you want to export in HDR (10 stops) but camera has only 8 stops. Some of the stops will be lost and the result will be lost details in the shadows or highlights. As one Hollywood colorist put it: "Your highlights are blown up? Who cares !!!" We don't watch a video or photograph like a scanning device from top to bottom, pixed by pixel. We look to a part of the photograph or video which is important and draws our attention. This part needs 5 stops DR to be displayed correctly and not always. 2 more stops for shadows and this is still enough for the vast majority of what we shoot and display. A limited dynamic range of the camera is not a problem as far as the important part of the scene is exposed and lighted correctly. More stops of camera DR gives us more LATITUDE and comfort in post production. Camera dynamic range becomes more important if we intend to export in HDR. That's all.

In general DR and all technical aspects of picture quality fall under one philosophical category which I forgot the name: When contradicting statement about something are both true (correct): For example in this case: DR is important and DR is not important. Both are true. In practical terms ask yourself how many times you've heard somebody exiting a movies theater say: "Nice movie but I wish the DR was more " 🙂 On the other hand if we ignore those technical aspects we still will be stuck in black and white film emulsions with 5 stops of DR.

Here is a great video from an Austrian photographer which goes into details about DR. It is by far the best explanation and structured answer about DR I've seen. Well worth your time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYOr6t8llgc

And this one too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWGIjXutyKU

[Ilkka Nissila]

On 7/12/2024 at 9:23 AM, zlfan said:

of course wide dr is good. but using wide dr as the most important criteria, I am not sure. 

20 years ago, resolution was the king, it was reasonable, as many web videos were very low res. sometimes I had to stop watching as the res was so low. nowadays, res surpasses the requirement by a mile already. now I watch on my iPod touch, YouTube automatically sets to 360p, iPad to 720p, mac book air/pro to 1080p. I have to manually change every time I watch a video. what is the point of a 6k 8k video presenting on a iPhone?

the same as dr, Alexa 35 is great, amazing, 15 usable stops. but the screens do not have such dr stops. 

often I watch a movie in theatre. it is so great, the dr can be presented by commercial projector. but when I watch at home on tv, on computer screens, I often see the same movie as too dark. I actually like watch news or sports image quality on tv, more than movies. some classic movies are good to present on tv, but many latest ones they are just too dark to my taste, like John wick 4 and earlier episodes. 

personally, I think stabilization is the most important factor after the resolution. as resolution goes up, very minor shake will cause headache and dizziness. I think Olympus's m43 ibis, Panasonic ff and m43 ibis, are really the most important factor for me to choose a new cam. dr once over 10-12 stops usable is already very good, considering the final presentation computer screen may have a dr of 7 stops. 

 

For (stills) photography, I actually calibrate my editing display so that its range is 0.4 to 90 nit. This matches approximately the contrast range of light reflecting from photographic prints. The display is capable of greater brightness and deeper blacks but I don't normally use that. If I use that display to view streamed video content, the limitation in dynamic range doesn't bother me (I'm not sure if the streaming actually follows the calibrated settings or go outside of it). The display has a "hood" which blocks stray light from the window and other parts of the room, so that avoids most of the reflections that might bother the viewing experience otherwise.

I also have a TV which has an OLED screen and a very high contrast ratio (Sony xr-48a90k) and it gives a very high quality viewing experience. It takes into account ambient light brightness and adjusts the brightness and contrast to give an optimal experience in those conditions, so it works better than a projector when viewing during the day. The resolution is also very high, and the streaming applications adjust the TV settings to be optimal for the content they present. I think it's an amazing experience. I don't know what the actual contrast range of the display is (Sony says only that it's near infinite, marketing speak). Apple makes phone and computer screens with what they call Super Retina XDR where they claim the contrast range is 1000000:1 or something like that, but I don't know how accurate the claims are. That would be like 19 stops of dynamic range, if it is true. However, I suspect that kind of content dynamic range cannot be accurately seen in practice because of reflections from the display and also the viewing space. But, what these displays seem to give is a good viewing experience in varying ambient conditions.

For stills photography, Adobe has some support for HDR images (I don't mean the usual way the HDR term is used in photography, where multiple exposures are tone-mapped to a result which displays well on SDR displays but actual support of HDR displays without tone mapping). However, the problem with this is that browser support is limited, and if you view a HDR image on an SDR display, you might get a distorted image that doesn't look correct. The Retina XDR display is amazing when viewing high scene contrast ratio photographs converted from RAW images for HDR viewing, it almost feels like a photo of a sunlit scene looks like you were viewing it in the location yourself. However, somehow software support needs to be developed so that both HDR and SDR versions of images can be distributed online and viewed according to the display that you have, since it's unlikely that all displays would be "real" HDR in the near future (increased power consumption etc.) I personally think the technology is amazing, but it's largely unnecessary and somewhat impractical (due to limiting the viewers that can see the images correctly). It seems HDR on the video side is more established and most TVs have some HDR capabilities, and the applications have some ability to adjust to the screen and ambient conditions for optimal experience (at least on my TV).

So I would disagree that the displays don't exist, they do. But high dynamic range in cameras has uses also when producing content for SDR displays. On the stills side, people often make masks and dodge and burn the images to be able to get a more human-viewer-like experience within the limitations of SDR media such as SDR displays and prints. In video often there is the situation that you can't set up your own lights and the windows bring in bright daylight and you still have to be able to take video of people doing their activities indoors, hopefully without blowing out the windows. You can deal with this in post-processing somehow (I often reduce highlight contrast and lift the main subject up), or use in-camera tone-mapping techniques (such as Nikon D-Lighting). All of these approaches require a good dynamic range in the capture device to result in a low-noise image in the final result. In dimmer, artificial, lighting conditions when the daylight is gone, ideally one would not blow out the lights when the subject is correctly exposed, for a pleasing final result, again, log video here can help.

If the purpose is just to make a video where the subject can be seen clearly and the functional purpose of the photography or video is satisfied, then most cameras made within the 15 years can easily suffice. However, often there are aesthetic objectives that go beyond just the functional information-transfer main goal, and these can be satisfied better with the newer tools.