Picture Profile Recipes

[Randy Strome]

Originally Posted by Greg Voevodsky

THANKS RANDY,

Actually, I want to avoid the Cine settings - since they are limiting dynamic range a bit more than I like. Also, my footage is meant to be more of a Discovery Channel sharp reality look.

Anyone else? Bright beach, white sand, surf and SUNSETS with detail in the shadows and highlights.

Got it. I am wondering though if you will not end up having to tone back one of the STD settings to essntially be Cine type settings to do what you want. Even Cine 3 and 4 prove to be too contrasty for most of the beach stuff we shoot. We find that with either of those that we are often losing one end or the other. Now if you are shooting basicly video stills (limited pans, plenty of time to set up each shot) then I could see one of those working, but IMO the STD's are pretty unusable for this type of shooting. Interested to hear what others think though.

[Mike Stevens]

I find in the bright harsh environment of the Californian desert I can only use Cine4 early morning and for the golden hour. I think what you do is to start with Cine1 and tweak it.

Now somewhere I think remember Bill Raven saying that to get most information use Std4 but then you will need a lot of post to stop it looking like generic video.

Mike

[Sami Sanpakkila]

Originally Posted by Randy Strome

Got it. I am wondering though if you will not end up having to tone back one of the STD settings to essntially be Cine type settings to do what you want. Even Cine 3 and 4 prove to be too contrasty for most of the beach stuff we shoot. We find that with either of those that we are often losing one end or the other. Now if you are shooting basicly video stills (limited pans, plenty of time to set up each shot) then I could see one of those working, but IMO the STD's are pretty unusable for this type of shooting. Interested to hear what others think though.

Im in no means a professional when it comes to PP but Ive been shooting with Bill R's PP. Yesterday I tweaked it by taking away all the color corrections and using Cine2 with Gamma level at +5 and Black at -13. These settings work great on a sunny day and during the golden hour for me.

I like to shoot mostly with 5600 WB or 3200 WB indoors and get that tone change from the "incorrect" WB. I think that tweaking the colors in the menu messes things up if not shooting with the "correct" WB. Is this a viable thought/find at all?

[Randy Strome]

Originally Posted by Sami Sanpakkila

Im in no means a professional when it comes to PP but Ive been shooting with Bill R's PP. Yesterday I tweaked it by taking away all the color corrections and using Cine2 with Gamma level at +5 and Black at -13. These settings work great on a sunny day and during the golden hour for me.

I like to shoot mostly with 5600 WB or 3200 WB indoors and get that tone change from the "incorrect" WB. I think that tweaking the colors in the menu messes things up if not shooting with the "correct" WB. Is this a viable thought/find at all?

Hi Sami,

It's right if its working. Results is what we are all after.

Just to clarify, are you saying that you were using default settings on Cine 2 except for gamma and black?

Could you post a still from the video? Thanks!

[Sami Sanpakkila]

Originally Posted by Randy Strome

Hi Sami,
It's right if its working. Results is what we are all after.
Just to clarify, are you saying that you were using default settings on Cine 2 except for gamma and black?
Could you post a still from the video? Thanks!

Here's my settings. I started with Philip Blooms settings that were the same (or based on) Bill R's PP I think. This is much more different profile from those than i even realised now that I look at the settings side by side. Its made to be as much like shooting film (the way I want) that I've been able to achieve so far. Ill post some stills on wednesday when I'm back home. For shooting in low light I have different settings but nothing I really like yet.

Matrix ...............on
Select................cinema
Level..................0
Phase.................0
R-G...................0
R-B...................0
G-R...................0
G-B...................0
B-R...................0
B-G...................0

Color Correction..............off

White.............................off

Detail.............................on
Detail Level.....................0
Detail Freq......................0
(and all other settings at)..0

Skin Tone Detail...............off

Knee..............................(greyed out)

Gamma Level..............+5
Select.............CINE2

Black..........................-13

Black Gamma..............0

low key sat...............0

[Greg Voevodsky]

OK - I'm happy with my highlight settings... having set them live with a cloud at sunset.

knee 98
slope +90
Sat 25

I have my zebras at 106, and now I get good details in my clouds, no zebras and no blow outs both in auto and manual. A big difference from full auto that blows out the clouds.

Now, back to setting blacks and stretch.. please NO NO NO CINE... I want manual controls over:

BLACK: ??
BLACK GAMMA: ??

So, right now I have a medium setting of

Black +20
Black Gamma -20

This seems to boost the blacks, and still give me a black left over in super high contrast settings. In normal settings, the blacks are now greys.

Any ADVICE ON STRETCHING BLACKS 1 AND 2 STOPS for Sunsets would be greatly appreciated. I've fixed the highlights... what about the blacks. Thanks.

[Sami Sanpakkila]

Referring to my previous posts (#275 and 277).

Here are some stills taken with the PP I use now. Shot with Letus Extreme, Canon FD 20mm f2.8, 100mm f2.8 and 135mm f2.

First image shows a shot with a PP that I got from Philip Blooms blog. The pics after that are with the PP I described in post #277 which suits my Canon lenses and my liking a bit better. As you see there's not a whole lot of difference, in the first pic the sky is a bit more magenta and the green is a bit oversaturated I think.

Opinions are welcomed! Thanks!

PS. Oh yes, and all is shot with 5600K!

[Alexander Kubalsky]

those are some beautiful pictures Sami. Thanks for posting them. I also have the Bill Raven PP and Ill try your tweaked setting. Theres alot more humidity where I am, I wonder if it makes a difference.

[Mike Stevens]

Originally Posted by Greg Voevodsky

please NO NO NO CINE... I want manual controls over:

BLACK: ??
BLACK GAMMA: ??

I don't think you understand what the CINEs are; they are not presets. With them you have full manual control of Master Black and Black Gamma and everything else except the knee because that's what the CINEs are designed to do best. Each CINE rolls of the whites in a different way and I don't think you can emulate them easily with the STDs.

That's why most here choose the CINE and then tweak it.

[Greg Voevodsky]

I found the Cine setting to be much noiser like Cine 3 in low light conditions vs standard. Here's another question then in terms of lattitude.

Again low light, sunset with details in the shadows - minimum noise.

Is it better to wash out the image like BLACK +20, BLACK CINE -20 and then add the details back in the blacks... OR...

is it better to shoot BLACK -5, BLACK CINE +30 which gives nice blacks and still brightens the dark greys?

Am I getting more latitude with the 2nd (BLACK -5, BLACK CINE +30) setting than the 1st when it is corrected back down?

(I guess RED's washed out RAW look and then post production has me thinking more about shooting a bit flatter to get more detail - am I wrong here? I know this is not RAW... the above settings are a decent test - I will test them soon in Color.)

[Sami Sanpakkila]

Originally Posted by Alexander Kubalsky

those are some beautiful pictures Sami. Thanks for posting them. I also have the Bill Raven PP and Ill try your tweaked setting. Theres alot more humidity where I am, I wonder if it makes a difference.

Thanks Alexander. I put a video on vimeo with the material.

http://www.vimeo.com/986544

Sami

[Mike Stevens]

Originally Posted by Greg Voevodsky

I found the Cine setting to be much noiser like Cine 3 in low light conditions vs standard. Here's another question then in terms of lattitude.

Again low light, sunset with details in the shadows - minimum noise.

Is it better to wash out the image like BLACK +20, BLACK CINE -20 and then add the details back in the blacks... OR...

is it better to shoot BLACK -5, BLACK CINE +30 which gives nice blacks and still brightens the dark greys?

Am I getting more latitude with the 2nd (BLACK -5, BLACK CINE +30) setting than the 1st when it is corrected back down?

(I guess RED's washed out RAW look and then post production has me thinking more about shooting a bit flatter to get more detail - am I wrong here? I know this is not RAW... the above settings are a decent test - I will test them soon in Color.)

I know this is not the answer you want, but with a new camera that we all are getting to know, my suggestion is to try it all ways and the YOU tell us what you found best. For me I try to do as little post as possible but that is not necessarily right. Does the camera do post better than the NLE? Is the info there? I think we all are still getting to discover that and that is why there are few definitive answers in this whole long thread.

God luck and please do your test and tells us what you find.

[Dennis Joseph]

...now let's work on a picture profile for the "Bourne Ultimatum" look! :)


...no really!

[Serena Steuart]

The difficulty besetting this subject is that one needs a sound understanding of the controls involved and their quantitative effect on the image. There are too many variables to just fiddle. Bill Raven really got things going with valuable contributions in determining (quantitatively) desirable settings, and I was pleased to find Simon Wyndham's SAW results that actually did define the nature of the gamma curves. I've seen only the SAW results published by Sebastien Thomas, which I understand were recorded at 3dB gain which resulted in flats in the region of 80 to 90. Bill has looked at this and mentioned that he has determined that the full curve (without flat) is seen only at 3200K 0db (white balanced). Has anyone output those curves for our reference? I unsuccessfully searched for the methodology for doing this myself, so maybe I just need a little primer or a link. I've been into the service menu but that's one area where I get nervous when I'm not absolutely certain what I'm doing.

[Bill Ravens]

Here are the steps to follow when evaluating SAW curves with the EX1:
1-Select any SD mode with the EX1.
2-connect the firewire link to your computer
3-Fire up HDRack
4-enter the maintenance menu and pick SAW
5-the WFM window in HDRack will display the gamma curve. note the WFM scales.

I assume it would be possible to record(capture) with Vegas and look at the WFM after the fact.

I, also, assume, it's possible to look at the SAW curve via the SDI or component out ports of the EX1 feeding a conventional WFM and vectorscope, altho' I've never done this.