Picture Profile Recipes

[Michael H. Stevens]

Originally Posted by Chris Aaron

I just went on a shoot for promotional video. The director is a 35mm film purist who was doing the shoot for charity and had to use low end HD (my EX1 and another XL H1). When he asked which should be used for A camera and which should be used for B I said use the XL H1 since it had a wide angle lens...but by the end of the night I feel like my camera had turned into the A camera along the way...thanks to the film curve pp...the closeups on the EX1 were just more impressive...yayy film curve pp...thanks for posting this stuff dudes and dudettes...

:D

Great story. Can you be specific about what lighting you were under and what "film curve" you used?

Thanks

[Michael H. Stevens]

Originally Posted by Steve Sykes

Bill do you have another updated SUF file with your recent settings we could upload. Your previous black settings went down to -8 do all your PPs black levels now go up by 4?

Also I am videoing a wedding on Monday. The church is quite dimly lit, but the aisle shot is likely to be backlit from the main windows at the front of church. I would like to have more detail in the blacks so can brighten them if necessary in post.

I will probably need to use several picture profiles in the church.

1) Aisle bright backlit shot in dim church
2) Stage shot, under a mixture of white stage spots (unfortunately not evenly dispersed lighting)
3) Signing of the register - dimly lit.

Is cine4 better in bringing up more contrasts in the blacks or would std1 with a modified PP be better.

I would like some practical answers please!

Thanks

If your church is dark in the foreground you will likely not need to drop the Black master, but do check with you histogram to make sure it bottoms out. To get more details in the blacks put the Black Gamma into positive territory but go easy because you will get more noise especially if you are using Gain. IMHO if you have your gain at anything over 0 then do not go for the black detail without experimenting first. If you expose right you will be able to bring it up in post, so make sure you do not underexpose. Use CINE4 to maximise your brightness in the dark areas.

Mike

[Steve Sykes]

Originally Posted by Michael H. Stevens

If your church is dark in the foreground you will likely not need to drop the Black master, but do check with you histogram to make sure it bottoms out. To get more details in the blacks put the Black Gamma into positive territory but go easy because you will get more noise especially if you are using Gain. IMHO if you have your gain at anything over 0 then do not go for the black detail without experimenting first. If you expose right you will be able to bring it up in post, so make sure you do not underexpose. Use CINE4 to maximise your brightness in the dark areas.

Mike

Thanks Mike. I'll give that a try. I'll let you know how it went soon.

Steve

[Bruno Demeocq]

HI, I did try somes PP here, especially the one from Bill R. But unfortunaly I am a litte confuse with all the settings in the PP (lack of technical image background, I was writing (in french) for press before.
Next week, i'll leave Dakar, Sénégal for a 10 days shooting in Guinea and I GOt my a EX1 since one week oming after my Sony HVR-A1E and my Canon XL1.
What could be good PP choices for highlight sunydays and higlights cloudy days and black actors ?
(I am doing films and reports in Africa (mostly west since 10 years).

[Eric Pascarelli]

I think Bill's settings but with CINE 4 gamma should be good. CINE 4 opens up the shadows more than the other gammas.

[Bruno Demeocq]

I dot not find Bruce PP here. Where are they in this thread ? ? ?
Thanks !

Bruno

[Eric Pascarelli]

Bruno - I corrected my post - I meant Bill, not Bruce.

[Bruno Demeocq]

OK Bruce = Bill OKAY. Thanks.

[Michael H. Stevens]

Originally Posted by Eric Pascarelli

I think Bill's settings but with CINE 4 gamma should be good. CINE 4 opens up the shadows more than the other gammas.

......... but if you are in a hot bright sky as Africa is then CINE4 is "too bright" for the top. Use CINE1 and set the black point and black detail in the menu.

[Chris Aaron]

Originally Posted by Michael H. Stevens

Great story. Can you be specific about what lighting you were under and what "film curve" you used?

Thanks

Used the "film curve" pp from the excel spreadsheet first couple o threads...we shot at night, outside, with five HMIs at various watts...

[Eric Pascarelli]

From my tests, the rolloff at the top is more or less the same for all the Cine gammas - it's mostly the shadows that are affected.

But the best thing to do us to test it yourself.

[Anmol Mishra]

All said in the title.

[Noah Yuan-Vogel]

anyone studied what the gamma number is? I had a chance to play around with picture profile settings for a few min on an EX1 in B&H the other day, and the gamma number didnt seem to do what i would have expected. i often found that boosting gamma would actually cause weird problems in highlights. while in one of the CINE gamma modes, i boosted the gamma thinking it would lighten the image, but instead it had a really weird effect on the white level. at higher gamma numbers, the white level would decrease so that clipped, pure white was actually more of a light grey... it also certainly struck me that it takes a bit of tweaking to actually use your the full IRE range. but the area spot meter on the EX1 is an awesome feature for tweaking this. anyway, id definitely like to see someone do a study on the exact effect of each setting on the overall light response curve. or i would love to get my hands on a camera and do it myself... till then, im sure using it for 8bit log images is probably out without significant testing. would also like to look further into how to optimize the image for nice looking highlight rolloff. cine modes are nice, but i feel there is more that can be done to truly make the highlights look organic. i did love using the camera in the few minutes i did, i like the look of boosted black gamma with a nice cine curve and sharpening off. awesome low noise, and really nice lens for sure.

[Randy Strome]

I posted this elsewhere, but Gamma is actually better thought of as white level...BUT postive Gamma lowers the white level, so a negative # will move you further towards clipping, not away from it. I will post some pictures later.

[Don Deignan]

Thanks Bill for your picture profile. I am still getting a orange cast to my reds, especially on my cam monitor. It is not as bad on a Sony LCD but still there. Anyone have a profile for doing plays with all the spot lights and stage lights?

Don Deignan