Hi Ed,

I'll lightly tackle the sensor/color question.

There's a lot of factors in the imaging chain that result in the final color of what's presented at the end of the line.

Some quickies:

 - The base sensor technology itself and particularly how it's made/what it's directed at

 - Pixel design even comes into play

 - The in camera sensor color calibration

 - Any sort of color filter, IR cutting/blocking/absorption filter and how it's target is calibrated toward the general sensor 

 - (if we are talking RED) their various color calibrations for each OLPF (which are nowadays just color filters, these days the low pass is actually in the sensor coverglass)

 - Color Science

 - Underlying color processing engine (for instance, not all cameras have ideal rec.2020 image processing pipelines)

Outside of that there's a great deal of potential image processing within the cameras.  Some produce pleasing results, some are not exactly ideal towards a discerning eye or post QC.  Some cameras have settings you can get into, most have have settings and image processors we'll never have access to.

Linearity and color temperature and interesting concepts when digging deep into what each sensor can do.  For instance Monstro is notably more linear than Dragon and has a great deal more color information.  This is tied to the sensor tech as a whole and a few other things, but you can shoot a side by side and clearly see some differences.  RED's new IPP2 workflow improved a great deal of things such as potential ugly out of gamut clipping, improved tonal dimension, a newer highlight extension algorithm, and even a new debayer algorithm.  Much of this equates to better overall image quality, which is what you are seeing.

There's a lot that goes into the color and tonality we experience and capture.  There's a lot of fun stuff to dig into from there in terms of gamma curves and color space related things.  

Motion cadence is another interesting topic.  Some can be tied to readout, global versus rolling shutter, integration time, even dual gain related things.  There are certain types of image processing that can effect the "drawn image", but generally most higher end digital cinema cameras are doing a pretty darn good job.  As for general progressive playback that is a known quantity.  Interestingly, and something to note particularly in relationship to HDR mastering, is all of these cameras have different levels of Total Captured Dynamic Range and that has subtle potential impacts as contrast levels and peak highlight values and how you finish your material may impact things like judder.

Phil

Okay two-parter and this is from me, a technical luddite:

Is the concept of a digital camera's ability to make nice or not-so-photorealistic skintones a factor based at the sensor level or is it further down the pipeline?

For example, we all can agree the Alexa has beautiful skintones and is this the result of how the sensor is developed - its CMOS array of pixels and how it processes it, or is it more in its codec and it's code of LOG C?

Another example, most of us agree that we don't like the skintones of Sony as much (SORRY SONY I LOVE YOU I OWNED LIKE 8 of your cameras) - in that they are more of an orange hue. Or that Red cameras have a more greenish cast, well in the dragon skintone optimized OLPF days.

And then they release OLPF and the skintones improve.  And then again with redwidegamut, better skintones.  So what's going on - is it all just sensor level stuff - is it everything?  

And now second part:  digital cameras and their motion cadence.  To my eyes, the motion of digital cameras all feel different at 24 FPS.  I really love the motion feeling of red cameras at 180 degree shutter.  To me, alexa cameras feel a little too blurry in their motion.  And the king for me of recent was the Sony F65 with a mechanical shutter.  What is happening at the shutter technology - is there some kind of interpolation of how frames are put together along with digital shutter that makes a camera have motion that feels one way and another the others?  Is this affected by the codec of how motion blur is captured?

Another case in point, I feel the motion is more pleasing to my eyes of the blackmagic pocket camera vs the newer ursa mini pro 4.6k cameras - again is this something that is affected by the programmers?

I hope I don't start a flame war with camera loyalists.  I am really agnostic about cameras and lenses.  And these are just my opinions on what I like and don't like. 

Thank you!

On 29 Mar 2018, at 17:47, Geoff Boyle <geoff@...> wrote:

Interesting that Ed mentions the mechanical shutter.

I did blind tests a few years ago at the Hannover workshops with an F65 and Alexa Studio.

We shot scenes that had a lot of motion in them on both cameras with and without the mechanical shutter.

We projected at 2k in a good theatre and the results were 100% in favour of the mechanical shutter.

On 29 Mar 2018, at 21:30, Adam Wilt <adam@...> wrote:

The mechanical shutter with its penumbral sweep effectively fades-in / fades-out its exposures; an electronic shutter has an instant-on / instant-off, square-wave exposure profile (I’m talking about the effect at any point on the sensor surface, quite apart from global vs. rolling effects over the entire sensor). That slight “rounding off” of the mechanical shutter’s exposure window reduces high-frequency aliasing that increases perceptible judder / strobing. 

On 29Mar, 2018, at 17:41 30, Adam Wilt <adam@...> wrote:

it worked better than it had any right to, disgustingly well given how “coarse” the source sampling was.