Ah... glad I managed to start a discussion amongst the ‘gods’ of cinematography with my burnt offering and pleas for assistance on the eve of Saturnalia...

The resolution observation is purely from the last round of CML tests here: https://www.cinematography.net/CE-2017%20STILLS.html

Where the ‘8K’ Red Helium clearly delivers less resolution (and more aliasing) than the F55 (and yes, thanks for correcting me - Sony Raw is indeed lightly compressed. Much lighter than is possible on Helium Cameras AFAIK).

I’m assuming no NR was involved, but Geoff is probably best placed to confirm that. 

It might well be the case that Red previously did not include NR in their IPP - but this does not mean they don’t do so now. It might also simply be that they have it switched on as default in the processing software - and one has to go in and turn it off.

Currently I’m going on pure logic here: The simplest explanation for the Helium delivering less resolution and lower noise using sensor sites much much much smaller than other manufacturers can manage, is that they use some form of noise reduction to deliver an acceptable image (whilst still being able to market high resolution capture) and this reduces the effective resolution as well as reducing the noise. 

I do sort of wonder if the also increase the NR at higher ISOs and/or apply it selectively to different bits of the curve. I guess you could check this with a simple resolution chart by Shooting it at various exposure levels and seeing if there is an identifiable drop in resolution. 

The other way might be to process the same resolution chart using both IPP2 and IPP1 - and seeing if there is a drop in resolution (of that’s possible these days).

Frohe Weihnachten! 

Colin Elves, 

DP/troublemaker 

Berlin für Weihnacten.