I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage

[slowbro]

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.

[Nikon1]

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 wasnīt 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...
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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.

[slowbro]

Yes, I will stop down to around f2 when I record more RAW footage.

[Nikon1]

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.
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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.
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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.

[aaronkondziela]

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)

[Nikon1]

canīt wait to see results!
Thank you aaronkondziela!

[Nikon1]

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.

[aaronkondziela]

Here's a quickie youtubes of the h.264 from camera, untouched:

https://youtu.be/eShJElxUiZY

[Nikon1]

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...

[aaronkondziela]

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 =)

[Nikon1]

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....
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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.

[aaronkondziela]

Anyone who wants the DNGs and etc:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1udpw4u6zs3sgeq/AADhYb-k_7OORKui9Q94CkLDa?dl=0

[Nikon1]

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.
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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. Shouldnīt 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.
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If you could do that, it would be very nice!

[aaronkondziela]

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...

[Nikon1]

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.