Shooting Cinelike-D then crushing blacks

[Brian Petersen]

I've been messing around with all the various settings to find my favorite looks, and I have a question for you all. I know there is a lot of talk about NOT shooting in Cinelike-D because it's the noisiest and to shoot in Cinelike-V. I agree that there is obvious less noise in Cinelike-V in the low light situations, but it seems a bit too contrasty to me. The Cinelike-D images is a bit more pleasing.

My question in this, it is possible to shoot in Cinelike-D and then if the noise is too much in scenes, I can crush the blacks and mess with the contrast in post and basically get the Cinelike-V look with the less noise? It seems to me the with the wide laditude of Cinelike-D I can mess in post to get the Cinelike-V look if I wanted, but I could never do it the other way around (i.e. going from Cinelike-V footage and "adding" laditude in post). Am I thinking correctly?

I'm trying to find out what setting to shoot at to give me the most options in post, and it seems like Cinelike-D gives me those options. What is it that I "lose" in shooting in Cinelike-D?

 

[scharky]

I have worked with some settings similar to those, Cinelike-D and master ped set to -10. It gives a very nice look, however is still quite noisy when compared to it's cineliike-V equivalent, but it gives really nice skin tones

 

[Brian Petersen]

Yeah, the skin tones are really nice in Cinelike-D. I think I may have found some settings in Cinelike-V that I am comfortable with. Also, does anyone see a difference when turning "Skin Tone DTL" Off or On? I have watched the monitor switching it back and forth and I for the life of me can't see a difference. What is it doing?

 

[Barry_Green]

It's a detail-coring type of function that only affects skin tones. But the effect is extremely subtle, and it's also dependent on your detail level setting. The higher the detail level (like,+5 to +7) the more you're going to see the effect of skin tone dtl. The lower the overall detail level, the less the skin tone dtl function is going to affect.