XL H1 and that "film look"

Chris Hurd · February 6th, 2007, 06:34 PM

These four images in order: the default / no preset sample; the weird look that Greg called "CSI" earlier (it's RGN +9, RGM +9, RBM +9, RBM +9, GRM +9, BRM +9 -- just playing; feel free to tweak it these extremes down to something useful), and then R,G,B each +9 and RGB each -9. Obviously you'd need to compensate for exposure. I didn't here. The idea is to show how exposure would have to change with the preset. Also, I suspect an adjustment of Color Gain would be a huge help as well. So much for quick and dirty... I ran out of daylight. The whole thing needs to be done over!

A. J. deLange · February 7th, 2007, 02:58 PM

Video cameras have three CCD's sensitive to, respectively, portions of the visible spectrum in the Red, Green and Blue regions. The three sensors produce, in response to increased or decreased light in their spectral sensitivity bands, signals which control the amount of either red, green or blue light emitted by a display. Because the primaries on the display don't match the spectral sensitivities of the camera the amount of signal from each of the three channels on the camera which contribute to the light output of each primary on the display are adjustable. The red gun (in a CRT) receives signal mostly from the red CCD but there are bits of green and blue signal mixed in as well. Simularly the green gun receives mostly green CCD signal with some red and blue and so on for the blue gun. Thus there are 9 gains associated with a color camera arranged in a 3 x 3 matrix (strangely Canon calls the off diagonal elements of the matrix "matrix" but the on diagonal, RR, GG, BB, elements "gains"). The R gain (RR matrix) controls the amount of R which goes to the red channel. The RG matrix setting controlls how much red goes to the green channel while the GR setting controls how much green CCD signal goes into the red channel, etc. By tweaking the matrix one can match a range of camera sensitivity characterisitics to a range of displays (with different primaries), compensate for differences in the spectral characteristics of illuminants and, of course, come up with some wildly creative color mappings like the ones in this thread.

Film has three layers sensitive to, respectively, portions of the visible spectrum in the Red, Green and Blue regions. In response to, respectively, more or less light in one of the spectral regions, film removes, respectively, more or less of a complementary dye in the corresponding film layer. Thus bright blue light bleaches most or all of the yellow dye incorporated in the film (reversal film being described though the result is the same with negative/print) whereas weak blue light removes little of it. As yellow dye absorbs blue light parts of the film exposed to a lot of blue light pass or reflect a lot of blue light and conversely. The red sensitive layer incorporates cyan dye and the green sensitive layer, magenta dye. With film you have something sort of like the RR, GG and BB matrix controls if you put a color balancing filter over the taking lens but you do not have the cross matrix elements to tweak unless, of course, you telecine and cross the channels in the digitized images.

In printing, the maximum density of magenta, cyan, and yellow (M,C,Y) often results in a dark muddy brown rather than a rich black thus most printing is done with C, M, Y and K with the latter representing black. In many printers there are 6 or 7 inks C, Cp, M, Mp, Y, K, Kp with Cp being called "photo Cyan", lighter appearing than straight C. Kp is "photo black", more of a grey. The driver takes an RGB (or more proabably Lab) representation of the image and maps it into the space of the printer.

John Benton · February 8th, 2007, 04:43 PM

Don't know if yu can see from these pix what this setting is really like, but:
http://www.thereelshit.com/Picts/kaisner_1.png
http://www.thereelshit.com/Picts/kaisner.png

pix compressed, nevermind the gg from the 35mm adaption

Vince Gaffney · February 8th, 2007, 04:47 PM

What type of adapter is that?

vince

Steven Dempsey · February 8th, 2007, 04:49 PM

Thanks for posting John. I assume this is done with your LetusXL adapter. It's hard to tell without a comparison of the "normal" RGB settings and the negative ones. I'm hoping to do some testing on Sunday. I'll post something when I do.

John Benton · February 8th, 2007, 08:06 PM

It is The LetusXL adapter..I think the batteries were quite low on the vibrater - I haven't seen that kind of gg pattern before. The stills I took were random screen captures that I was taking to use as thumbnails for the website, so I wasn't searching necessarily for the sharpest shots...The Letus really does a nice job

Vince Gaffney · February 9th, 2007, 06:42 AM

Thanks John,

I just ordered a Redrock M2 to use with a group of Nikon lenses that are being reconditioned. I'm eager to see what I can get out of it.

Vince

John Benton · February 9th, 2007, 08:09 AM

Excellent Vince,
I find, and this is just me personally, that I shoot with it more than I dont.
For example, The pictures are from a scene that I shot with both the stock lens (actually I shot it with the 3x wide) and also the adapter.
Editing it with the actors later that day, the consensus was to go with the 35mm footage rather than the regular HD look. It depends what you are shooting,
Mixing them together is hard. Getting nice wide shots with an adapter is also hard.
Nikon lenses are great. You will have a good time,

Back on topic, I find that turning down these individual RGB gains, for whatever reason, is very interesting. I need to explore it more,
But it seems to subltey shift the color of the Canon.
Is that possible? It seems to have shifted the color balance in a way that I like and could not find how to do with just controlling the RGB or the manual white balance.
Might also be my imagination and deep desire, so I am interested in what other people are seeing,
J

Steven Dempsey · February 10th, 2007, 10:20 AM

So I played around with these settings this morning and I can't say I noticed a huge difference. What I did notice is that there is quite a significant light loss (I haven't measured it but it's at least 1 1/2 stops). I'm not willing to lose that much light for a preset.

Chris Hurd · February 10th, 2007, 01:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Dempsey

What I did notice is that there is quite a significant light loss

This can be seen in the frames I posted earlier (above at http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost....2&postcount=16 in this thread). There would have to be some compensation for exposure, plus a boost in the Color Gain.

Robert Sanders · February 10th, 2007, 05:38 PM

I'm discovering the same result. There seems to be a little more rolloff on the highlights and a little more detail in the blacks. But it's very slight.

It might make for a great "outdoor" setting. I'm going to keep as my #6 preset for now.

John Benton · February 12th, 2007, 12:42 PM

Yes, I agree there is light loss, and I notice that it goes to unusable brights quite fast.
and, like I said before, it may well be my frusteration with my own experience with the color on this camera, but it seems to have a subtley differently balanced color.
Don't know if that is worth the light loss, but I will be playing with this a lot more in the future

February 6th, 2007, 06:34 PM	#16
Chris Hurd Obstreperous Rex Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: San Marcos, TX Posts: 27,368 Images: 513	These four images in order: the default / no preset sample; the weird look that Greg called "CSI" earlier (it's RGN +9, RGM +9, RBM +9, RBM +9, GRM +9, BRM +9 -- just playing; feel free to tweak it these extremes down to something useful), and then R,G,B each +9 and RGB each -9. Obviously you'd need to compensate for exposure. I didn't here. The idea is to show how exposure would have to change with the preset. Also, I suspect an adjustment of Color Gain would be a huge help as well. So much for quick and dirty... I ran out of daylight. The whole thing needs to be done over! Attached Thumbnails __________________ CH Search DV Info Net \| 20 years of DVi \| ...Tuesday is Soylent Green Day!

February 8th, 2007, 04:49 PM	#20
Steven Dempsey Disjecta Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Seattle, Washington Posts: 937	Thanks for posting John. I assume this is done with your LetusXL adapter. It's hard to tell without a comparison of the "normal" RGB settings and the negative ones. I'm hoping to do some testing on Sunday. I'll post something when I do. __________________ Try my Digital Therapy: http://www.pinelakefilms.com/digital_therapy.html Films on ExposureRoom: http://exposureroom.com/members/disjecta.aspx/videos/

February 10th, 2007, 10:20 AM	#24
Steven Dempsey Disjecta Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Seattle, Washington Posts: 937	So I played around with these settings this morning and I can't say I noticed a huge difference. What I did notice is that there is quite a significant light loss (I haven't measured it but it's at least 1 1/2 stops). I'm not willing to lose that much light for a preset. __________________ Try my Digital Therapy: http://www.pinelakefilms.com/digital_therapy.html Films on ExposureRoom: http://exposureroom.com/members/disjecta.aspx/videos/

February 10th, 2007, 05:38 PM	#26
Robert Sanders Starway Pictures Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Studio City Posts: 581	I'm discovering the same result. There seems to be a little more rolloff on the highlights and a little more detail in the blacks. But it's very slight. It might make for a great "outdoor" setting. I'm going to keep as my #6 preset for now. __________________ http://www.starwaypictures.com http://starwaypictures.blogspot.com/

February 7th, 2007, 02:58 PM	#17
A. J. deLange Major Player Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: McLean, VA United States Posts: 749	Video cameras have three CCD's sensitive to, respectively, portions of the visible spectrum in the Red, Green and Blue regions. The three sensors produce, in response to increased or decreased light in their spectral sensitivity bands, signals which control the amount of either red, green or blue light emitted by a display. Because the primaries on the display don't match the spectral sensitivities of the camera the amount of signal from each of the three channels on the camera which contribute to the light output of each primary on the display are adjustable. The red gun (in a CRT) receives signal mostly from the red CCD but there are bits of green and blue signal mixed in as well. Simularly the green gun receives mostly green CCD signal with some red and blue and so on for the blue gun. Thus there are 9 gains associated with a color camera arranged in a 3 x 3 matrix (strangely Canon calls the off diagonal elements of the matrix "matrix" but the on diagonal, RR, GG, BB, elements "gains"). The R gain (RR matrix) controls the amount of R which goes to the red channel. The RG matrix setting controlls how much red goes to the green channel while the GR setting controls how much green CCD signal goes into the red channel, etc. By tweaking the matrix one can match a range of camera sensitivity characterisitics to a range of displays (with different primaries), compensate for differences in the spectral characteristics of illuminants and, of course, come up with some wildly creative color mappings like the ones in this thread. Film has three layers sensitive to, respectively, portions of the visible spectrum in the Red, Green and Blue regions. In response to, respectively, more or less light in one of the spectral regions, film removes, respectively, more or less of a complementary dye in the corresponding film layer. Thus bright blue light bleaches most or all of the yellow dye incorporated in the film (reversal film being described though the result is the same with negative/print) whereas weak blue light removes little of it. As yellow dye absorbs blue light parts of the film exposed to a lot of blue light pass or reflect a lot of blue light and conversely. The red sensitive layer incorporates cyan dye and the green sensitive layer, magenta dye. With film you have something sort of like the RR, GG and BB matrix controls if you put a color balancing filter over the taking lens but you do not have the cross matrix elements to tweak unless, of course, you telecine and cross the channels in the digitized images. In printing, the maximum density of magenta, cyan, and yellow (M,C,Y) often results in a dark muddy brown rather than a rich black thus most printing is done with C, M, Y and K with the latter representing black. In many printers there are 6 or 7 inks C, Cp, M, Mp, Y, K, Kp with Cp being called "photo Cyan", lighter appearing than straight C. Kp is "photo black", more of a grey. The driver takes an RGB (or more proabably Lab) representation of the image and maps it into the space of the printer.

February 8th, 2007, 04:43 PM	#18
John Benton Major Player Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: NYC Posts: 658	Don't know if yu can see from these pix what this setting is really like, but: http://www.thereelshit.com/Picts/kaisner_1.png http://www.thereelshit.com/Picts/kaisner.png pix compressed, nevermind the gg from the 35mm adaption

February 8th, 2007, 04:47 PM	#19
Vince Gaffney Regular Crew Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 146	What type of adapter is that? vince

February 8th, 2007, 08:06 PM	#21
John Benton Major Player Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: NYC Posts: 658	It is The LetusXL adapter..I think the batteries were quite low on the vibrater - I haven't seen that kind of gg pattern before. The stills I took were random screen captures that I was taking to use as thumbnails for the website, so I wasn't searching necessarily for the sharpest shots...The Letus really does a nice job

February 9th, 2007, 06:42 AM	#22
Vince Gaffney Regular Crew Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 146	Thanks John, I just ordered a Redrock M2 to use with a group of Nikon lenses that are being reconditioned. I'm eager to see what I can get out of it. Vince

February 9th, 2007, 08:09 AM	#23
John Benton Major Player Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: NYC Posts: 658	Excellent Vince, I find, and this is just me personally, that I shoot with it more than I dont. For example, The pictures are from a scene that I shot with both the stock lens (actually I shot it with the 3x wide) and also the adapter. Editing it with the actors later that day, the consensus was to go with the 35mm footage rather than the regular HD look. It depends what you are shooting, Mixing them together is hard. Getting nice wide shots with an adapter is also hard. Nikon lenses are great. You will have a good time, Back on topic, I find that turning down these individual RGB gains, for whatever reason, is very interesting. I need to explore it more, But it seems to subltey shift the color of the Canon. Is that possible? It seems to have shifted the color balance in a way that I like and could not find how to do with just controlling the RGB or the manual white balance. Might also be my imagination and deep desire, so I am interested in what other people are seeing, J

February 12th, 2007, 12:42 PM	#27
John Benton Major Player Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: NYC Posts: 658	Yes, I agree there is light loss, and I notice that it goes to unusable brights quite fast. and, like I said before, it may well be my frusteration with my own experience with the color on this camera, but it seems to have a subtley differently balanced color. Don't know if that is worth the light loss, but I will be playing with this a lot more in the future