Scene Files for Panny Newbie

M

Mark Von Lanken

Well-known member
I have an HMC150 on loan for a couple of weeks. I have not shot with a Panasonic before so the Scene File system is new to me. I realize I will not have time to go indepth, but I am just looking for a few scene files.

All of the shooting will be at weddings and receptions so I'm looking for a good general scene file that will have good colors and skin tones indoors with average lighting. Then one that it good in interior low light. Then lastly, one that is good for outdoor shooting where skin tones are not an issue.

If my shooting scenarios are too vague, I apologize. I'm just trying to get up to speed quickly so any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
It's a real honour to have on board Mark :D

I've had my camera for about a month now and have shot five weddings with it. I found the stock F4 preset "B-STR" to be quite effective for wedding work because it has the most "pop" in terms of colour saturations & works well in the low light conditions we often have to work under - especially if you're not a fan of on camera lighting ;)
 
A wedding without on camera lighting. I hope you'll not do that.

Me, it's one of my best friends!! But I also have a dimmer. Really useful to control the light.
 
Sure, I know what you are saying. Not being a "fan of on-camera lighting" doesn't mean being militarily opposed to using on-camera lights, what it means is you don't want mono-dimensional and depth-less images ;)

Of course when there is no other alternative we are all forced to use dimmable on-camera lights, however, in most cases, I usually get an assistant to light from an off-camera angle or stand-mount a light in order to avoid capturing footage that looks like an on-location TV news report.

I guess at the end of the day it all comes down to the final product being offered and the value placed on it.
 
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Hi Jeff,

I have been shooting with a Z1 for the last two years and it only offered interlaced video. I have been doing some test footage in 30p and 24p. My concern with 24p is the use of slow motion in post.

We started our Christmas vacation the day after the camera arrived, so while I have captured some of the test footage to my laptop, I won't really know how it looks until I get back to the studio.

The progressive option is totally new to me. Can you explain the advantages to progressive over interlaced? If it's too big of a topic, is there a website you can point me to? Thanks
 
Evro said:
...I've had my camera for about a month now and have shot five weddings with it. I found the stock F4 preset "B-STR" to be quite effective for wedding work because it has the most "pop" in terms of colour saturations & works well in the low light conditions we often have to work under...
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Hi Evro,

Wow, you were right. The Stock F4 preset is sweet. Much better than the stock color. So far I have just done some testing around Christmas activities just to get comfortable with the camera. I shot some footage at a wedding reception where I wasn't the main shooter. I'm feeling really comfortable with the HMC150, and I have never owned a Panasonic camera before. I'm going to use it at a wedding this weekend...that will be the real test. Thanks for your help.
 
At the risk of being totally out of the scene files loop: Do the scene files change the quality of the image at all? Are they not basically digital effects? And if so, could the same effects not be had in post without any greater harm to the image quality?

I tried to find a post explaining this stuff but couldn't - if anyone can direct me, that'd be much appreciated if the questions have already been answered.
 
There is a difference...

With video in post, we are working with only 8 bits of values; 256 possible levels and not every level is used. Think of the points as a rubber band that is stretched with the points marked along the rubber band. Now in post, I can compress part of the rubber band and the points move closer together OR I can stretch the rubber band and the points move father apart. However, if the points move too far apart, the viewer will see a banding effect as the different steps in brightness start to show. So, there's a limit as to how much adjustment I can do in post.

Within the camera, it captures the video using 14 bits (16,384 possible levels) and processes the video using 19 bits (524,288 possible levels). This means that there are 64 steps in the camera (for capture) for ever 1 step recorded. With the smaller steps, we can bend the curves more without having a step stretched so far we can spot the difference in the brightness levels.

Think of it this way, in the camera we want to do the major adjustments to the image to get close to the look we want. In post, we can do some smaller adjustments in editing to improve the image, but there are limits in post as to how far we can change things.


Bob Diaz
 
mark,

i've always used panasonic dvx's and am strongly considering the 150 when the time comes to buy - will be interested to see how your shoot goes this weekend.

of course, being a FCP user, transcoding is an issue with me as well. for doing SDE's, out of the box, there seem to be better HD solid state cameras out there.

jones
 
Thanks so much for your answer, Bob. Extremely helpful and informative! It seems that some post software and/or hardware would offer greater than 8 bit processing? Hardware-accelerated and strictly hardware-based applications, for instance, such as in post-houses that specialize in color correction. And, does FCS2's Color also still only operate in 8 bit?
 
The Mason Jar said:
mark,

i've always used panasonic dvx's and am strongly considering the 150 when the time comes to buy - will be interested to see how your shoot goes this weekend.

of course, being a FCP user, transcoding is an issue with me as well. for doing SDE's, out of the box, there seem to be better HD solid state cameras out there.

jones
Click to expand...


I've not found one that's better in this pricepoint and frankly it lives up to the cameras that are twice as much. You'll have to transcode in whatever format you shoot in.. or atlesast it's preferable... The difference between the cams is so slight that the cash doesn't justify the extra money IMHO. You can look at the zacuto tests to confirm that.. or any of the footage on this site.. They are all starting to get to a general quality level and be shades off from there
 
jscheib said:
At the risk of being totally out of the scene files loop: Do the scene files change the quality of the image at all? Are they not basically digital effects? And if so, could the same effects not be had in post without any greater harm to the image quality?

I tried to find a post explaining this stuff but couldn't - if anyone can direct me, that'd be much appreciated if the questions have already been answered.
Click to expand...

Hi Jared,

Bob already gave you some great technical info. I'll give this example to any of the non technical shooters out there.

I compare the camera setttings to my musical background as a bass player. My goal was always to get the best sounding bass and tweak the sound at the instrument level. Then when I sent the signal to the amp or sound board the pre amp only had to slightly enhance the great signal I was supplying. The alternative was to use a cheap bass and try to fix the quality of sound with a great pre amp. Garbage in...garbage out. I prefer not to "fix it in post", but to use post to enhance a great product.

If that example does not make sense...then refer back to Bob's answer.
icon12.gif
 
The Mason Jar said:
mark,

i've always used panasonic dvx's and am strongly considering the 150 when the time comes to buy - will be interested to see how your shoot goes this weekend.

of course, being a FCP user, transcoding is an issue with me as well. for doing SDE's, out of the box, there seem to be better HD solid state cameras out there.

jones
Click to expand...

Hi jones,

With your background, I'm sure you will love the 150.

Transcoding in Edius is a bummer. I recently did some editing training with a company that uses the EX1's. In Edius, you just drag the clips from the Sony clip browser into the bin window of Edius and the clips are ready to edit in real time. That experience really spoiled me.:(
 
jscheib said:
Thanks so much for your answer, Bob. Extremely helpful and informative! It seems that some post software and/or hardware would offer greater than 8 bit processing? Hardware-accelerated and strictly hardware-based applications, for instance, such as in post-houses that specialize in color correction. And, does FCS2's Color also still only operate in 8 bit?
Click to expand...

I like the expression, "A chain is only as strong as the weakest link." In this case, the video is recorded in 8 bit mode, that's 8 bits for brightness and 8 bits/8bits for color (2 parameters must be used for color information).

I use brightness in my examples, because it's easy to understand, but it will hold true for color changes.

Assume we take an 8 bit source and copy it onto a loss less 12 bit editing system. You may be editing with 12 bits, BUT the weak link here is the 8 bit source. Thus, if part of the brightness curve is stretched, such than the step difference is greater than 1.01 (> 1% increase in brightness), your eyes will catch the difference in the brightness levels and see this as a step change. This is known as BANDING. It also makes a video look like heck.

To help understand what banding looks like, I've generated an example image; first a normal shot:
DSCF0093.jpg



Here's a shot where the color and brightness steps are very large; look at the bands in the sky:
DSCF0093_banding.jpg



Bob Diaz
 
Mark Von Lanken said:
Transcoding in Edius is a bummer. I recently did some editing training with a company that uses the EX1's. In Edius, you just drag the clips from the Sony clip browser into the bin window of Edius and the clips are ready to edit in real time. That experience really spoiled me.:(
Click to expand...
Why would you have to transcode in EDIUS? EDIUS 5 supports AVCHD natively, as does EDIUS NEO. EDIUS supports every format natively, so whether it's HMC150 footage, HPX170 footage, HPX3000 footage (DVCPRO-HD or AVC-Intra) or XDCAM-EX footage, you can just drag and drop straight to the timeline and edit. Even straight from the SD card, SxS card, or P2 card.
 
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