Chronos V0.7.0 Full Release

[CavOkay]

Hello Dear Community and Dear DevOPs,

First I wanna say many thanks for this Gem, The Chronos 2.1, on my hand for about 2 month now.
I did not get the time to use it much yet, it came first with version 0.6, and of course I have noticed some functions that I think needs some improvements, more on this later.

3 days ago I did flash the new 0.7 version, (not with Etcher BTW ) and .... WOW !!!
I must say I am very impressed !
I see really huge improvements on image quality, de-noising, as you all have noticed, and I can confirm noise are (nearly) history on many resolution and gain combinations. so some of the camera resolutions that were barely usable I must say, on 0.6, are now very accessible.

Now I can increase sensivity / gain without the sacrifice of quality and so I can now feel the sensor being much sensitive to light, I can close the aperture and get more decent DOF and still get enough light.

Thanks a mil for that and I cant wait for the next improvements on the future version 


1st impressions with Chronos 2.1 : WISHLIST for improvements

I am tracking thunderstorms, looking for the perfect spiders or branched lightning strike in slow-mo.
but using the very bright glittering screen in the nightime, with the high brightness UI, and the high brightness top leds, (power, trigger, charge) is really an annoyance in such a use.

so my wish / suggestion is to have a setting, in future FW releases, to have a kind of Night Mode, easy on the night eyes
•   ability to disable the screen completely
•   or to choose some lower brightness settings,
•   and/or to disable individually the UI display temporarily (i.e. until a screen touch or a jog press )


same for the very bright and disturbing and blinding leds at the top of the Chronos :
either be able to disable them or at least  please have a software toggle/menu to make them -MUCH- more discreet, much less distracting


Other Improvement ideas :

- More custom Presets to be able to save (currently only one user custom white bal, and only one user custom matrix can be saved)
  ideally, they could be user-meaningful named presets

 - a tunable histogram, RGBL, on each channel, like in many consumer camera would be a great added value,
 - Tunable HSV cursors as well would be so simple and great, compared to the current Matrix which is rather obscure and a pain to fine tune

- screen saver : for subjects that don't have dynamic lighting intensity changes, once we have set up the aperture and checked the frame illumination is correct, we could have a way to lower the screen brightness, screen brightness adjustments, even for the UI, even enable the full screen off, to save power but keep the Chronos eiher on standby or fully ready but with screen off, yeah, because you already framed your subject.

 Not sure if you gain much on battery autonomy with this, but at least it can still be useful as a night-mode.

- make the UI disappear (user switchable, toggle UI on or off, i.e. with triple screen tap, or jog clic, or whatever)
- and maximize the frame size, enlarge the frame to full screen display

- UI only, brightness adjustments, or even allow transparency | to keep focus on the photo frame and less be distracted by the always-on UI
  I  guess Alway-on UI may burn the screen at that position with time
 
- if not already an existing function that I missed : allow playback of individual stored files directly from the Chronos, again more like in consumer cameras ( Read and play stored video files and not only the latest ) AFAIK, this is not possible as of version 0.7.

- Some more adjustment steps for Screen Digital Zoom with double tap screen, currently, only 2,5x is available, need more smoother steps and even higher magnifications, i.e. to achieve super precise subject focus.

- Need to be able to pan inside / across the Screen Zoom region to be able to spot an interesting subject not in frame center (currently, the screen zoom is only on the center region)

- from the Play / preview screen : Need to be able to select a frame region-crop for the final save file, thus, even less time to save the relevant region, and this enables a last optional re-framing of the subject before saving (i agree that this function can be left to the post processing software, but again if already implemented on the Chronos, it may boost the clip save speed on some situations, of course at the cost of time to set up this region)
- Video overlay : more user selectable info :
                     - True Source Original Capture Framerate 
                     - Date and Time
                     - Overlay position (enable portrait)
                     - any user free message (ideally formatted with variables, i.e. like "made by CavOkay YYYY/MM/DD HH:MM:SS ")

and last idea, I found the camera startup time is quite noticeable, and so, to be extra super ready to shoot dynamic subjects, (insects, birds and other life forms ) we have currently no other choice but to leave the Chronos running, at the cost of battery autonomy and maybe components life, like mainly the sensor, fan noise.

so I think this Gem needs a sleep mode, with a fast wake up. of course I dont know if it can be implemented, this will involve the ability to sleep the sensor and whatever consumes power, with a real quick wake up, just like any modern laptop.

This would enable a dramatic power saving at the field and I assume it may save on the sensor life too, save on the fan noise too. Fan noise is permanent and can disturb some living and moving creatures that you want to catch as natural as possible.

i.e. imagine this situation : I am near a flower, but currently there is no insect around, so I am waiting.

Case 1 : I let the Chronos up and running + the fan noise. since there is no insect, there is no need for now to pull the trigger and record, but power will be anyhow wasted until the subject enters the flower.
If I choose to save on the battery, then currently with the current Chronos software, I will have to PowerOff.
then if the subject appears, I will probably not be ready to shoot until camera is fully booted, so maybe too late for the interesting part.
 

Case 2 : with a sleep mode (the one I wish), simply put the Chronos to a sleep, kinda like a laptop sleep, until the subject appears, either with low fan or even none if possible, then wake up in seconds and enjoy the extra power saved while it was sleeping.

well these are so far my thoughts for an even better Chronos, a dream Chronos,
Hope that it helps, kindly let me know what do you think about these.


One more couple things (bugs ?) about version 0.7 :
  - the restore settings did not work for me, seems broken, has anyone experienced the same ? (was not a big pain though)
  - the digital shutter aperture angle is maxed out at 357 degrees, no matter how you try to top it at 360, it definitely tops at 357.
    I guess that internally, the real value is updated and that this is some kind of rounding issue, so not a big deal of a glitch.
           
Well, sorry for this long post, and again, Thank you for Version 0.7 ,
and BTW congrats to everyone here with your clips, they are awesome !!

Regards,

[muringuets]

so I think this Gem needs a sleep mode, with a fast wake up. of course I dont know if it can be implemented, this will involve the ability to sleep the sensor and whatever consumes power, with a real quick wake up, just like any modern laptop.

This would enable a dramatic power saving at the field and I assume it may save on the sensor life too, save on the fan noise too. Fan noise is permanent and can disturb some living and moving creatures that you want to catch as natural as possible.

It's a very interesting idea... For now I'd recommend you to go for a portable power bank, I'm using a Jackery 300, so far really satisfied, I can power a 150W lamp and the camera at the same time, perfect solution for field use...

[muringuets]

Tested the camera again this weekend, this time under artificial lights...

Got much metter results on the colour grading...

No more questions raised, I take back what I said before about quality issues on 0.7.0 1.4 camera.

I suspect that shooting with the correct color matrix is much more relevant for now, before I didn't give much attention, as I saw no real benefit, since I could adjust the white balance on post, and it would work nice. Now, I think I'll have to adjust for that when shooting, so I have a easier post production...

Thanks everyone, and Krontech, sorry for the multiple posting and weird questions asked...

[rmohan26]

I had the camera for a few months and I love it.  I am using it mainly to shoot nature in sunlight.  I have had good success enjoying it very much.  I save as DNG and process in lightroom.  In upgrading from 0.6 to 0.7 -- I noticed the following

1. Save speed increased from around 10 fps to 15-17 fps at 1000 fps HD to SSD drive
2. The color shift in 0.7 is significant.  The color correction is harder than 0.6.  I feel 0.6 color was more manageable. 
3.  The banding in 0.7 is difficult to clean.  I need to shoot at x4 gain to get the necessary shutter speed outdoors. Out of box, the noise in 0.6 is similar to 0.7.  But once I perform noise reduction in LightRoom then 0.6 is smoother than 0.7

I have to test more. 

Feel free to check out my channel --
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCypxxGen3ZrDdSla_Hentig

Most of the videos are on 0.6 version. 

Thank you
Rajesh

[mklinger]

Hi everyone, 

I recently took the time to try and refine my Chronos 2.1 DaVinci Resolve LUT by lighting my color chart with 2 Godox VL300 5600K lights and spending some time to really dial in the colors and white balance.

I am pretty happy with the results and thought I'd share my LUT with the wider community if anyone would like to try it out.  It should be a decent starting point for indoor controlled lighting at 5600K or daylight shooting.

You can download the LUT here:

https://klingerphotography.com/Chronos21/Chronos21_v7_Release_5600K_v3.cube_2.frame.cube

I think all you need to do is drop it in your DaVinci Resolve LUT folder.  On my machine that is here:

C:\ProgramData\Blackmagic Design\DaVinci Resolve\Support\LUT


What the images below show are the before and after of the color chart under controlled lighting, and then just a quick outdoor shot under direct sunlight with the only correction being applying the attached LUT.

Hopefully this helps some folks out who are struggling to get decent color with Cinema DNG files from the Chronos 2.1.

I'm using the paid "Studio" version of Resolve.  I'm pretty sure this will work with the free version and probably with other NLE programs like Premiere, Final Cut, etc., but I haven't tried any of those packages.

Thanks!

Marc

[chrissie_c]

Thanks very much for the LUT, that will save a lot of time

[muringuets]

Thanks mklinger

I'll shoot this weekend and I'll report back!!

[mklinger]

Thanks mklinger

I'll shoot this weekend and I'll report back!!

Hi muringuets, remember, this LUT was designed for the Chronos 2.1.  I think you mentioned you had a 1.4.  It may work well on those DNG files, but honestly, I doubt it...

Someone needs to do the same exercise with a 1.4 camera and 0.7 to provide a similar LUT.

[muringuets]

Thanks mklinger

I'll shoot this weekend and I'll report back!!

Hi muringuets, remember, this LUT was designed for the Chronos 2.1.  I think you mentioned you had a 1.4.  It may work well on those DNG files, but honestly, I doubt it...

Someone needs to do the same exercise with a 1.4 camera and 0.7 to provide a similar LUT.

I have the exact same "washed out" colours as your comparison image, figured I should try your LUT, I knew it probably would not work, but I tried anyway... As you might expect, results were not good...

Feeling a bit frustrated now, no matter how much I try, I can't bring the colors back on my footage, still washed out colours, otherwise too much green and too much red, no vibrance... Boy this is hard hehe

Rolling back to 0.6.0 until some LUTs surface, or at least until I can figure out how to properly extract the correct colors from the footage...

[mklinger]

Thanks mklinger

I'll shoot this weekend and I'll report back!!

Hi muringuets, remember, this LUT was designed for the Chronos 2.1.  I think you mentioned you had a 1.4.  It may work well on those DNG files, but honestly, I doubt it...

Someone needs to do the same exercise with a 1.4 camera and 0.7 to provide a similar LUT.

I have the exact same "washed out" colours as your comparison image, figured I should try your LUT, I knew it probably would not work, but I tried anyway... As you might expect, results were not good...

Feeling a bit frustrated now, no matter how much I try, I can't bring the colors back on my footage, still washed out colours, otherwise too much green and too much red, no vibrance... Boy this is hard hehe

Rolling back to 0.6.0 until some LUTs surface, or at least until I can figure out how to properly extract the correct colors from the footage...

Do you have a color chart?  If you can shoot it with 5600K lights (or outside) as evenly as possible and as well exposed as possible, post the DNG and I'll see if I can create a LUT from it.

[mklinger]

Thanks mklinger

I'll shoot this weekend and I'll report back!!

Hi muringuets, remember, this LUT was designed for the Chronos 2.1.  I think you mentioned you had a 1.4.  It may work well on those DNG files, but honestly, I doubt it...

Someone needs to do the same exercise with a 1.4 camera and 0.7 to provide a similar LUT.

I have the exact same "washed out" colours as your comparison image, figured I should try your LUT, I knew it probably would not work, but I tried anyway... As you might expect, results were not good...

Feeling a bit frustrated now, no matter how much I try, I can't bring the colors back on my footage, still washed out colours, otherwise too much green and too much red, no vibrance... Boy this is hard hehe

Rolling back to 0.6.0 until some LUTs surface, or at least until I can figure out how to properly extract the correct colors from the footage...

Do you have a color chart?  If you can shoot it with 5600K lights (or outside) as evenly as possible and as well exposed as possible, post the DNG and I'll see if I can create a LUT from it.

Also post a couple DNG images from actual shots you are trying to color correct so I can fine tune the LUT attempt if possible.

[muringuets]

Thank you mklinger for the help...

I'll buy a color calibration chart, I'll post here when it arrives...

[mklinger]

Thank you mklinger for the help...

I'll buy a color calibration chart, I'll post here when it arrives...

Sounds good, I'm happy to help.  When you shoot the color chart, try to make it fill up a majority of the frame if possible.

[mklinger]

User muringuets was able to send me some sample Cinema DNG output from his Chronos 1.4 shooting a color target and I was able to take a stab at creating a custom LUT using DaVinci Resolve.

It's not perfect, but it should be a very good starting point, especially for daylight work.

You can download the LUT here:

https://klingerphotography.com/Chronos14/Chronos14_v7_daylight.cube   

I think all you need to do is drop it in your DaVinci Resolve LUT folder.  On my machine that is here:

C:\ProgramData\Blackmagic Design\DaVinci Resolve\Support\LUT

Below you can see the before and after version of the color chart when the LUT is applied.

Let me know what you think and if this is useful for folks with a Chronos 1.4 trying to shoot in Cinema DNG with V7 of the software.

Thanks!

Marc

[muringuets]

User muringuets was able to send me some sample Cinema DNG output from his Chronos 1.4 shooting a color target and I was able to take a stab at creating a custom LUT using DaVinci Resolve.

It's not perfect, but it should be a very good starting point, especially for daylight work.

You can download the LUT here:

https://klingerphotography.com/Chronos14/Chronos14_v7_daylight.cube   

I think all you need to do is drop it in your DaVinci Resolve LUT folder.  On my machine that is here:

C:\ProgramData\Blackmagic Design\DaVinci Resolve\Support\LUT

Below you can see the before and after version of the color chart when the LUT is applied.

Let me know what you think and if this is useful for folks with a Chronos 1.4 trying to shoot in Cinema DNG with V7 of the software.

Thanks!

Marc

Thank you Marc!

I just downloaded the LUT, will try on some old data I kept on my SSD for this... I'll let you know how it goes, perhaps I have my own old edits for the same footage to compare!!

Again, thanks so much for the help!!!