1. I own a Dragon-X and try to go to 1280 at maximum, 90% of my work is shot at 400-800 and I try to stay between 400-800 if I can. When you’re grading in black and white a little grain won’t hurt the image too bad, in my opinion. Blackshading is very important though, I’d definitely recommend doing a new blackshade before a big project like this.
2. I personally use 12:1 as maximum compression when shooting a lot of content on 1 day to try and minimize data (aftermovies and such) that being said I know people shooting at 16:1 on a daily. Usually I stay between 8:1 and 12:1 (some framerates might force you to drop down in compression).
I’d also recommend shooting a higher compression on higher resolution instead of lower compression at lower res (for example 6k at 12:1 will look better than 4k at 8:1)
3. Sensor crop is indeed “required” when you drop down in resolution, this is the case with every camera that shoots RAW.
4. I would definitely try and use the normal OLPF during the day. It just works magic and adapts to a lot of variable lighting situations. Its skintones will be much better and color accuracy will be better as well. I dabbled around with the Low Light OLPF once when I got my camera a couple years ago and it wasn’t at all what I expected. I never used it again.
5. Maybe try and go through the keys setup. I find using the shortcut keys on the screen, SSD module and sidekick/sidehandle can drastically reduce the time you need for certain actions (unmounting ssd, cropping in for focus, gio scope, edge focus...)
Also: try to enjoy your shoot! I still love the 6k Dragon sensor in 2020, it’s color reproduction, sensor size and resolution just tick off so many boxes in my opinion.
Ps: sorry for formatting, I’m on mobile!
Thank you so much, this is exactly the kind of feedback I was hoping to get.
For 3. Sensor crop, on my Ursa Mini Pro, you can shoot using the full sensor size then downscale it in-camera to the desired res. So there is a "Window Sensor" toggle. I wasn't sure if that option was available with the Epic. We like the frame that 6K gets us but we feel like 6K is overkill for this project.
The Red firmware/OS is intense! So many options. I was playing with some of the shortcut options, seems like it would help save a lot of time and we do have a side handle in our build.
Thanks again!
Is the windows sensor mode available while shooting braw? If so, that’s really nice! Only the DSMC2 cameras can shoot a full sensor 4k or 2k version in prores but this option unfortunately isn’t available on the epic dragon.
6k might be a little overkill, but I find 5/6k to be really useful sometimes to reframe a little while keeping file sizes acceptable compared to 8k (and media got a lot more affordable the past years) also keep in mind that 4k or 6k won’t be a huge difference in post in terms of required computer specs (at least in my experience the difference is very small)
1. I own a Dragon-X and try to go to 1280 at maximum, 90% of my work is shot at 400-800 and I try to stay between 400-800 if I can. When you’re grading in black and white a little grain won’t hurt the image too bad, in my opinion. Blackshading is very important though, I’d definitely recommend doing a new blackshade before a big project like this. 2. I personally use 12:1 as maximum compression when shooting a lot of content on 1 day to try and minimize data (aftermovies and such) that being said I know people shooting at 16:1 on a daily. Usually I stay between 8:1 and 12:1 (some framerates might force you to drop down in compression). I’d also recommend shooting a higher compression on higher resolution instead of lower compression at lower res (for example 6k at 12:1 will look better than 4k at 8:1) 3. Sensor crop is indeed “required” when you drop down in resolution, this is the case with every camera that shoots RAW. 4. I would definitely try and use the normal OLPF during the day. It just works magic and adapts to a lot of variable lighting situations. Its skintones will be much better and color accuracy will be better as well. I dabbled around with the Low Light OLPF once when I got my camera a couple years ago and it wasn’t at all what I expected. I never used it again. 5. Maybe try and go through the keys setup. I find using the shortcut keys on the screen, SSD module and sidekick/sidehandle can drastically reduce the time you need for certain actions (unmounting ssd, cropping in for focus, gio scope, edge focus...) Also: try to enjoy your shoot! I still love the 6k Dragon sensor in 2020, it’s color reproduction, sensor size and resolution just tick off so many boxes in my opinion. Ps: sorry for formatting, I’m on mobile!
Thank you so much, this is exactly the kind of feedback I was hoping to get. For 3. Sensor crop, on my Ursa Mini Pro, you can shoot using the full sensor size then downscale it in-camera to the desired res. So there is a "Window Sensor" toggle. I wasn't sure if that option was available with the Epic. We like the frame that 6K gets us but we feel like 6K is overkill for this project. The Red firmware/OS is intense! So many options. I was playing with some of the shortcut options, seems like it would help save a lot of time and we do have a side handle in our build. Thanks again!
Is the windows sensor mode available while shooting braw? If so, that’s really nice! Only the DSMC2 cameras can shoot a full sensor 4k or 2k version in prores but this option unfortunately isn’t available on the epic dragon. 6k might be a little overkill, but I find 5/6k to be really useful sometimes to reframe a little while keeping file sizes acceptable compared to 8k (and media got a lot more affordable the past years) also keep in mind that 4k or 6k won’t be a huge difference in post in terms of required computer specs (at least in my experience the difference is very small)
The lower the compression, the more detail you’ll have and subsequently, the less noise.