Shooting with RED Cameras : The Basic Essentials

Team · Post by **Team** » Sun May 01, 2016 6:06 am

This post will continuously be edited.

Black Shading and why it is so important:
Many of you may have come across intense noise from your Red camera footage. Perhaps someone didn't black-shade the camera before shooting (considering all other aspects of shooting were normal).

Black shading maximizes image quality by ensuring that pixel sensitivity remains consistent throughout an image. The technique has been used for a variety of high-end applications in digital capture over the years. In this article, we'll discuss when this is beneficial and how it is applied. Black shading works by measuring the pattern of fixed noise, storing it in memory, and then subtracting it out of all subsequent framesâ€”leaving only random noise behind. The pattern stored in memory is called a Calibration Map in the RED menus, and is effectively a map of the black level for every pixelâ€”hence the name black shading. Full details here.

Lens Coverage on Red Dragon:
Before you shoot on Red Dragon, be warned that at 6k, certain lenses will vignette. On the Ultra Primes Set, anything starting from 16mm to wider will vignette when shooting at 6k. See this wonderful chart from here.

Zeiss Master Primes will vignette at 18mm and wider. See the full lens support chart here.

Team · Post by **Team** » Sun May 01, 2016 6:22 am

ISO :
"Typically anywhere from 400-2000 ISO is recommended with the RED MYSTERIUM-XÂ® sensor, for example, depending on application and noise preferences. RED DRAGONÂ® is more flexible, particularly at higher ISO speeds."

Red doesnt really clearly mention what's the default ISO on its cameras. We have often found best results for Epic and Dragon at around 800 ISO as default, basic.

"For most scenes and uses, exposing with an ISO of 640-2000 strikes the best balance between highlight protection and low image noise. If one ventures outside this range, exposure needs to be much more precisely controlled, and has much less margin for error. When in doubt, ISO 800 is a good start, but the optimal setting will also depend on image content. For example, lower contrast scenes generally don't need as much highlight protection, and may therefore benefit more from ISO settings as low as ISO 320."

Use THIS article to understand exposing with RED.