Better Color/Film Looks by Under-Exposing

[Charles Papert]

Originally Posted by Bill Ravens

someone spent some time setting the lighting up on those scenes, and it was captured beautifully.

thanks, 'cause I was that someone (and we didn't have nearly enough time but somehow we got it done)!

[Bill Ravens]

kinda figured that :o)
is there ever enuff time?

[Charles Papert]

The first time I operated for Roger Deakins, it was on an HBO movie; we were preparing to shoot a walk and talk in downtown LA. I noticed that the late afternoon sun was blasting from behind us and would obviously create a camera shadow. I asked Roger if he was going to fly a silk or something and he just looked at me and said "nah, we wait for the sun to go down, mate". Eventually the AD came over and asked Roger what time he should bring the actors onto set; Roger pointed to the shadow line of the sun on the sidewalk; "when the shadow reaches here, bring in second team. When it reaches here, first team".

So, yeah, sometimes there's enough time--if you are Roger Deakins! The rest of us mere mortals just have to make do...

[Leonard Levy]

Everyone I know keeps flesh tones lower in HD usually around 60 maybe 65. 70 pretty much never. 50 sounds a bit low for a talking head but if its drama then its all in whatever mood you want.

Very nice footage Charles - what camera were you shooting with?

- Lenny Levy

[Charles Papert]

Mostly F900 with some additional footage on Genesis.

[Leonard Levy]

As I suspected, It didn't look like a 1/3" camera. Very nice.
One thing about underexposure in general is that the higher the resolution and the lower the noise floor of the camera, the more you can get away with it.
How do you like the EX-1 in comparison so far?

[Alister Chapman]

I think 70% skintone and zebras is a hold over from tube cameras that had a very different response to skin tones than CCD's I usually have zebra 2 at 65 and have it just on skin highlights with zebra 2 at 90 or 95% to show me what's hitting the knee.

[Michael H. Stevens]

Originally Posted by Alister Chapman

I think 70% skintone and zebras is a hold over from tube cameras that had a very different response to skin tones than CCD's I usually have zebra 2 at 65 and have it just on skin highlights with zebra 2 at 90 or 95% to show me what's hitting the knee.

Zebra 2 is fixed at 100 - no adjustment possible (the menu is deceptive as it looks like you are changing it but you are not). Do you mean you keep changing Zebra 1 back and forth?

[Michael H. Stevens]

Now here is irony. Went on a short desert shoot yesterday, the cactus are beginning to flower, and thought I would try CINE1 and not the CINE4 I've been playing with. I blew out about 30% of the shots! It is TRUE what Doug Jensen says in his video - the Zebras work a little different for each hyper-gamma preset. ALSO I noticed the auto exposure was generally giving a LOWER exposure than I was selecting with the Zebras even when I used Zebra 1 and cranked it down to 95.

[Bill Ravens]

Mike...

really now. the cine gammas are ALL varying degrees of black stretch. what this means is that they compress the hilites in order to make room for the blacks/shadows. In ANY high contrast scene, you'll blow something with the cine gamma settings, usually it's the hilites. Only the STD gammas allow the full dynamic range of the EX1. Cine gammas are really designed for indoor shooting with carefully controlled lighting.

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Originally Posted by Bill Ravens

Only the STD gammas allow the full dynamic range of the EX1. Cine gammas are really designed for indoor shooting with carefully controlled lighting.

Yes, now I can confirm that. And I'd like to stress it: this is exactly the opposite to what standard vs cine settings do on other prosumer Sony cams, like the V1.

With the V1 - in order to fight for every bit of available light, as it certainly is not a low-light champion - I had to base all my indoor/low-light settings around standard gamma / matrix. The Cinegamma 1 (not to mention Cinegamma2) is stealing to much light in the mids and highlights.

With the EX1, which is so much more light-sensitive, the choice between cine and standard profiles may be based on other considerations.

[Michael H. Stevens]

Originally Posted by Bill Ravens

Mike...

really now. the cine gammas are ALL varying degrees of black stretch. what this means is that they compress the hilites in order to make room for the blacks/shadows. In ANY high contrast scene, you'll blow something with the cine gamma settings, usually it's the hilites. Only the STD gammas allow the full dynamic range of the EX1. Cine gammas are really designed for indoor shooting with carefully controlled lighting.

An interesting, and quite a mind-blowing statement. My next shoot will put this to the test, and finding I need bring the CINE gammas way down in post anyway this may well be right. BUT........ if this is right not many people know it. Take the great Phil Bloom for example. He says he used the CINEs only and we are talking to quality outside natural light docs.

Anybody who can add to this will be much appreciated as I believe Bill's statement might be true and if so is a mind blower as so many pros and teachers have said the STD gammas are for the idiots.

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Originally Posted by Michael H. Stevens

BUT........ if this is right not many people know it. Take the great Phil Bloom for example. He says he used the CINEs only and we are talking to quality outside natural light docs.

I don't see any conflict there, Michael - Phil's pieces of art are truly cinematic, and NOT at all designed to be as bright and punchy as possible (and this is how "good" video can often be understood by us, regular users).

As I stated elsewhere: the true film look (which we see in the cinema theaters) is NOT superwhites and superblacks at all!

[Bill Ravens]

Guys...

Take a look at this, if you haven't already seen it...
http://bssc.sel.sony.com/Broadcastan...Final_1-08.pdf
On page 8, there are plots of the cine gamma curves. There's no scales, so everything is really only relative. It's a shame they don't also show the STD curves becaue they do so for the XDCAM HD. Wish I could find the URL, but, I can't. (edit, I found it....here, page 9...
http://bssc.sel.sony.com/Broadcastan...mhd_family.pdf

The XDCAM HD curves show is the std gamma in comparison. What you see is a curve that rises steeply all the way up, without curving over like the cine gamma curves do. In fact, the top of the STD curve(the hilites) ends about twice as far up the ordinate scale as the cine gamma curves. OK, that's the XDCAM HD.

When I look at the luma values of the EX1 on a scope, I see evidence of the same thing. The STD curves have about twice the overall range(is that latitude) as the cine gamma curves. So, what it appears to me is that Sony has really compressed 100% IRE in the cine curves, in order to open up the shadows.

Not saying that I KNOW this is why you're blowing out hilites, but, it seems like a reasonable assumption on my part.

[Sami Sanpakkila]

Originally Posted by Piotr Wozniacki

As I stated elsewhere: the true film look (which we see in the cinema theaters) is NOT superwhites and superblacks at all!

I went to see There Will Be Blood last night and there were scenes inside a goldmine where the darkest areas were left gray instead of black. As if the whole image was exposed too much. It looked really good and gave it air. Often you see everything just crushed to black and somehow its more difficult to "see" whats happening in the picture.