Detail & Coring Levels

[hunter richards]

I got my hpx500 to respond to color and skin-tones the way I like but I have been frustrated by the sharpness and I dont know what to call it.. "oil painting" look when you look at full resolution 1080 from the camera. After playing around with the detail and detail coring levels, I think I found a great looking picture.(as far as crispness goes)


Give this a try! ( it probably helps the hvx200 too)

detail - 1
v detail +6
detail coring -6


The coring was the problem, it makes all of the noise and high frequency detail, just kinda form a blob. Its quite nasty. This detail setting fixes all of that for me. Also I found that the V detail level doesn't create any halo effects when turned up like the detail level. Overall, there is a slight increase in grainy-ness but the picture is so much better than before.

What setting do you guys use?

[Noel Evans]

hunter so I am not in fron of HPX atm, but my tests concluded that, on a panasonic monitor at least that a negative coring factor made the noise worse. Im going to run that through again and check it.

I currently have about 30 variants on SD card, but everyone has this in common

detail -2
v detail +4
detail coring +3 (ill confirm that though when I have the HPX with me)

Id imagine (though havent tried) that when using a 35mm adapter of any kind altering detail to +2 might be the way to go.

[hunter richards]

I forgot to add that I checked the results on a consumer HDTV via component. It does make the noise more prominent, but with my +8 on my master pedestal in CineD mode (matrix @ norm2 with -2 on chroma), its all uniform and not distracting all. Its kinda like film grain. (This is all based off of my low-contrast scene file)

The settings I had before looked great for close-ups and people, but when your at the fuji17x wide-end or using a wide angle lens, you get this weird paint like texture on all of the small details like tees and branches, It just didn't look right. So I would rather have more noticable noise with out the paint artifacts. I think I still have a few kinks to work out....I will have to check my test footage at work.

New Idea: We should have a scene file page on here for HPX500 users!

[Noel Evans]

OK Ive confirmed my above settings and its pretty much right. negative detail coring increases noise. Im viewing on a Pana monitor with peaking turned up full to accentuate the noise. And -7 on coring is the noisiest as far as I can tell.

All my other settings are variable. But I always use cinelike V or for ENG low, or for B roll Im using B.Press or whatever I am asked to shoot it as.

[smelni]

Noel - that makes sense - coring will reduce the noise factor but is more effective the higher the detail level is set at - I always run detail -2 or -3 and coring +3

as a side effect positive detail coring will REDUCE the video look because it cuts down on pixel contrast - this is concentrated on small details (like noise) but also has a mild overall effect.

[hunter richards]

hmmm... I need to check my settings on a calibrated monitor.

[PhantomVideo]

does an apple cinema display count as caliabrated

[Barry_Green]

Not if you haven't calibrated it.

[PhantomVideo]

whats the best method to calibrate do i need a special gun ?

[Noel Evans]

Barry quick question if you dont mind. The blue channel is the noisiest - we know that.

If I am using the Ach for white balance and prior to adjust it to to -4 in the scene file. The image is a little cleaner than say on 0. My color though ends up being slightly out. Now if I was to go back into FCP and make a slight addition to the blue to even the white balance back up am I just re adding the noise?

NB For anyone else reading this - HPX noise level isnt bad at all, Im just looking for ways to tweak.

[Barry_Green]

Only way to know is to try it. The question is whether post-added noise would be more than the electronic noise generated by gaining up the blue channel; I don't really know the answer to that one until you try it (especially with FCP as I don't use it.)

My guess would be that you should be able to get a cleaner image by doing it in post if you simultaneously do a bit of a chroma blur which would smooth the channel anyway.

[Noel Evans]

When I get a chance, Ill run it through. Thanks for the input.

I ran it through and the result was that there was no real discernible difference, not enough to justify shooting with white balance slightly off and then adjusting all your clips in post.