Ultimately I wish someone would shoot some test charts and scopes and post the video or shots online because I think the terminology and explanations are confusing some.

Yep ! .....

Here's some outdoor shots with my TC2 at 4 gamma preset settings, for comparison. I'll try to get some screenshots of the wfm for a DSC testchart, later, when I have some time.
TC2S1=STD1, TC2C1=Cine1, TC2C3=Cine3, TC2C4=C4

In ANY high contrast scene, you'll blow something with the cine gamma settings, usually it's the hilites. Only the STD gammas allow the full dynamic range of the EX1. Cine gammas are really designed for indoor shooting with carefully controlled lighting.

Hi Bill,
You know way more about this than I, so I hesitate to comment, but this seems counter indicated by your examples above. You are very close to blowing both blacks and whites on your STD example, but have a bunch of headroom on your Cine examples. Did you reverse your initial comment? If not, I am lost, so set me straight.

Also, it seems like in your Cine Examples, a little push to the right might nail the whites and set the darks in great position for a little level/curves tweak in post without introducing a lick of noise.

Randy..

Can't argue with you. And...not so sure I know more than you. You're quite right.

You say I'm very close to blowing whites on STD...yes, but they're not, are they? I expose so 100% zebra is just beginning to show...as you just confirmed.And it recovers quite nicely with a little levels adjust with the Color Curves FX. The cine curves need that push to the right, indeed! The histogram showed that STD1 fills the scale, while the CINE presets pushed the histogram to the left. In my mind, that's wasted bandwidth. Playing with color grading in post reveals that STD1 can be tweaked with more detail than the CINE curves. And that "punchy" look in STD can be moderated, again, with a little reverse-"s" curve adjustment.Try it.

By the way....the auto expose selected by the EX1 was really effected by where I took the exposure...sky or foreground. It seems to work just like a spot meter rather than an averaging meter. Either way, I didn't like the camera selected autoexposure. I used zebra, as I explained.

Bill, when I come to your lovely home town of Santa Fe on Saturday I would love you to give me some complete PP settings for shooting outside.

Cheers!

Phil

In my mind, that's wasted bandwidth. Playing with color grading in post reveals that STD1 can be tweaked with more detail than the CINE curves. Try it.

Seems like a consensus is being reached on this between you and me, Bill :)

Piotr...

good. ;o)

Phil...

would love to. write me offline.

I agree with Randy that maybe the CINEs could be pushed more, but to my eye I see more highlight detail to work with in the STD. Of course, there may be detail in the CINEs that might come out in post not obvious here. Would be interesting Bill if you took those four shots and gave them some post to get each one the best you could and then post those four.

Typical New Mexico that. I lived in Taos once.

Mike

You say I'm very close to blowing whites on STD...yes, but they're not, are they? I expose so 100% zebra is just beginning to show...as you just confirmed.And it recovers quite nicely with a little levels adjust with the Color Curves FX. The cine curves need that push to the right, indeed! The histogram showed that STD1 fills the scale, while the CINE presets pushed the histogram to the left. In my mind, that's wasted bandwidth. Playing with color grading in post reveals that STD1 can be tweaked with more detail than the CINE curves. Try it.

Yes, you nailed the exposure on the STD shot. In a relatively static shot that may be the way to go indeed because you get that nicely filled histogram right out of the cam.

What had me confused was the part about being more likey to blow something with Cine than STD. I have been considering Cine as "safety settings" for high contrast or variable contrast scenes. In surf shots, I am dealing with random occasional whitewater exposions on relatively dark water. I am just not ggod enough to be that accurate in selecting the perfect setting and need to "compress the histogram" (whites in particular) a bit.

I have been using your PP's (dig them) with Cine's pushed to the 100 zebra setting (waiting to judge based on the worst whitewater explosion) and then backed off a bit. Leaves a bit of room under the darks, but a curves/levels adjust fills the histogram back out.

Definitely some waste as you stated, but less missed shots due to blocked up whites as well.

Learning...learning

By the way....the auto expose selected by the EX1 was really effected by where I took the exposure...sky or foreground. It seems to work just like a spot meter rather than an averaging meter. Either way, I didn't like the camera selected autoexposure. I used zebra, as I explained.

Very good point, Bill - the auto iris on my old, good V1E has been a marvel tool compared to how it works on the EX1 (both hardware implementation of it, and the measurement logic behind it).

Michael...

If I have time, I'll do as you asked. Really, post-processing is SO much in the eye of the beholder, yes?

Randy...
Sorry I almost misled you.

Here's some shots with a matrix setting I'm experimenting with. It uses CINEMA instead of HISAT. I really wish I could find a camera setting that required NO grading. Even small CCing takes a lot longer to render out ;o(

I agree with Randy that maybe the CINEs could be pushed more, but to my eye I see more highlight detail to work with in the STD. Of course, there may be detail in the CINEs that might come out in post not obvious here. Would be interesting Bill if you took those four shots and gave them some post to get each one the best you could and then post those four.


Hi Michael,

What you are seeing may be due to the nature of the test. Correct me if I'm wrong (I am used to it) but it looks like for STD the exposure was set (perfectly) which left the whites at the far right and black at the left edge. It looks like that same exposure was used for the Cines, which left the whitest white at under 200 for the Cine 1 example. It would follow that the open whites of STD would still be more open even if the exposure had been set to neutral or more right, but the gap may be narrowed significantly.

In any event, I am stoked to see Bill's new PP's. Like I said before, I hesitated to comment because I am entirely incapable of producing any workable PP's and am just trying to best maneuver with the one's that more capable users have been kind enough to offer up here.

Randy...
Seems like you know better than you think you know ;o)

Quote: Originally Posted by Michael H. Stevens
"I agree with Randy that maybe the CINEs could be pushed more"

Which brings me to the point I was making earlier, altho' I guess I said it rather poorly because everyone misunderstood me...

Using the CINEGAMMA setings, if I open the iris more, to balance the histogram more to the right, I end up overexposing the whole scene, washing it out and blowing the hi-lites very easily. The cinegamma settings really balance the whole image luma range to the left and it takes a LOT of "S" curve to bring it out. So much that the entire image suffers from banding and more noise.

double post

Here's what Michael asked for.
Post-processed images for TC2S1 and TC2C1. Not as dramatic as I wished but, nevertheless..

Note that :
1-TC2C1 needed more highlite correction, histogram is slightly more combed. More sky, less foreground detail

2-TC2S1 needs less endpoint correction, esp. on the hilights but an inverted "s" gamma correction to get it looking good to my eye. More foreground detail, less sky.

This is all making my head spin too. When I went out and shot snowy footage on REALLY BRIGHT day (http://www.vimeo.com/723938), I used Bill's settings with Cine1, and it seemed to work out well, although I made a point to underexpose the snow, which when I watched the footage I realized I had underexposed too much. It was so bright that it was hard enough just to see everything in the viewfinder. Bill are you saying that Standard1 would be a better gamma on a day like that (specifically the shots with the x-country and downhill skiers)? A few shots I had to bring up more in post.

This camera is forcing us all to become engineers I think. Not bad, just different! But we all appreciate those (like Bill) who are doing the grunt work for us. Thanks.

BE

Ben...

Yes, that's what I'm saying...but, you'll need to do some post CCing.

This camera is forcing us all to become engineers I think. Not bad, just different! But we all appreciate those (like Bill) who are doing the grunt work for us. Thanks.

BE

I wouldn't go that far...

Reset the camera to factory specs then run out and shoot anything. Now compare that to what you were shooting with before. (Before the EX1 I mean)

For most of us shooting with older and cheaper cameras the results will be far better than what we could achieve previously. Even if you were shooting with a well tweaked competitively priced camera like the HVX200 or the XH cams the out of the box experience with the EX1 is "wow."

If you were shooting with an F900 fully tweaked out you may be disappointed by the factory set up on the EX1.

Thing is, all of this "engineering" we are on about offers us the ability to get fully tweaked out and provide a very satisfactory B-Roll for an F900. In some applications we can even forgo an F900 rental entirely with the EX1 in hand.

In my mind its all about the practice of cinematography. Older cameras made all the decisions for us- we just set exposure and hoped that the engineers at Canon. Sony, Panasonic et al. thought about the situation we were about to photograph- if we even thought that much about it.

This camera gives us back some of those decisions... and with them the power to make absolutely stunning images. It also allows us to make a really bad image. C'est la vie.

I wouldn't go that far...



It was sort of a joke.

Before I went freelance and was a staff shooter, I didn't spend much time on camera forums, where I found out about all the "measureabating" that was going on, and yes, some of the previous cameras I used were less tweakable. I guess I was just blissfully ignorant, but now, I am reading and comparing more, for better or for worse.

The camera gives us back some of those tweaking, yes, but it still needs MORE POST than I was expecting or want. I'm hoping that as I get better at using the EX1 I may be doing less, however Bill seems to be confirming (and I know Phil Bloom did too) that while the image is much better, we will need just as much tweaking as with HDV.

It was sort of a joke.

Ooooh! I am so good at missing those!

Wait... what? What do you mean, "that's not a good thing?"

The camera gives us back some of those tweaking, yes, but it still needs MORE POST than I was expecting or want. I'm hoping that as I get better at using the EX1 I may be doing less, however Bill seems to be confirming (and I know Phil Bloom did too) that while the image is much better, we will need just as much tweaking as with HDV.

I wouldn't say you need to work the image more in post... I mean that's one way to do the job, but its wrongheaded.

The problem I see is that too many aren't lighting a scene. They are pushing past the boundaries of the cameras sensors and then expecting technology to save them.

That was very easy on even the best HDV units. Its harder on the EX1. Its even harder on RED. It remains pretty darn easy compared to shooting 5219.

Regardless of your sensor's capability its still the exact same problem though.

So... the question I often ask photographers who have a hard time getting the results they want shooting HD is, "Where is your light meter?" The answer should never be "My camera is my light meter."

The next thing I try to find out is if they are actually lighting, or if they are just illuminating. Then of course I wonder if they are placing shadows.

The number of people who can't answer these questions in the affirmative disturbed me.

This job is easier if you photograph well from fundamentals.

Then the picture profiles these cameras offer and DI can be used for artistic effect... not to obtain exposure.

Alex: Great if you are in a studio, but me and a lot of the Ex1 crew, because it is a light camera, are in the field with natural light and nothing else.

Alex: Great if you are in a studio, but me and a lot of the Ex1 crew, because it is a light camera, are in the field with natural light and nothing else.

Yup. Yesterday I was shooting surf in sunny conditions with quickly moving patches of overhead clouds that were changing the exposure by many stops in a scene that (even if static) was already pushing the dynamic range of any camera. ND 2...ND1...oh crap, where's my surfer...Just keeping up.

We are all doing different things with this little beauty, which is why the flexibility of PP's is so cool. I feel like Bill and the likes are offering us a new film stock each time they work up a PP. Props!

A CLARIFICATION AFTER TESTING

What I have said is not strictly true when addressed to our hyper-gammas. My tests have shown me that while I stand by saying a little underexposing gives more headroom (detail in highlights) I now believe the hyper-gammas already do this. By this I mean if you expose not to the max of the histogram but to the 100% zebra you are about a stop under what a light meter would give. So I do now say I believe exposing to the 100% zebra gives a better result that going below or over that.
Mike

Alex: Great if you are in a studio, but me and a lot of the Ex1 crew, because it is a light camera, are in the field with natural light and nothing else.

Well this is a bit late, sorry about that.

Its the nothing else I object to.

The EX-1 is a light unit well suited to run'n'gun work.

That doesn't mean graduated ND filters shouldn't be in your field kit. In fact you should be carrying a set of filters. UV, graduated NDs, a polarizer and a softening filter (like a pro mist).

It doesn't mean you should forgo a light meter. I like to carry a combination incident and spot meter. I am upgrading to a Sekonics L-758 Cine.

That stuff goes pretty much anywhere I take the camera. Just like the extra batteries and blank tape or memory cards.

It doesn't mean you should carry no lighting at all. A little something- battery powered even - but something. This stays in the car/truck mostly... but I have it at hand.

It doesn't mean you shouldn't have a photoflex 5-n-1 reflector, or the like, on hand. And yeah... you should probably carry some diffusion & negative fill too. Some C-47s and a backdrop kit too. And yeah mostly that stays in the car too.

The thing is just because you are shooting run'n'gun doesn't mean you have to forgo all the tools and techniques of quality photography. None of this stuff will overburden you, and it will all still work just as effectively in X-teen years when you have a terapixel zillion frame per second camera shooting an uncompressed CIE 1931 colorspace codec in 5-D.

To restate: You should be carrying some or all of this sort of light duty photography gear everywhere you are shooting.