DSC Labs' RED CamBook

DSC Labs' RED CamBook

I recently obtained one of these new RED CamBooks and in my opinion, it's one of DSC Labs' most useful products to date.

http://dsclabs-us.intelex.ca/product.php?product_id=143

While this product does bear RED's name, seeing as how there's no way to adjust RED's colorimetry in the camera other than some basic phase, saturation, and white balance controls, I fail to see why this is marketed as a "RED specific" tool. Yeah you can shoot the chart and use it to make picture adjustments after the fact but because it's a full 28 swatch Chroma Du Monde chart that fits it your laptop bag, it's also incredibly useful for painting and matching traditional HD video cameras. The other small cambooks DSC had sold prior to this don't have the full range of video colors as found on the full size CDM 28 chart.

This small "to go" Chroma Du Monde is exactly the same as the full size version in terms of video colors and tonality. Because of the size it can easily travel and if you find yourself matching cameras in a hotel room in the middle of nowhere, you can now do so with a far greater degree of precision than with the older, 6 or 12 video color CamBooks.

A new feature to the chart is the addition of 6 super saturated, non-calibrated primary colors on the outside of the CDM. This is apparently a feature RED requested as the Chroma Du Monde colors are low saturation and intended to be normal, life-like colors (hence the name, "Color of the World"). The 6 non-calibrated colors are intended to be used as a visual reference so you can quickly glance at the monitor and confirm that the camera is still seeing high-sat even if you've calibrated to the low-sat colors. It's an interesting feature. I personally haven't found myself using it but you never know.

I recently used the RED CamBook to have a look at the new RED Mysterium-X sensor across the entire range of camera ISO's and made some very interesting discoveries. Until next time..

Update

on 2010-07-13 04:35 by Ben Cain

Nice to see there's quite a bit of online activity at the moment regarding the RED CamBook. Maybe I wasn't clear enough in my original post but yes, I do realize how this product was intended to be used with the RED and that is to align the camera image to the chart or multiple cameras to the chart in post production. With a camera like this, the emphasis is always on what can be done with the images in post production though with the new RedColor color science and RedGamma, you can now get much closer to your preferred look right in the camera. However like I mentioned, because of it what it is, a full swatch Chroma Du Monde, it's also very handy for use with more "conventional" Rec709 video cameras. 

RED Build 30 and Chroma Du Monde

RED Build 30 and Chroma Du Monde

Want to see what a DSC Lab's Chroma Du Monde chart looks like on scopes using the RED One's new RedColor Color Science? I did. Here it is.

RED One Mysterium-X, RedColor, ISO 500, 3400k

Screen Capture from 720p Preview Raster:

And on the Vectorscope (Gain x2):

When I first worked with this new firmware build, I had reported that the colors on the video preview seemed odd to me. Looking at the CDM chart, I'm a little surprised that they actually line up on the scope closer than I would have thought. Red, Yellow, and Blue are pretty faithful whereas Cyan, Green, and Magenta are a bit de-saturated and out of alignment in comparison. Sadly, there's no way to modify this matrix other than basic saturation, white balance, and Green/Magenta Tint. As of this build, there's also no other preview choice as Rec709 and RedSpace are no longer part of the program. I'm not crazy about RedColor but in terms of tonality I'd say it's more closely aligned with what you're seeing in VIEW RAW mode. RedColor seems to take that View Raw image, increase the overall exposure according to the ISO, put it into whatever White Balance / Tint you've selected, apply this new color gamut, and then pump up the saturation. Additionally, if you're working at the camera's native white balance of 5000k and native ISO of 320 (I'd say 320 is a good bet), toggling between the two modes shows not much difference in the exposure histograms. This is obviously quite a bit different than previous versions of the camera.

Now the elusive task of rendering the R3D files to look like the picture everyone fell in love with on the monitor. In the past, this was far more problematic. Even if files were rendered with the camera metadata and a little cleanup was done in Red Alert, the resulting video or DPX stacks were often substantially different than what you were seeing on-set. As of Build 30, you can now render in RedGamma and RedColor with the camera metadata and the resulting picture is far closer to the image seen on the video preview.

Here's the R3D of the chart seen on the Vectorscope, rendered to ProRes HQ in Red Cine-X using the defaults - RedColor and RedGamma, with the camera metadata. No adjustments or cleanup were made to the file. The Red is the Video Preview and the Blue is the resulting render.

As you can see, the colors are intact but aren't as saturated as what you were seeing on-set.

And the RedColor Waveform: Again, the Red is the Video Preview and the Blue is the resulting render.

It's actually pretty close. The midtones are there but the blacks are a little lifted and highlights are a little compressed compared to the Preview. If you know this and the production liked what they were seeing on the monitor, you can do a camera metadata render but just apply a little saturation, apply a light curve to increase the contrast, and get back to where you started very quickly and easily.

As a point of comparison, let's take the same file, render with the camera metadata but instead of using RedColor and RedGamma, put both into Rec709.

RedColor vs. Rec709 Vectorscope: The Red is the RedColor Video Preview and the Blue is the resulting Rec709 render. No adjustments or clean up was made to the file.

Safe to say, this color space is quite different.

And the RedColor vs. Rec709 Waveform: Red is the RedColor Video Preview and the Blue is the resulting Rec709 render.

The Rec709 default render is very flat and compressed in comparison and requires some curve adjustment if you want any semblance of contrast in the image.

Why is this useful to anyone? Most people don't use scopes with the RED but if you choose to do so, they can be used to accurately monitor the picture that can be easily recreated later with camera meta data. This little "test" was done to satisfy my own curiosity more than anything else. I like to know what I'm working with.

So who's looking forward to direct ProRes HQ capture on the Alexa?

Enough to give you a heart attack

Enough to give you a heart attack

Here is a Quicktime proxy file shot with a Mysterium-X upgraded R1. Quicktime version on the machine is the most current as is the QT R3D Codec.

Nice look, eh?

The same media opened in RedAlert.

And now opened in RedCine-X v2

And finally, a QT processed in Cine-X to ProRes.

That's fine and dandy that you need to use the new software to work with the Mysterium-X files but a little head's up on RED's part would have been nice. I'm sure a few hours of combing posts on Reduser.net would yield an answer on this but if you had no idea that you have to process the media this way and aren't that RED savvy, like 90% of the people who ultimately have to deal with the files, opening up these new Quicktime proxies will definitely give you a good jolt. Honestly, the RED camera is still very intimidating to a lot of people, both production and post. They don't know the best way to work with the one light grading tools, file rendering software, offline to online process, or even how to optimally shoot the camera. If they didn't know they had to open these files in Cine-X and tried to re-color balance the images with the old tools, they would find it an impossible task. That's the thing people need to keep in mind about RAW, just because it's RAW doesn't mean that any problem can be magically "fixed in post". These are words I'm coming to loathe as too often I hear this when sloppy, irreversible mistakes are made on set. As the new workflows evolve, there is obviously a lot of ignorance on what really can be done in post production to salvage compromised images. Time and money being the key factors as extensive color correction in a traditional post production facility is enormously expensive. At least for the next few months anyways.. http://www.studiodaily.com/main/news...ion_12156.html

More on this later.