Dark collors in WMP. at DVinfo.net

Gustavs Repse · November 10th, 2010, 06:29 PM

Hello.

I recently shot some night video on my Mir 24 lens(35mm/f2)
Settings were:
Natural 0, -4, -2, 0 (flat)
400 iso
1/50 shutter speed on the lowest aparture. F2

When i shot, the video seemd quite well lit, couldnt complain. Came home, checked the footage on ZoomBrowser EX and it was good aswell.

But then i checked it on Windows media player and it was a lot more darker as if collor corrected. The footage didnt seem flat like i intended and how it looked on ZoomBrowser.

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

The left side is WMP and the right side isZoomBrowser.

My concern is: If i will Collor Correct the night footage it will deffinetly become a little bit darker since i will be saturating/collor correcting the Flat setting video. And if some one, views this video with a WM player latter on he might see it even more Dark, they might not undarstand a thing from it since the Dark spots of video will become pitch black stains, like WMP did it with the Raw footage from 550d. Will it act the same with a rendered video. Does it have problems ust with the 550d raw footage.

I need some guidlines on this matter. Since il have to work with a lot of Night shoots this month. How light is good enought for post ? How should i treat Night/Low light shots?

Also, when rendered, the video seems to become more Dark. But that could be due to the rendering im using.

So, i dont know what i should do. Always asume that the video ul see in the end will be al ot more darker than im seeing on the lcd, therefore shoot everything on 2x iso. 800 in this case, even tho it doesnt seem to be needed .
The threshold betwean, when the Dark spots become pitch black stains, are slim.

Basicaly, im looking for advice to keep my video in "What you see is what you get" shape. Dont know what im doing wrong, am a bit confused by this situation. Maybe Flat is not so good for Night?

p.s

Sorry for a Wall of Text.

Rusty Rogers · November 11th, 2010, 12:27 PM

Your image is really tiny, so it's hard to tell how dark it really is.

Windows media player will not change your original footage in any way, so no fault is in the player.

If you're not using a viewfinder of some sort, like the Zacuto Z-Finder then it's very difficult to get exposure correct.
I generally expose to get faces (particularly eyes) to look the way they should in the viewfinder and I've not had any problems in post.

Night shoots need some practice to get it right!

Try 3200 ISO at night. Grainy, maybe. Did you get the shot? Yes you did!

Bruce Foreman · November 11th, 2010, 12:48 PM

I find 3200 to be pretty clean on my 7D and 550D. I'll even use 6400. But I'm careful my monitor isn't "oversharpening".

As far as judging image density (light/dark) I find my eyes adjust to ambient conditions enough that even with a viewfinder loupe at night I have to darken the LCD brightness some (adjust so you can see all the grayscale steps distinctly from white to black) so the result is exposure added when the subject looks "right".

In bright sunlight again even with a loupe (I use Hoodman with the crane and 3x eyepiece or CAVISION with 6x eyepiece) I have to adjust LCD brightness to make it significantly brighter paying attention to that grayscale so I can see all steps from white to black. Again when it "looks right" on the LCD exposure looks better in the NLE and final rendered product.

I've had the problem at night where exposure looked good reviewed on the LCD but once I got it into the NLE it was under exposed.

Gustavs Repse · November 11th, 2010, 01:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rusty Rogers

Your image is really tiny, so it's hard to tell how dark it really is.

Windows media player will not change your original footage in any way, so no fault is in the player.

If you're not using a viewfinder of some sort, like the Zacuto Z-Finder then it's very difficult to get exposure correct.
I generally expose to get faces (particularly eyes) to look the way they should in the viewfinder and I've not had any problems in post.

Night shoots need some practice to get it right!

Try 3200 ISO at night. Grainy, maybe. Did you get the shot? Yes you did!

Please click on the image again when ur in Imageshack site, it will get larger. And im prety sure the WMP image is some 35% darker then on ZoomBrowser. :)

And isnt viewfinder for finding focus only?

Oh lord. I will have to reshoot all using 1600+ iso. There seems to be no room for post production with the shots made with 400. Tho they do look fine and well lit viewing from zoomBrowser EX ust the collors are FLAT :(
I hope Collor correcting a noisy image will take some of the noise disapear.

Gustavs Repse · November 11th, 2010, 01:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bruce Foreman

I find 3200 to be pretty clean on my 7D and 550D. I'll even use 6400. But I'm careful my monitor isn't "oversharpening".

As far as judging image density (light/dark) I find my eyes adjust to ambient conditions enough that even with a viewfinder loupe at night I have to darken the LCD brightness some (adjust so you can see all the grayscale steps distinctly from white to black) so the result is exposure added when the subject looks "right".

In bright sunlight again even with a loupe (I use Hoodman with the crane and 3x eyepiece or CAVISION with 6x eyepiece) I have to adjust LCD brightness to make it significantly brighter paying attention to that grayscale so I can see all steps from white to black. Again when it "looks right" on the LCD exposure looks better in the NLE and final rendered product.

I've had the problem at night where exposure looked good reviewed on the LCD but once I got it into the NLE it was under exposed.

How it is working with a 3200 iso Night shot? If its shot on Flat i think its better to make it more lit than u actualy need and then darken it down in post. Right?

Do you shoot night shots with flat? If so, how do things work out in postproduction?

Bruce Foreman · November 11th, 2010, 10:08 PM

I have USER DEFINED Picture Style 1 setup based on NEUTRAL. Sharpness is zero (all the way down), Contrast at zero (midpoint), and Saturation is down one notch, sometimes two depending on my whim.

I leave Color Tone alone.

I do not use any of the "flat" setups going around because many have run into color correction nightmares with skin tones. The "flat" and "superflat" styles can do some really weird things with skin tones that are almost totally uncorrectable.

So I don't use "flat" for anything.

As far as using ISO 3200 on night scenes, I love it. I've done too much at night following all the advice not to go over ISO 800 and those projects were awful in post production. I ran some tests at f4 to see if I could live with a couple of L lenses I was considering that had f4 as a maximum aperture. In San Angelo there's a few areas where they don't try to turn off all the lights at night so I shot night scenes of those at 1600, 3200, and 6400 (even shot a couple at 12,800).

1600 was absolutely clean. 3200 looked very good. 6400 did show a little noise mostly in dark areas. And 12,800 got...Interesting. Conclusion: I'll use 1600 and 3200 without hesitation. If necessary I'll use 6400 and live with the noise and if I really have to I'll use 12,800.

The interesting thing I saw in my tests was that the areas that got good exposure showed no objectionable noise and any areas that were underexposed showed grain due to noise, at 6400. At 12,800 all areas that got proper exposure looked pretty good. So you do have to "pick" areas pretty well.

I am careful that my monitor is not set to oversharpen, this will create noise and artifacts where there is none. And I rendered my tests to an HD file format I can view on my HD TV using a hardware media player connected with HDMI. If I don't see objectionable noise there I don't worry about it.

Hope this answers some questions.

Justus Zimmerly · November 11th, 2010, 11:47 PM

I've experienced this same thing a bit and I think the problem stems from how different programs deal with Gamma. You probably can't change what WMP is doing, but if you have problems with dark colours when exporting your edited video you can try changing the gamma settings to see if that helps.

I don't even really know what Gamma means, all I know is that messing around with it can help maintain the look you had while shooting! Maybe someone who knows can weigh in here?

November 10th, 2010, 06:29 PM	#1
Gustavs Repse Regular Crew Join Date: May 2010 Location: Riga,Latvia Posts: 129	Dark collors in WMP. Hello. I recently shot some night video on my Mir 24 lens(35mm/f2) Settings were: Natural 0, -4, -2, 0 (flat) 400 iso 1/50 shutter speed on the lowest aparture. F2 When i shot, the video seemd quite well lit, couldnt complain. Came home, checked the footage on ZoomBrowser EX and it was good aswell. But then i checked it on Windows media player and it was a lot more darker as if collor corrected. The footage didnt seem flat like i intended and how it looked on ZoomBrowser. Uploaded with ImageShack.us Uploaded with ImageShack.us The left side is WMP and the right side isZoomBrowser. My concern is: If i will Collor Correct the night footage it will deffinetly become a little bit darker since i will be saturating/collor correcting the Flat setting video. And if some one, views this video with a WM player latter on he might see it even more Dark, they might not undarstand a thing from it since the Dark spots of video will become pitch black stains, like WMP did it with the Raw footage from 550d. Will it act the same with a rendered video. Does it have problems ust with the 550d raw footage. I need some guidlines on this matter. Since il have to work with a lot of Night shoots this month. How light is good enought for post ? How should i treat Night/Low light shots? Also, when rendered, the video seems to become more Dark. But that could be due to the rendering im using. So, i dont know what i should do. Always asume that the video ul see in the end will be al ot more darker than im seeing on the lcd, therefore shoot everything on 2x iso. 800 in this case, even tho it doesnt seem to be needed . The threshold betwean, when the Dark spots become pitch black stains, are slim. Basicaly, im looking for advice to keep my video in "What you see is what you get" shape. Dont know what im doing wrong, am a bit confused by this situation. Maybe Flat is not so good for Night? p.s Sorry for a Wall of Text. Attached Thumbnails Last edited by Gustavs Repse; November 11th, 2010 at 01:47 PM.

November 11th, 2010, 12:27 PM	#2
Rusty Rogers Regular Crew Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Sacramento, CA Posts: 177	Your image is really tiny, so it's hard to tell how dark it really is. Windows media player will not change your original footage in any way, so no fault is in the player. If you're not using a viewfinder of some sort, like the Zacuto Z-Finder then it's very difficult to get exposure correct. I generally expose to get faces (particularly eyes) to look the way they should in the viewfinder and I've not had any problems in post. Night shoots need some practice to get it right! Try 3200 ISO at night. Grainy, maybe. Did you get the shot? Yes you did! __________________ *Rusty* Rusty Rogers \| Films

November 11th, 2010, 12:48 PM	#3
Bruce Foreman Trustee Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: San Angelo Texas Posts: 1,518	I find 3200 to be pretty clean on my 7D and 550D. I'll even use 6400. But I'm careful my monitor isn't "oversharpening". As far as judging image density (light/dark) I find my eyes adjust to ambient conditions enough that even with a viewfinder loupe at night I have to darken the LCD brightness some (adjust so you can see all the grayscale steps distinctly from white to black) so the result is exposure added when the subject looks "right". In bright sunlight again even with a loupe (I use Hoodman with the crane and 3x eyepiece or CAVISION with 6x eyepiece) I have to adjust LCD brightness to make it significantly brighter paying attention to that grayscale so I can see all steps from white to black. Again when it "looks right" on the LCD exposure looks better in the NLE and final rendered product. I've had the problem at night where exposure looked good reviewed on the LCD but once I got it into the NLE it was under exposed.

November 11th, 2010, 10:08 PM	#6
Bruce Foreman Trustee Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: San Angelo Texas Posts: 1,518	I have USER DEFINED Picture Style 1 setup based on NEUTRAL. Sharpness is zero (all the way down), Contrast at zero (midpoint), and Saturation is down one notch, sometimes two depending on my whim. I leave Color Tone alone. I do not use any of the "flat" setups going around because many have run into color correction nightmares with skin tones. The "flat" and "superflat" styles can do some really weird things with skin tones that are almost totally uncorrectable. So I don't use "flat" for anything. As far as using ISO 3200 on night scenes, I love it. I've done too much at night following all the advice not to go over ISO 800 and those projects were awful in post production. I ran some tests at f4 to see if I could live with a couple of L lenses I was considering that had f4 as a maximum aperture. In San Angelo there's a few areas where they don't try to turn off all the lights at night so I shot night scenes of those at 1600, 3200, and 6400 (even shot a couple at 12,800). 1600 was absolutely clean. 3200 looked very good. 6400 did show a little noise mostly in dark areas. And 12,800 got...Interesting. Conclusion: I'll use 1600 and 3200 without hesitation. If necessary I'll use 6400 and live with the noise and if I really have to I'll use 12,800. The interesting thing I saw in my tests was that the areas that got good exposure showed no objectionable noise and any areas that were underexposed showed grain due to noise, at 6400. At 12,800 all areas that got proper exposure looked pretty good. So you do have to "pick" areas pretty well. I am careful that my monitor is not set to oversharpen, this will create noise and artifacts where there is none. And I rendered my tests to an HD file format I can view on my HD TV using a hardware media player connected with HDMI. If I don't see objectionable noise there I don't worry about it. Hope this answers some questions.

November 11th, 2010, 11:47 PM	#7
Justus Zimmerly New Boot Join Date: May 2010 Location: Winnipeg, MB, Canada Posts: 6	I've experienced this same thing a bit and I think the problem stems from how different programs deal with Gamma. You probably can't change what WMP is doing, but if you have problems with dark colours when exporting your edited video you can try changing the gamma settings to see if that helps. I don't even really know what Gamma means, all I know is that messing around with it can help maintain the look you had while shooting! Maybe someone who knows can weigh in here?