Picture Profile Recipes

[Paul Cronin]

Thanks Bill for your continued work on the presets. I will be home this weekend after a two week shoot were I used your preset with cine 1 & 4 with success. It will be interesting to view on my larger monitors compared to the 17" Macbook pro.

So far all looks ok but I did change the BLacks to -4 an it seem to help in the high contrast shoots.

Always interested in what you find next.

[Warren Kawamoto]

Everyone...

What is the recipe for obtaining maximum tonal RANGE? Something that will work in every situation regardless if it's bright or in low light?

I would like to capture all my images with as much shadow AND highlight detail as possible, without crushed blacks or blown out whites. Something with a smooth and even tonal range from 0-108%.

I guess this would be called the "holy grail preset?"

[Bill Ravens]

warren...no such animal. no such thing as a perfect compromise.
latitude in hi contrast scenes is entirely different from latitude in low contrast scenes. anything that works well in low contrast will not work well in hi contrast and visa versa. throw the dice and takes your chance.

[Michael H. Stevens]

Originally Posted by Warren Kawamoto

Everyone...

What is the recipe for obtaining maximum tonal RANGE? Something that will work in every situation regardless if it's bright or in low light?

I would like to capture all my images with as much shadow AND highlight detail as possible, without crushed blacks or blown out whites. Something with a smooth and even tonal range from 0-108%.

I guess this would be called the "holy grail preset?"

You need find a preset (PP) for each of the lighting conditions you shoot under. Generally you will loose a bit at one end but even so the latitude of this camera is amazing.

Here is something you might try that I do. I want the most detail in the blacks as I reasonably can, IE I don't want crushed blacks and CINE4 is a good preset for that but CINE4 is a very "bright" gamma and I shoot under the high hot sun, so I use CINE4 with the (black stretch slightly dropped) and under-expose by about 1.5 stops.

Mike

[Warren Kawamoto]

Thanks Bill & Mike!

[Dennis Schmitz]

@Bill:
I have a problem with your TC2-Preset. I get a greenish looking sky with your preset.

I did a comparison between your TC2 preset (with Black and Blackgamma=0), mine (hisat with Level=5 but no other modifications, Cine4, detail=off, Gamma=0, Black=0, Blackgamma=0) and a HV20 (TV-Mode, Aperture under my control - never thought the HV20 looks so bad compared to the EX1!)

http://rapidshare.com/files/93376520..._HV20.mp4.html


regards Dennis

[Bill Ravens]

recheck your matrix values. you didn't set the to the right values I speced.

[Dennis Schmitz]

Originally Posted by Bill Ravens

recheck your matrix values. you didn't set the to the right values I speced.

I used your hisat matrix values (TC2) with other gamma and black gamma settings because the blacks were crushed.

I cannot test with your original gamma and black gamma settings because it's rainy today. ;)


regards Dennis

[Bill Ravens]

check again

[Dennis Schmitz]

@Bill:
These were the settings I've used:

Matrix=High SAT
Phase=-5
R-G=+75
R-B=0
G-R=-18
G-B=-32
B-R=-27
B-G=+13

OffSet White=Off

Detail=Off

Skin Tone Detail=Off

Gamma Level=0
Select=Cine4

Black=0
Black Gamma=0

Low Key Sat=+10



regards Dennis

[Michael H. Stevens]

Did Bill update his settings? I don't remeber the +10 LowKey Sat and I have Black at -12. Results very nice.

[Bill Ravens]

Looks right, except:
Black: -12
Low Key Sat: 0

I have, since, backed off to Black at -8 to givre me a little more headroom in the shadows. I run these all settings with STD1, CINE1, CINE3, CINE4. Each one shifts the exposure latitude, depending on scene illumination.

STD1 gives a pretty contrasty image in the EVF, but, grades very well in post.

Be SURE you white balance.

[Cody Stanton]

The settings are perfect for sunny scenes. But what about night scenes outdoors in low light. Is there any way to get rid of the noise? I tried switching to STD 1 and this helped a bit getting rid of the noise but not completely. Is there something else I need to be doing?
Cody

[Dennis Schmitz]

Hmm, I've checked again, because wheather is great today.

It seems that the picture looks more natural with your preset.
(reddish sky with mine, greenish sky with Bill's TC2 but it looks better)


Edit: why do these pictures look different when viewing in firefox?
My preset seems to produce more natural colors when viewing in firefox - strange...

Edit2: The MXF files look the same in VLC compared to firefox, but very different in windows live photogallery...

regards Dennis

[Piotr Wozniacki]

OK guys.

After some more testing, I must revise my understanding of what the philosophy behind both CINE gammas and CINE matrix is on this camera. Certainly, it's NOT the same I had on the V1, and thus NOT what I expected. Rather than more punchy/saturated than the STD gammas/ STD matrix, they seem to be muted and washet-out. BUT, given a second thought, do CINEmatic picture (as seen in the movie theaters) look contrasty? Not at all, so perhaps this is the CineAlta philosophy, after all? Low contrast, soft and saturated pictures...

Anyway, the two grabs below show a comparison of the same scenery using:

- Bill Raven's TC (or was it TC2), with Cine1 gamma on the left
- my new PP on the right:

gamma: STD1 level 0
matrix: Hisat level 20, phase 15, all colour pairs at zero (default)
Black: -25
Black gamma: -15
Low Key Sat: 15

As you can see, the STD1-based picture is much brighter and punchy than the CINE1-based one. What's more, this PP's knee (unlike that of CINE1) is not only adjustable (all defaults here), but even with default settings does NOT produce the awful "abrupt highlight clipping" as discussed in another thread, and mentioned by Adam Wilt (just see the extremely back-lit images at the bottom - the left one has been taken with Cine1 and shown in the "abrupt clipping" thread; see what I mean?).

So, the question is: to CINE, or not to CINE? - when one is after this punchy, contrasty and saturated look... Of course, the grabs on the right has been made too contrasty on purpose in order to prove my point; their blacks are too severely compressed for sure!