KronTalk

Chronos => Chronos User Discussion => Topic started by: Pritchboxer on August 16, 2018, 12:14:47 AM

Title: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Pritchboxer on August 16, 2018, 12:14:47 AM
The project is great but basically as a professional, I've seen nothing impressive from this camera until recently, with the raw update it looks almost usable in a professional video. The bird footage looks very weak, artifact-ed, noisey and just bad coloring but I'd like to get my hands on some raw data to see if thats down to hardware or poor post processing which I suspect.

If I can I will share my workflow. If someone could be so kind to either film under studio lighting or failing that, get me some static shots of a subject on a cloudy day, so the shadows (dark areas) are fairly well exposed and no clipped highlights. Just a quick few seconds worth of frames ie 100 or so. If I could get the raw image data and some dng's even better and I will try a variety of debayering methods.

I dont need anything fancy, just some movement in the shot such as a falling coin and well exposed.

Thanks :)
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Nikon1 on August 16, 2018, 03:00:54 AM
Nice to have you here.
I would realy like to see someone push this Camera and its Footage to its maximum Potential.
Still dont have a chonos myself ... Mainly because of money and because i still havent got my hands on one to test it.
I also feel like there is a need for somebody to come up with some realy impressive Footage filmed on the Chonos, because i always feel like this camera could (or at least should) be able to do somewhat better, than what i have seen untill today.
I am more of an camera guy myself and also into compositing and animation, but sometimes i also do grading and color work and i also found most of the footage i´ve seen rather weak in terms of color/ contrast and dynamic range.
Would love to see if it is just a thing about grading or debayering.
Most people here seem to use the 12,5-75mm f/1.2 c-Mount "Kit-Lens". Maybe it is just the look of that lens that looks somewhat wrong. I have a similar lens like that one, just mine is older, and that is a realy soft lens with poor contrast and an realy weird look to it.
I dont know if the newer Lens here has the same Look, but i never use mine because it is that bad....
As an kit lens it is quite ok, especialy for the price and size and for the fact, that you could go to f/1.2 if you need to, but it gets very soft wide open and isnt even super sharp when at f/5.6 or less...
Whish you best luck in finding some Raw Footage and would recommend to try get something taken with a lens of known performance, because that could be a huge factor for image Quality.
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: BiduleOhm on August 16, 2018, 03:40:57 AM
The main problem is in the debayering method but the last firmware update (0.3.0) has greatly improved it (but 99.9 % of the videos on the internet are videos from before the update was available).

The raw data is very good since the beginning: http://forum.krontech.ca/index.php?topic=132.msg1115#msg1115
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Nikon1 on August 16, 2018, 04:01:23 AM
As an professinoal i think you allready know that, but i post those images anyways for everyone else reading along.
Here is an quick side by side comparison of three lenses. All of them are realy sharp.
.
The Leica on the Left is the oldest of them and an very early one, completely uncoated.
The Schneider in the midle is somewhat newer but still quite old, Glass has coatings.
The Nikon is a Modern lens design, realy sharp and Contrasty, coated.
.
Images Flat, Graded and an 1:1 Crop for sharpness. All taken on the Nikon1 J5, 1" Sensor Size. Grading is just done to my personal taste for every shot individualy, to see what i could make out of every shot.
That is just to show how much difference in terms of the Look a lens could make, even if sharpness would be basicaly the same. Those test shots where Taken in realy heavy backlight, a quite demanding scene for older and uncoated lenses.
For some things like Cinema or Music videos those Older Lenses could produce some Desireable results, but for science ... i would rather use other, newer lenses...
.
So if virtually everyone uses the chronos with that Kit Lens, the look of that lens could be mistaken easily with the look of the Camera itself just by looking on the footage on the Web...
Still waiting for someone with proper Lenses and some good knowledge about grading and Lighting to make an testshoot with the chronos.
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: NiNeff on August 16, 2018, 04:33:13 AM
I did as you requested and filmed a coin drop.
Lighting: direct sunlight, about 5 m distance to camera, fstop about 9
https://youtu.be/J8meUUESwJk
The raw will take quite a while to upload, i will edit as soon as it's up.

EDIT:
here's the original mp4: https://nineff.de/nextcloud/index.php/s/tJzYHCr4gZSRatZ
and here's the raw: https://nineff.de/nextcloud/index.php/s/tmpRbK9TefSceM6
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Pritchboxer on August 16, 2018, 05:25:04 AM
Thanks for your responses guys. Thank you so much NiNeff, I will take a look at the raw data but I'm afraid it's too blurry to begin with. Maybe its the lense you're using? I'd suggest stopping down the aperture as far as you can go without having to push the iso above the lowest setting to improve sharpness. I do worry the jagged edges and noise we see is to do with the 2x2 binning method I believe this sensor uses which is likely gonna create jagged edges. If someone could do a test with a known sharp lense such as the nikkor, stopped down a bit to increase sharpness, it would be perfect.
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Nikon1 on August 16, 2018, 06:30:34 AM
As far as i know, the sensor does not use bining but is just 1280x1024px, but in a bayer-Pattern.
If you look up "Bayer-Pattern" (or whatever the exact name of that Article is) on Wikipedia, you will find, that even good algorythms will only give you about 70 to 80% of effective Resolution of the original bayer-Pattern, even with opimal algorithm for your Scene...
So, if you take that 1280x1024 resolution (which is allready quite Low, especially by todays standards with the ongoing megapixel war of big manufacturers) and multiply it by 70%, you will get around 1 Megapixel effective Resolution (in terms of Sharpness and Ability to resolve Details, renderd by the lens on the Sensor).
IF you use the full Sensor Resolutin, that is...
If you are going for 16:9 and use 720p Resolution, it is even Worse effective Resolution.
So, i dont think it is especially blurry or something, it is just "Low Resolution". But Given The Framerate it is still quite Respectable...
So the "kit Lens" is actually almost ok for that camera and most people, since the Pixels are that big and because you wont even see the unsharp lens, unless you are Pixel-Peeping like me and you maybe also. But Color, glare, flares and contrast are somewhat different, since it will make the final image look wrong in some Way.
Just for your info: i have very slow internet connection and because of that i watch almost everything in 240p or 360p HD Resolution. I still could tell immedeately what shot in a video was filmed on the chronos and which one was filmed on some other Camera...
.
On my 20 Megapixel 1" sensor i would never want to use a lens with low Resolution, because it would be way to blurry for me.
.
That Nikon1 32mm Lens (and all my other Nikon1 Lenses...) CAN be mounted on the Chronos!
I allready built an adapter for that, but i never got my hands on a chronos to do a comparison against my Nikon J5 in the Same Light with the same Lens and same Settings.
I would not wonder at all, if the Nikkor Lens would be WAY better than the Kit Lens, since it costs arround 800€ or even more when new, and it is built for extreme High-Resolution 1"-Sensors, so it should also perform extremely well on the Chronos also.
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Pritchboxer on August 16, 2018, 07:17:53 AM
The sensor is advertised as doing 2x2 binning... maybe it's just an option but would make sense considering the jagged edges. There's certainly more bad things going on than just low resolution. Also I think maybe what you're referring to is the way an image is debayered depending on the bitrate. A 14 bit raw video should retain all the details providing there are enough photosites. 8 bit video is where some of the pixels are guessed effectively, based on key pixels.
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Nikon1 on August 16, 2018, 07:27:29 AM
you could do 2x2 Bining on the chronos, thats right, but that is just for increasing the FOV for very high Framerates.
Think about it:
If you have a realy small resolution it is just croping the Sensor to a realy small size, so you would need realy crazy wide Lenses like around 1 or 2mm focal length in some cases if you just use 1:1 pixels because of that small sensor size to beginn with and the aditional crop you would apply.
2x2 bining is in that case just to make life a bit easyer, that you could get along with fewer, less exotic lenses.
If you would use 2x2 bining on the full sensor it would give you 640x512px total resolution from my understanding. That would allow for faster Framerates while still being able to get the "look" of the 2/3" sensor (like DoF-Effects and so on), just lower Resolution.
Native Sensor resolution should be 1280x1024px
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Pritchboxer on August 16, 2018, 07:32:20 AM
I'm not saying I want to do it, I'm saying on the sensor's tech page they say it does 2x2 binning. Maybe this is how it achieves such high frame rates but at the expense of reduced true resolution like you say.

Hopefully thats not correct and it's simply bad post processing. I'd love to get a hold of the recent raw bird footage. That looked almost ok... I think if I can get my hands on it potentially I can make it clean 720p. If it is down to the sensor, I'm not sure why they havent upgraded to the newer 1080p sensor available from the same manufacturer. The markup between the cost of the sensors and selling price is huge already.
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Nikon1 on August 16, 2018, 07:49:42 AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demosaicing
.
So, there is what i was saying:
Quote from that Wiki-Article above:
.
"The reconstructed image is typically accurate in uniform-colored areas, but has a loss of resolution (detail and sharpness) and has edge artifacts (for example, the edges of letters have visible color fringes and some roughness). "
.
You will always loose Resolution with debayering, since You never know what exact color your pixel realy is, you kind of always have to estimate and interpolate, and that will introduce blurryness.
I dont know where that 70 to 80% effective Resolution fact came from, but i read it somewhere.... it is somewhere around that.
That is kind of the reason why almost any modern digital camera has a sensor of higher resolution than what it will output for video-Footage. There Will always (/mostly) be in-Camera downscaling to, for example 1080pHD from a 14 Megapixel sensor.
That way you realy know what color and brightness your final Pixel should realy be.
But for Highspeed-Cameras it is mostly Native sensor Resolution = Footage Resolution because of computing power limits and Data Speed Limits on Memory. And then, additionally to the quite low resolution of those Sensors, you have to deal with the Demosaicing...
.
And about that 1080p thing you said:
Problem is, you need way more processing power for that kind of resolution at this framerate. And that could get expensive quickly.
Also, in todays Cameras the whole camera is built around the sensor, so you could not just upgrade the sensor that easily... you would have to change a lot about your camera if you wanted to do so.
If you want a better sensor in that kind of camera, the only way to do it, is basicaly built a completely new camera around your new sensor and use, what you have learned from the previous one... and maybe reuse most of the software and maybe also the I/O-Part of the Camera aswell as the buttons and stuff.
I realy hope the Kron Guys are working on an follow up model with higher resolution sensor. I allready asked David about that but never got an answer about that.
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Nikon1 on August 16, 2018, 10:44:12 AM
test?
did you miss to add an atachment?
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: NiNeff on August 16, 2018, 10:45:16 AM
I uploaded another set including raw files in the footage thread.
Also there's another coin video uploading right now ;)
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: NiNeff on August 16, 2018, 10:48:56 AM
More Coins:
https://nineff.de/nextcloud/index.php/s/SfWB3kt3fe4aMgn
Raw:
https://nineff.de/nextcloud/index.php/s/pMWDi2eRqScxp3z
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: patrickrebstock on August 16, 2018, 08:37:26 PM
i could try and shoot some for you tomorrow,
i have shot alot but not any raw yet
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Nikon1 on August 17, 2018, 02:39:10 AM
@Patrickrebstock & @NiNeff:
Please also post what settings you are using for those clips, especialy things like Gain (ISO) and Apperture /Focal length /What lens was used.
Would be realy helpfull.
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Pritchboxer on August 17, 2018, 03:52:18 AM
https://vimeo.com/285466957/e2e79a02af

So I had a go at working with the raw. It's hard to conclude anything since the image is very under exposed which will create noise, the lense and/or sensor is dirty and not in focus properly. Also a lot of infra red polution i.e green, which you can remove somewhat in raw fairly easily but the thing needs an IR filter. Thanks for posting it though but yes... more light, clean your lense and sensor ;)

I pushed the image in post to something close to how I think it should look so it's got even noisier due to being quite under exposed compared to this. I think the camera is fairly ok... just low resolution as Nikon previously mentioned. Plenty of small sensors give out good hd quality, I mean just look at the quality of edgertonic or even the arri sensor is little over 2k in size but thats dual gain. You actually don't want too big a sensor, I believe 2x the resolution is fine for a clean conversion or 1x1. In this case I find it very weird that there doesn't seem to be any testing done by a professional cinematographer. Wouldn't cost much to have them put this camera into a studio situation, use canon glass with an ef to c mount adapter and see what is possible. Really cant understand it :S

Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Nikon1 on August 17, 2018, 04:23:06 AM
Its a kickstarter, thats why i guess... :)
No big marketing campain here, just a guy building his own highspeed-Camera in his garage and starting up with a company selling a nice camera.
.
The Color work you did on the RAW looks realy good. that is kind of the look i would expect out of an normal camera in that scene.
First pice of footage of the Chronos i´ve seen so far, where i wouldnt have known that it was shot on the chronos just by looking at the Color and overall Look of th image. Great work from you!
.
I dont think it is just limited to Canon Glass, any reputable brand /Lens with known and prooven good performance will do for testing. Just might aswell use Newer Nikon glass, Zeiss, or High-Res/ High-Performance C-Mount Lenses.
Most good Lenses come at a price.
Though i would want to mention that this is not an cinema camera, it wouldnt hurt for sure, to let an cinematographer test the camera and take his advice for further developement (not only for Color-Stuff).
I double on that, sensor size is realy good the way it is, and if any bigger, then 1" but not more.
This size and Mount is perfect for using old Lenses From 16mm Film-Cameras and makes even the Standard 16mm-Lenses usable again, which are somewhat useless on an Nikon1 or alike (1" Sensors).
but again, the arri sensor is focused on Quality, whereas this Sensor is about Framerate and Speed!
Or have you ever seen readout rates of 30+kfps out of that arri-Sensor bevore...
I also would guess the Arri would blow the Chronos away in terms of dynamic range without any problems.
.
Maybe post /share whatever exactly you did to that footage so other people could also benefit from your knowledge and skill. Also maybe the Developers at Kontech could improve their in-camera color science, so the out of camera- compressed Footage would allready look a lot closer to what you did here with the raw. That could save a lot of time and also up the general Image Quality for people wo are not familiar with grading and co.
.
Also @ NiNeff: Your Sensor and/ or Lens is realy dirty AF! You should absolutely clean it bevore filming anything important next time.
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Pritchboxer on August 17, 2018, 04:37:55 AM
There's no point in making a process for this cause it was basically repairing badly under exposed footage. If I can get some properly exposed footage  with a decent lense I'll see what I can do. I didn't do anything special in this case, just used the python raw2dng tool on this website and it gives decent results. I then grade in Blackmagic Resolve.

Yes the sensor size is perfect, just the resolution is not... I'm fairly sure quality canon glass or nikon can be mounted to the cmount. Even a nifty 50 1.8 by canon is very cheap and sharp, with great low light gathering ability. Also its light for the small cmount. I get that it's a kickstarter campaign but I just think if they had spent say 500 bucks on a videographer to do some studio shots or even found one willing to test the camera, they would get so many more sales.
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Nikon1 on August 17, 2018, 04:52:16 AM
Im absolutely with you on that one, image Quality can be improved. but resolution is actually quite good for the price of the camera and the package size and mostly for that Framerate!
For my Nikon1 we are talking about 400x144px for 1200fps and 800x288px at 400fps. Now that is a small resolution... But the Chronos is HD, that is quite reasonable for the most stuff, even when mixed with FullHD Footage.
Nikon F-Mount and Canon FD- and EOS- Mount-Lenses could be mounted to the Camera with no problem. Adapters are widely available for sale.
.
You could even Adapt quite crazy stuff, like Lenses with native mounts for Mirrorless Sysems such as Nikon1 Lenses, MFT Lenses, or Sony E-Mount Lenses (including Every lens you would be able to adapt to an Sony E-Mount...) to the camera due to its tiny flange distance.
But for those Mirrorless-Lenses you would most likely need to make the adapter Yourself. Never seen one for sale yet.
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Pritchboxer on August 17, 2018, 04:56:40 AM
Hey its a cool project. I'm interested to see if it can fit in with professional timelines but it's not looking like it can. The same sensor company has released 2 new, improved sensors in the years since this camera has been released so hopefully thats something in the works... The thing is a camera such as the sony rx 10 gives practically as good 1000 frames per second now at 3x cheaper price. Also a very usable cam for 240 fps or 4k shooting. So I think Chronos is pretty dated for the pricing and cost of the sensors.
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: NiNeff on August 17, 2018, 05:10:23 AM
the underexposing was actually on purpose, I wanted the iris to be as closed as possible to get an somewhat sharp image.
Focusing at the moment is really hard, especially outside in the sunlight. The screen is somewhat reflective and even with the focusing tools the camera provides I'm having trouble to dial it in reasonably well. I'm by no means a professional and still learning to use the camera. I cant wait for HDMI out which should make focusing a lot easier.

Also I'm pretty sure the lens was clean but I'm going to check again.

@Patrickrebstock & @NiNeff:
Please also post what settings you are using for those clips, especialy things like Gain (ISO) and Apperture /Focal length /What lens was used.
Would be realy helpfull.
All my footage is shot using the stock zoom lens: https://www.krontech.ca/store.html#!/Computar-12-5-75mm-f-1-2-zoom-lens/p/77244261/category=21981409
as far as I know there's no ISO setting, but an analog gain feature, which was set at the minimum.
Aperture for the coins was about f10
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Pritchboxer on August 17, 2018, 05:17:07 AM
NiNeff it was a much appreciated effort, no need to explain yourself! I know it's not easy with a high speed camera especially. Id recommend using soft diffusion with sunlight. For example:
https://www.slrlounge.com/make-diy-scrim-50/

So you wait till noon when the sun is directly above and you place what you're filming inside a sort of lightbox with the diffusion. A thin material would be best as you want as much light as possible. On a sunny day I regularly use 4000 or 8000 even shutterspeeds when shooting wide open so this should be enough light. An IR filter to go on the end of the lense would help take away the green tint also.
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Nikon1 on August 17, 2018, 05:19:13 AM
Hey its a cool project. I'm interested to see if it can fit in with professional timelines but it's not looking like it can. The same sensor company has released 2 new, improved sensors in the years since this camera has been released so hopefully thats something in the works... The thing is a camera such as the sony rx 10 gives practically as good 1000 frames per second now at 3x cheaper price. Also a very usable cam for 240 fps or 4k shooting. So I think Chronos is pretty dated for the pricing and cost of the sensors.
If you look for a camera with realy high resolution like FullHD /4k or even higher and /or a few hundred fps at a low Resolution, the chronos is not ideal for you.
If you have the money, get a highspeedcamera for 20+k€ or an cinema-Camera (most of them do quite high framerates).
If you just want framerate and could sacrifice Resolution for lower price, go with an Sony RX100 (which Version ever you want/ could afford) or go with the Nikon1 System, if you want interchangeable Lenses and the ability to use C-Mount and other Glass.
The Chronos fills a spot in the market between the 300 to 600€ Cameras like those Sonys and the Nikon1-Series and alike and those 30.000€ Highspeedcameras.
It is far from being dated in terms of performance in my opinion.
I went to an other company selling highspeedcameras and you would never think how much such cameras could cost if you get into highspeed-Cameras.
Around 10.000 are the cheapest and we talk about FullHD @ 300 or 500fps and alike. nothing very impressive there. if you go for lower Resolution, you are still around 20 or 30k€ for similar performance than the Chronos in terms of Framerate.
Go and Try find a camera somewhere that has:
-A built in Screen
-A built in Battery
-User Adjustable Resolution and framerate in very fine increments
-An Post-Trigger with Ring-Memory
-Long Recording Time
-Kind of high Resolution around HD in 16:9
-Well above 1000fps at that Resolution
-Over 30000fps at lower Resolution.
-An interchangeable Lens
-And it should be Portable
.
Good Luck finding one that is affordable. only one that comes kind of close is that Edgetronic which i dont like for multiple reasons...
Next Realy Portable one with decent image Quality and some solide features is an Phantom Miro, but that costs WAY to much.
.
No hate, it just seems you dont know how much those kind of cameras could cost...
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Pritchboxer on August 17, 2018, 06:40:07 AM
I just wrote a huge post and the site didnt load.... blahhh
The sensors etc are much cheaper now, normally a manufacturer would lower prices in this case and/or release a new improved version using new tech.I hope the prior comes along for broadcast quality! I agree though it's great value but if things got competitive, could get a lot lower based on the cost of technology in china.
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Nikon1 on August 17, 2018, 07:01:39 AM
i always copy my text into the clipboard bevore posting, cause this is annoying and i had this happen to me bevore.
So if it doesnt load i will just paste it from the Clipboard and post it again...
.
Back to the topic:
I completely get what you are saying, but keep in mind the development team at krontech is just a handfull of dudes not a huge company.
They are still improving on the chronos 1.4 (i think if they planed to never do a follow-Up model they would not have named it that way just btw.) and it slowly becomes somewhat mature and an complete Camera.
I dont know if the Team of people has the resources to develop an follow-Up model on the side at the same time but would seriously hope and whish they did.
.
If the chronos would become even cheaper at some point in time that would be more than nice, but i wouldnt mind either if all that aditional money went into developement of the next model in the series.
Also, if there are people, that pay that much, you could ask that much... and apparently quite a lot of people buy the camera at that price point.
You are right, it is a Lot of money to be clear, i just bought a realy nice car for less than half that price two weeks ago!
But for a highspeedcamera it is an ok price.
.
I feel like at that point in time there should allready be way better cameras in general.
There is a need for someone to do the same thing, which Panasonic and Sony did to the Videocamera- and DSLR-Market.
Their GH4 and GH5 and the A6000 and A7 Series brought some serious movement into the whole Market with some serious "overkill" Performance in a small Body at a reasonable price.
Now i hope Someone like Krontech goes on and does that same thing in the Highspeed Market.
But be remembered, even Panasonic started up with an GH1 and got much hate from everyone!
When that kind of race starts in the Highspeed-Market, then you could realy get some nice Cameras for dirt cheap and the Chronos 1.4 might actually be dated at that point.
But at the moment, Developement in the whole Highspeed-Camera-Market seems to be extremely slow and almost stuck. Not much new things coming up. Hope that developement gets much faster.
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: slowbro on August 21, 2018, 12:50:18 PM
I'm not a professional colorist. But here is one I shot using RAW. Used Lightroom to make adjustments. Youtube compression does make it lesser quality though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0nmYEUXhrY
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Nikon1 on August 21, 2018, 01:31:12 PM
Thats a good shot from you sharpness looks ok for me, especialy considering that it is only 1280px x ?px original image data from the sensor and all the upscaling and compression going on here.
.
(Just btw.: i dont get why people would upload something shot in 720p HD in an 1080p HD Format. I see this done so often. If you are mixing the chronos footage with other Footage Shot on an FullHD (=1080p) or 4K- Camera, then that is something else. Then i Would also use Upscaling to 1080p to preserve the quality of the better camera. But if the whole Video ist JUST from the chronos, which does just 720p anyways, why use Upscaling? You will Loose Quality. Just do this test yourself if you dont belive me and export any chronos clip in 1080p in your editing software, re-import it and export it again as a 720p video. Then export an other one directly from the original footage as 720p video. Even if you used an lossless compression Container like a PNG-Sequence, the 720p Export would still be sharper from what i´ve seen from any testing i have done so far. Just think about it: if you convert 1280x720 to 1920x1080 you will always have to interpolate your pixels heavily to get to that resolution, so that means you loose Quality in that interpolation-process and that means also a loss in Sharpness. If you (or anyone else here) is using the 1080p format because of the better Bandwith of Youtube at that resolution, then just use Vimeo, if you are serious about quality. Never done the research myself, but from what i have heard, the allow way more bitrate for lower resolution. *Just my opinion on that whole 1080p thing*)
.
But color-wise it still looks somewhat Wrong to me.
I am also not an professional colorist and i am not even watching this on an calibrated monitor, but something about those somewhat faded redtones and the vivid Green... cant realy tell why, but it just seems a bit off in terms of color or something.
I cant realy tell what it is, if it is shifted colors or something about contrast or saturation... Maybe the topic starter Pritchboxer can say more about this as an pro.
But absolutely some of the best footage i´ve seen untill now from this cam in terms of cinematic stuff. And has allready way less of that weired Look, which most of the footage here has.
.
Can you maybe share what lens was used and what settings, most interresting one would be apperture and Focal Lenght.
Thanks for sharing your Footage here!
If Pritchboxer would be interrested, maybe even upload the actual RAW Files of this clip somewhere, because it looks realy exposed well and seems to be sharp and also has lots of different colors. Would wonder what he could do to the color of that bit of Footage here.
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: slowbro on August 22, 2018, 08:52:53 AM
Yes, thank you. I did upscale it from 720P to 1080P using the smart Vegas pro plugin in my NLE. It seems to be decent. RAW 720P from the Chronos is very similar to 1080P handycams from the past. I have the original RAW file sequence so I can upload it. I'm not too great at color grading. Although, I didn't spend too much time coloring it in Lightroom. I'm sure I can do a better job. Let me know Pritch if interested. I can upload the RAW files and shoot some more RAW stuff.

Lens wise, I used the C-Mount 12-75 at like f8. I will shoot more stuff though and color it better to make it look more natural looking. I just wanted to push the RAW file as much as I could.
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Nikon1 on August 22, 2018, 09:00:08 AM
Yes, you are right, like i wrote, seems surprisingly sharp for all that upscaling and compression going on there. You did a great Job of upscaling that footage (or rather your software did...), but it is still not the best or "propper" way in my opinion. Like i said for example, if i had a reason, like mixing different resolutions, i would also upscale, but otherwise, i dont see any reason in doing so.
.
Was that clip shot on the Kit lens 12,5-75 btw.? Still curios what lens was used. If it was shot on the kit lens, then you got some seriously surpising good Quality out of it here!
.
#EDIT: Never Mind, just saw you added the Lens info. Thanks.
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: slowbro on August 22, 2018, 09:12:56 AM
Yeah, I understand your point. I think it's because most of the time I do mix my Chronos footage with real 1080P stuff so it just became second nature to me to upload and upscale to 1080P. But I will try your method next. Thank you for letting me know. :)

Yes, it was with the kit lens. I did shoot at f8 though. I noticed at 1.2, it's pretty hazy. I also have a a Navitar 25 0.95 lens that I got recently that is surprisingly sharp wide open so I will shoot some RAW footage with that lens.
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Nikon1 on August 22, 2018, 09:32:22 AM
Its not that bad at all with the upscaling - If done propperly. Just keeping original resolution and not interpolating framerate is just a thing i keep in mind very tightly cause i worked a lot in video editing and did quite some effects work, where the same clip was edited and re-exportet by quite a number of people along the workflow. if every one of them just changed resolution or added some similar quality-loss like that with too much compression for example, the endresult would look very bad... So  i just got somewhat sensitve to that, because that happend twice to me allready, that the endresult wasn´t even good enough to use anymore in the end, because qualityloss was to big somewhere in the workflow because someone exported in 1080i anamorphic 1:33 and then converted back to 1080p square pixels and used an heavy compression additonaly, resulting video was just unsharp, and even the colors were shifted because of some strange settings in someones editing software. I was responsible for Quality control and had then to figure out, where in the process the Quality droped by that much, which took me more than a week of contacting people and doing all kinds of tests of settings...
.
I have an Schneider-Kreuznach 25 0,95 and i can confirm, that my lens is stupid sharp allready wide open and gets even sharper towards like 2.8 or f/4.
I dont know the Navitar (mean i never had one on hand and tested it, i heard of it and saw samples from it...), but i think its somewhat similar.
Maybe try stoping it down a bit to at least 1.4 or f/2 to get VERY sharp images out of it. (Assuming it gives similar results as my Schneider...)
But i think that it would be miles ahead of the kit lens in terms of image Quality, contrast and sharpness even without having used either of those lenses.
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: slowbro on August 22, 2018, 11:29:46 AM
Yes, I will stop down to around f2 when I record more RAW footage. :)
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Nikon1 on August 22, 2018, 11:56:45 AM
Here is a comparison of the Nikon 1Nikkor 32mm f/1.2 with the Schneider Kreuznach Xenon 25mm f/0,95, Both are Wide open in both shots.
.
The First one (with the Leica Lens included...) is from an test series i allready posted some Images from previously on this thread. This are Ungraded, flat Images, downscaled.

The other one are Framegrabs from 1080p Footage, also shot in an flat image profile, but shadows are lifted a bit to make them look more compareable. Other than this no grading applied.
In this comparison the Nikkor lens is used together with an Canon WC-DC58 0.8x Wideangle-Converter for same Field of view. VERY good Converter.
.
So, yes, the Schneider as well as the Nikon are realy sharp, even wide open and i use them wide open most of the time, even for professional work.
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: aaronkondziela on September 05, 2018, 10:32:00 AM
If someone could be so kind to either film under studio lighting or failing that, get me some static shots of a subject on a cloudy day, so the shadows (dark areas) are fairly well exposed and no clipped highlights. Just a quick few seconds worth of frames ie 100 or so. If I could get the raw image data and some dng's even better and I will try a variety of debayering methods.

Pritchboxer,

Having a cine background, your request intrigued me. So, I just shot some test footage for you! Here's what I have:

Camera using latest firmware, and the debayer beta patch.

Lens #1:
SMC Pentax-A 645 Macro 120mm f/4
This is one of the best lenses I have. Razor sharp with no CA or coma to speak of.

Lens #2:
Computar TV Zoom Lens 12.5-75 f/1.2 - set at about 45mm on the zoom
This is the C-mount that's popular for Chronos users. In my opinion it's pretty crap optical quality, but it's small and works well for technical shooting.

Both shots are 1280x1024 @ 1052fps (or whatever that first fps choice is). I blackshaded after a 20-minute camera warmup.

Both shots are in direct sunlight from a cloudless sky, reasonably well-composed including green foliage, a pink/magenta flower with yellow pistils, some bokeh in the background, and some little bugs flying around for slomo effect. Should be a reasonably wide dynamic range in the shot to work with.

Exposure was done at f/6.3 on both lenses, and the shutter was set at about 180 degrees like you'd do for a cine shoot. This got the highlights to be just under the zebras with only a tiny bit of headroom for light variance. Without a raw histogram or raw clip indicators on the RGB channels, this is as close as I could get to exposed as far right as possible for maximum quality.

I saved both as RAW and h.264 (using camera default settings)

Would you like the files to color grade?

Edit: Also shot xrite color charts with each lens (note color chart shot on computar was using a crap 2x macro converter because I was lazy. shouldn't affect colors tho)
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Nikon1 on September 05, 2018, 12:08:52 PM
can´t wait to see results!
Thank you aaronkondziela!
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Nikon1 on September 05, 2018, 12:15:54 PM

Lens #2:
Computar TV Zoom Lens 12.5-75 f/1.2 - set at about 45mm on the zoom
This is the C-mount that's popular for Chronos users. In my opinion it's pretty crap optical quality, but it's small and works well for technical shooting.

I dont have that exact same lens myself, but i would guess you are very right about the Optical Quality.
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: aaronkondziela on September 05, 2018, 12:47:39 PM
Here's a quickie youtubes of the h.264 from camera, untouched:

https://youtu.be/eShJElxUiZY
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Nikon1 on September 05, 2018, 12:59:18 PM
Here's a quickie youtubes of the h.264 from camera, untouched:

https://youtu.be/eShJElxUiZY
I guess Youtube hasnt yet converted it completely, since it is only 1080p for me.
But even from that the Pentax Lens Looks better. Could just be the Longer Lens, but i like it much more.
Colors, look way more natural, i see the most difference in the Yellows and the pink. Pentax lens looks more vibrant and seems Sharper (Which i would not be surprised by at all....).
Honestly, that Computar Lens performs somewhat reasonable against the pentax, i expected much worse Quality of this C-Mount-Zoom. Well, it is stoped way down to 6.3, guess things look somewhat different, when that computar is wide open or close to wide open...
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: aaronkondziela on September 05, 2018, 01:26:05 PM
Yeah I was honestly surprised too at the Computar, it was better than previous results I've gotten. Likely because I mostly shot it wide-open or close to it, gobbling up studio light for the Chronos. It's not good wide open =)

Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Nikon1 on September 05, 2018, 01:32:50 PM
Stoped down it looks quite ok for what it is. But i still think lot of people would use it close to wide open or even completely wide open. Because why buy a f/1.2, if you dont want to use it...? And if you are having it and need more Light, well, think of the rest yourself....
.
Still think the Pentax has an higher T-Stop (basicaly Light Transmission through the Lens) at the same 6.3 f-Stop, since the resulting image looks brighter. or the Computar is not too exact on those F-Stop values, also possible. I would trust the Pentax-Lens more on those Stops to be accurate.
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: aaronkondziela on September 06, 2018, 01:59:35 PM
Anyone who wants the DNGs and etc:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1udpw4u6zs3sgeq/AADhYb-k_7OORKui9Q94CkLDa?dl=0
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Nikon1 on September 07, 2018, 01:19:21 AM
Anyone who wants the DNGs and etc:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1udpw4u6zs3sgeq/AADhYb-k_7OORKui9Q94CkLDa?dl=0
Thank you for uploading those, but i will not download them because of my ridiculous Slow Internet connection here. Just for Downloading only the .7z-File from the computar DNGs would take me close to 7 hours... Not going to do that for now.
I dont know if Pritchboxer is still following this conversation here, but i would love to see what he could do to those Clips you shot. Especialy since you also included Those Color charts! I never used them, but i guess a professional like him could get a lot out of them.
Maybe, if i am somewhere where i have acces to faster Internet, and dont forget it, i will download it at some point. Until then, the YT-Video is good enough for me to get an idea of the Performance of these Lenses.
.
For my Part, i would be very happy, if you could do some additional test like Computar vs Pentax but this time, the Computar at 1.2 and maybe also at 1.8 or 2 and 2.8, But Leave the Pentax at 6.3, just to be save (I guess that lens would still have crazy good perfomance at f/4...).
Because i think this is much closer to how most people would use that Lens in Real Live and the Pentax as an proper point of Comparison. Since the Chronos full Sensor-Video is still smaller than 1080p HD, you should be able to fit three shots with the Computar at diferent appertures (starting Wide Open) and the Pentax in one 4K-Frame. Just like you did bevore. To get correct exposure for the Slow-Mo-Clips at those different appertures, you could adjust the shutterspeed/ Shutterangle, because i dont care at all about motion blur for that kind of test, as long as it does not make the image too unsharp. Shouldn´t be an issue anyways at those kinds of Framerates we are Talking about here, except if you have tons of extremely fast motion in frame. Just keep your Gain Low, and it should be fine.
.
If you could do that, it would be very nice!
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: aaronkondziela on September 07, 2018, 07:13:25 AM
I pulled a couple individual DNGs out if you want to play with em.

Will do more lens tests if I get time this weekend and the weather cooperates...
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Nikon1 on September 16, 2018, 05:28:15 AM
I pulled a couple individual DNGs out if you want to play with em.

Will do more lens tests if I get time this weekend and the weather cooperates...
Thanks a lot for the Single DNG Files. Downloaded Qucikly. Very impressive Images and way more Dynamic range in those files than i would have ever Expected. I Put them in Photoshop CS6 and played a bit with the Raw file and i am seriously impressed!
Seems like Pritchboxer realy has a point in his statement about the in-Camera color science and so on. I think there could be some things improoved. I guess someone like him Could pull Footage from the RAW which you couldnt tell was shot by the chronos in terms of color. In Fact i was able to get some nice and natural Colors from the RAW and im nowhere near a colorist. But for the Average Chronos-User i think it is quite tricky to get good looking colors from the camera, because not everyone will use RAW and the most of the users who use RAW propably dont have the skills of an professional Colorist...
So, a better in camera color science would be a good thing.
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Nikon1 on October 01, 2018, 11:11:03 AM
So, what happened to Pritchboxer?
Are you still here?
Would still love to see what you can do to those DNG´s :)
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: aaronkondziela on October 01, 2018, 11:12:00 AM
Likewise!
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Pritchboxer on October 24, 2018, 03:38:13 AM
Sorry guys, been super busy and forgot about this...

So Aaron well done on the footage, exactly what I wanted :)

So in conclusion, the resolution is a bit poor BUT, when shot properly I dare say it's usable in a professional setting when watched online at least. Here's a grade of Aaron's footage:

https://vimeo.com/296841634/895e927c7a

Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: aaronkondziela on October 24, 2018, 08:05:27 AM
Hey, that turned out to be quite nice! Even the noise characteristic is decent, closer to a film grain feel than digital noise, and probably easily tamed if needed. Thanks for grading it, I now have more confidence this cam could be used in a video production, and not just an engineering context! It's juuust good enough if everything is well-planned and executed.  :D :D :D
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Pritchboxer on October 24, 2018, 08:50:12 AM
Yes I graded it to look sorta like my Ursa Mini Pro footage :) No noise removal although I could have... also sharpened quite a lot more than I normally would! It honestly looks very nice, its just a bit dull on detail!

I know for a fact the sensor manufacturer makes higher resolution sensors as ive been messaging them for info! I hope Chronos team has something up their sleeve cause this could be a real winner if it was higher resolution also.
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: aaronkondziela on October 24, 2018, 10:49:53 AM
I see like zero evidence of over-sharpening, so whatever you set it at certainly did the trick. Higher res sensor would rock for a next gen camera! This is juuuust good enough to slap into an HD production if everything was set up right.
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Nikon1 on October 24, 2018, 11:23:47 AM
I know for a fact the sensor manufacturer makes higher resolution sensors as ive been messaging them for info! I hope Chronos team has something up their sleeve cause this could be a real winner if it was higher resolution also.
.
I think David Kronstein and the guys working there are Well aware of the Fact, that there are way better sensors and other components.
But i dont think they went for maximum Performance technicaly possible here. More Like Most Performance for a reasonable amount of money and most Bang for Buck.
If you actually NEED Higher Quality or higher Framerate, you are propably in a position, where you would be able to afford to rent or Buy an Way more expensive camera anyways.
I think if they tried to compete with companys like Vision Research, RED, ARRI, Panasonic and the Like in terms of Bare Framerate-Perfomance, Resolution or Image-Quality, they would have quite a hard time because all of those Companys do their thing very well.
.
I really hope and would love, if they make an Higher Res. Model at some Point, but for the Start of it, this sensor is good as is and a good choice and kind of a Sweetspot between Price and Performance. I allready asked, if they plan on producing a Follow-Up model but got no answer for that yet.
.
Keep in mind, if you put Higher Resolution sensor or Faster sensors in a Camera, you will also need way more Powerfull processors to get all that Data away from your Sensor and somehow into your Memory, which also need to be Faster then. So, Price can go up pretty fast if you go with an "better" sensor. So it kind of depends, if they could make "affordeable" 1080p Highspeed a thing, if its crazy expensive, like all the allready existing cameras, then why would anyone buy it over the other cameras?
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Nikon1 on October 31, 2018, 10:47:06 AM
Thanks for grading that, turned out to be really impressive looking, for just beeing shot in 1280x720 on an 1:1 Pixel sensor Readout.
You can kind of tell a bit, that there is sharpening going on in the image, but nothing distracting, or what an average person would see.
I also think, this would be indeed useable for 1080p Productions.
Especialy once you have Camera-Movement, since you wont see that much detail anyways when everything in Frame Moves fast enough.
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Photopage on April 26, 2019, 01:47:23 AM
Thanks for all the discussions on this topic.  I'm looking forward to receiving a Chronos 2.1 some time soon and I'm doing all the normal preparations, thinking about lenses, lighting and RAW processing workflow.  This thread has helped confirm my hopes that image quality is very good.
I've had a quick play with Aaron's dng files from his Pentax lens and uploaded the results here      https://vimeo.com/332620537

These images had lots of room to play, perfectly exposed and easy to fix the colour.  The colour chart was helpful too.

I'm a photographer and I used my normal tools, a calibrated Eizo screen, Capture One Pro to grade the files and Photoshop to output a video format.  I cropped to 720p for speed of upload.
There may be a better and easier way, but it's good to use the tools you are familiar with.

Cheers
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Nikon1 on April 26, 2019, 07:27:51 AM
Thanks for the video.
Yes, i also played around with those RAW Files, and if Shot Properly, this camera can yield some great Results.
Looking Forward to all the Stuff filmed by the 2.1. if it is that much better, as i think it is, you will have a very great time With it.
Title: Re: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage
Post by: Nikon1 on August 14, 2021, 07:37:54 PM
@Pritchboxer:
 If you are still around, would be nice if you could have a look at this:
 https://forum.krontech.ca/index.php?topic=521.msg4609#msg4609
 Cant figure out why the Reds Look THAT strange on the Chronos Shot, maybe you can give a Statement on whats wrong with them.
 For the Yellows i have a bit of a guess myself, but would still be happy to hear what you have to say about them.