that's exactly what he says in his video...

I think that came from Stu Maschwitz. He actually has a lot of cool stuff on his blog.

prolost.com

I really don't see much of a point in shooting super flat mode when it comes to shooting video. The basic picture styles are like the HVX and it's matrix settings. The basic picture style modes are just fine for shooting. Super Flat mode will not give you anything near the Dynamic Range of a RED One. Also the grading from that super flat mode just looks horrible. But that's just my personal opinion through. I did a very simple daylight and tungsten test to see each styles affect on the light with the image when I first got the 7D and decided to upload it today.

Canon 7D Picture Style test on Vimeo

I have read thru posts here and on several other sites regarding 60p to 24p conversion. The general consensus seems to be:

Shoot 60p using 1/60 shutter speed in most cases.
Shoot 60p using 1/120 shutter speed for slow motion conversion.
Convert footage in desired editing software by dropping frames instead of blending them.

Sound right??

Some posts mentioned conversion to 29.97 first and then proceeding to 23.97. Seems like you would lose some quality going that route though.

Bill, if you shoot 60p for slow motion effect, all you are doing is changing a play rate from 60 frames a second and extending the frames over a longer period of time to 24 frames per second. The method you are asking about is relevant to interlaced material (back and forth) from a progressive format having to do with pulldown or a telecine process, although there are varying schools of thought on this.

I really don't see much of a point in shooting super flat mode when it comes to shooting video. The basic picture styles are like the HVX and it's matrix settings. The basic picture style modes are just fine for shooting. Super Flat mode will not give you anything near the Dynamic Range of a RED One. Also the grading from that super flat mode just looks horrible. But that's just my personal opinion through. I did a very simple daylight and tungsten test to see each styles affect on the light with the image when I first got the 7D and decided to upload it today.

Canon 7D Picture Style test on Vimeo (http://www.vimeo.com/9943952)

Thanks for that visual post. It is most helpful.

Bill, if you shoot 60p for slow motion effect, all you are doing is changing a play rate from 60 frames a second and extending the frames over a longer period of time to 24 frames per second.

I understand that, but does the shutter speed of my camera have any bearing on the quality of the final footage or should I always capture 60p video @ 1/60 shutter speed?

Also, what tips do users have regarding the ISO? When is it advisable to adjust the ISO for video - low ISO for bright light and high ISO for low light??

Lastly, I use After Effects to alter the frame rate and colors of the video I shoot and ultimately deliver to web and DVD. Any tips?

Thanks.

From Daniel Browning on other forums:

When you select "ISO 320", what the camera actually does behind the scenes is set the analog ISO to 400, then reduce brightness digitally with a -1/3 stop pull. That makes it look as if you had used ISO 320, except that 1/3 stop of highlights are clipped. The upside is that noise is less.

It's like the opposite of HTP (highlight tone priority). HTP sets the analog ISO to one stop below whatever you pick, giving 1 extra stop of highlights, then increases the brightness digitally with nonlinear EC (to preserve highlights), which increases the visibility of noise. So HTP trades shadows for highlights.

The other tweener ISO settings (125, 250, 500, 1000) should be avoided, because they do a 1/3-stop push, but don't bother to preserve the highlights, so they increase noise for no benefit.

----


• 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600: normal amount of highlight headroom.

• There is little difference from ISO 100 to 200, because most viewers can't tell the difference in photon shot noise, and the read noise drops by almost a full stop in ISO 200.

• 125, 250, 500, 1000: considered harmful. 1/3 stop less highlight headroom and 1/3 stop more shadow noise.

• 160, 320, 640, 1250: fine, as long as you are aware of the decreased highlight headroom. (Clips 1/3 highlights to get 1/3 more shadows.)

• HTP should *always* be enabled when the ISO is higher than 1600.

• There is a careful balance between increasing shadow detail through ISO (which clips highlights) or through HTP, the picture profile (e.g. contrast, tone curve), or Auto Lighting Optimizer. Generally, the higher you go in ISO, the more beneficial it is to use non-ISO methods to increase shadow detail. For example, ISO 3200+HTP (actually ISO 1600) is better than the real ISO 3200. ISO 800+HTP may be better than the real ISO 800, but it depends on how much highlight headroom you need.

I have my settings to 1920x1080 30p but some of my ISO settings are grayed out....100 125 160 ISO are all grayed out and the first or lowest I can get is 200 ISO. Did I miss a setting somewhere. I have read the manual a couple of times and get the impression I should be seeing those.

Hey Jim, do you have Highlight Tone Priority ON or OFF? If this is enabled, your lowest ISO in manual mode is 200. I always turn it off anyways.

Hey David
That was it! I found it under My Settings Menu. I think I turned it on when I was trying Bloom's settings.
It appears that 'Neutral' in picture setting is similar to his settings anyway.

I recently shot some footage for my short film in the SuperFlat picture style. I like the dynamic range that it adds, but I question the reason for the sharpness being turned down. I know people say you just re-sharpen in post, but my question is; how much do you sharpen in Vegas Pro to make it look natural, but not too soft? Your help is greatly appreciated.

Zach

Hey Zach,

The creator of Superflat actually prefers now to use the Neutral preset with contrast and sharpness all the way down and saturation down 2 notches.

This isn't the best setting for quick edits as it does require some grading, but will provide the best dynamic range for post color correction.

Turning the sharpening down makes the line skipping less noticeable in some areas. You don't want it as sharp as a photo would be.

Good to know David. So would you even add any sharpening in post? This is for a short film for film festivals, so obviously I am grading and color correcting every clip, but I'm basically trying to figure out if it will still look good blown up to big screen if I don't do any sharpening. Obviously it's a fine line, since if I sharpen up to .3 or .4 it could potentially start getting pixelated. So would you suggest doing any sharpening in post, or just allow it to be as soft as it was shot? Thanks a lot for your help!

If you are going to up-rez, some people have noted that they used a different app to apply SOME sharpening at the same time as the scaling. I think this was scaling to 2K. I can't remember the post, but that's all I recall. I think you can apply a small amount in post as you export if you want... I haven't needed to.

Cool, thanks for the reply. I'll likely stick with little to no sharpening since it will probably be screened on 2k, and I'd rather have high quality soft picture than sharp, pixelated picture... I appreciate your responses!

David, is it worth have the Auto Lighting Optimizer on. I see there is a Low, Standard and Strong. Does this bring out the mid tones? Something like a gamma control?

Hey Jim,

I actually have my ALO turned to off. From what I can tell, this feature is designed more for the entry photographer that will print JPGs straight from the camera. It appears to boost low-level parts of the image, making your shadows/darker areas appear to have more digital noise.

David, is it worth have the Auto Lighting Optimizer on. I see there is a Low, Standard and Strong. Does this bring out the mid tones? Something like a gamma control?

I'll back Dave up on this- definitely turn off Auto Lighting Optimizer for everything, unless you specifically want noise in the shadows.

Would you guys suggest any different settings for very low light work (i.e. shooting in nightclubs where it is very dark with flashing lights?)