Film Like Menu Settings

[Dave Beaty]

Hi,

I've been reading the threads looking for a few tips for film-like settings for the HD100U menus. The stock settings seem contrasty and the blacks seem a bit crushed with detail very edgy. Color looks like it is slightly towards the magenta. Any tips to help with detail, black stretch, gamma and knee settings would be appreciated. Let's assume ample light in normal shooting conditions.

It's so hard to tell with the VF or LCD, if anyone has a HD monitor and has done some testing with various settings , that would be very helpful.

Also, is the Cinelike gamma setting worthwhile or should I be tweaking the normal settings manually?

[stephenlnoe]

Is it possible to take camera settings that have been saved to the onboard SD card and share them. For instance, let's say you had a nice setting that was a perfect setup for a situation. Could you literally copy the settings file off the SD card and email it to your friend and then they would in turn put the setting on their SD card and viola, there it is to be accessed?

[dashwood]

Hi,

I've been reading the threads looking for a few tips for film-like settings for the HD100U menus. The stock settings seem contrasty and the blacks seem a bit crushed with detail very edgy. Color looks like it is slightly towards the magenta. Any tips to help with detail, black stretch, gamma and knee settings would be appreciated.

I think it is too early in the life cycle of this camera for anyone to have come up with some definitive "film-like" settings.
However, from a gamma perspective, if you are looking to create the widest dynamic range (film latitude) try bringing the knee down to 80% to create the smoothest transition to white, then lower the gamma level (I've had success with MIN) to increase response in the mids. I've also experimented with Black stretch, which will increase sensitivity in the blacks.
The end result is an image with a huge dynamic range, but not much contrast. That's OK, you can adjust the black levels later in colour correction - same as DI process on film.

As for colour matrix settings, I haven't tried matching this camera to any other cameras or film stocks yet. That is the next step.
I can tell you that the cinematrix in the HD100 is almost the opposite of the "Kodak" look of the DVX100 cinematrix. However, the response in the default settings seems more "realistic" with reds muted. The first thing I'll do when coming up with new preset settings is to match the DVX100 colour matrix.

As for copying and uploading settings from the SD card... I'm surprised no one has tried it yet. I don't have an SD card reader - but I'll have to pick one up.
It makes sense that the card should mount on windows or mac. It is only writing a small data file to the card - probably in a text format! We'll see.

Tim

[Dave Beaty]

Yes, I guess it's to early for anyone to really post looks settings. Hopfully, there will be a place where various "looks" could be posted for download to the camera. Perhaps card readers would be the way. I'd be happy to enter the info in the menu , though!

I think having a nice HD monitor in the field would be nice, but barring that I'm going to set up a test stand in the studio and try some experiments.

Dave B