Sharpness (and other) settings

[Ola Christoffersson]

I've been using an EX1 and EX1r for three years now and in the beginning i did a lot of experimenting to find the optimal picture profile. After a while i reset everything to factory default, set sharpness to -15 and left it there. The only thing I changed in the field was the gamma. I used Cinegamma 1 for high contrast situations and STD3 for everything else. All other alterations I saved for post.

Now - with the F3 I have continued with the same philosophy but I am not sure this is optimal. I have set sharpness to -15 but when I look at images with sharpness 0 they don't have the exaggerated videoish look that the EX1 used to have. Is default sharpness less edge enhanced on the F3?

Have anybody done any tests to find the optimal sharpness setting? Any other interesting settings worth putting in one of the F3:s picture profiles?

[Thierry Humeau]

Personnaly, I am waiting for an expert in camera settings to cook up a 5D look scene file. In what I have seen so far shot on the F3, I don't think it quite matches the pleasing saturated look of the 5D but I think it is just a matter of crushing the blacks a bit and tweeking the color matrix.

Any takers for the challenge?

Thierry.

[Ola Christoffersson]

You could probably do that in cam. But do you really want to? From what I've seen the Canon DSLR:s deliver av very pleasing but also very unnatural crushed, over saturated image. Most people using it professionally dial down sharpness, contrast and saturation a lot to get a more neutral and post production friendly image. In my opinion the colors and contrast of the F3 in it's default settings allow for a lot of options in post and I would not want to risk loosing that flexibility by crushing blacks and oversaturation in i picture profile.

[Alister Chapman]

Watch this space! I'm dialling in some picture profiles for the F3. I have a Canon Look (with and without crushed blacks) and a couple of others that I'm going to tidy up this week. Once I'm happy with them I'll post them here.

The detail correction levels are a lot lower on the F3. It does alias a bit on very fine detail and strong correction would make this more of a problem. I'm liking the fact that even with detail set to off the images look nice and sharp.

[Nate Weaver]

Originally Posted by Thierry Humeau

Personnaly, I am waiting for an expert in camera settings to cook up a 5D look scene file. In what I have seen so far shot on the F3, I don't think it quite matches the pleasing saturated look of the 5D but I think it is just a matter of crushing the blacks a bit and tweeking the color matrix.

Any takers for the challenge?

Thierry.

My colorist experience tells me that its likely the 5D takes any hues on the warm side (yellow through magenta) and skews them towards the skin tone vector. This is an old DaVinci trick to make things look nice, but since a colorist always control of EXACTLY what hues to skew, it never looks quite the same.

Panasonic does this as well, as far as I can tell, its part of the vaunted 'Panasonic Look'. The magnitude of both is likely different, as well as default black levels and saturation.

[Thierry Humeau]

Originally Posted by Ola Christoffersson

You could probably do that in cam. But do you really want to? From what I've seen the Canon DSLR:s deliver av very pleasing but also very unnatural crushed, over saturated image. Most people using it professionally dial down sharpness, contrast and saturation a lot to get a more neutral and post production friendly image. In my opinion the colors and contrast of the F3 in it's default settings allow for a lot of options in post and I would not want to risk loosing that flexibility by crushing blacks and oversaturation in i picture profile.

Ola, I have been using the 5D for a year and ... Professionally... on Faultlines, a news magazine series on Aljazeera English. The only settings I have tweaked on the 5d is to drop the contrast and sharpness by a couple notches. I don't think it is too much to ask in 2011 to have a setting file loaded in a camera with a look I like and that won't require grading. Our show is going week to week starting on May first, we will be on a fast turnaround schedule and so, grading is not really an option. I am looking forward to see Allister's magic.

Best.

[Ola Christoffersson]

Thierry, no offence! Of course there are situations when you want a broadcastable image straight out of the camera. A 5D-profile will be very nice for those situations. It definately has a great look!
Looking forward to seeing Allistars profiles and thoughts on the available settings. He was a great source of information on the EX1 in the early days.

[Timur Civan]

What is level is Detial "off"??? If i want 0 in camera Edge enhancement.

[James Houk]

I love the old "True Color 2" profile developed for the PMW-EX1. As I recall, it was meant to match up with the color charts. Still use it to this day.

I'd love to see an F3 profile that provides the same response.