550D (Cinestyle) vs D7000 (TassinFlat)

B

Blackpeppers

Member
Hello,

I'm a D7000 owner and I, for some time, search a flat Picture Control for video mode which enhance latitude in post-production (like Technicolor Cinestyle for Canon). But I didn't find any so I create my own.
We compared it to technicolor Cinestyle on a Canon 550D and finally made a video of these tests. We used JESDeinterlacer to convert files in Prores 4:2:2 and then we graded files with Color and edited it in FCP.


Settings for 550D (Tamron SP AF 17-50mm F/2.8 XR Di):
- Technicolor Cinestyle with Sharpness: 0, contrast: -4, saturation: 0, Tone: 0.
- Neutral with Sharpness/Contrast/Saturation/Tone to 0.

Settings for D7000 (Nikkor AF-D 20-35mm f/2.8):
- TassinFlat with Sharpness: 0, Saturation: +1 (except for the rose which was set to -1) and Tone: 0 using AdobeRGB as Color Space.
- Default Neutral with sharpness to 0 and AdobeRGB as Color Space.
(EDIT) => I recommend to use my curve with saturation to -1 (0 is too saturated and -2 not enough) and sRGB as ColorSpace. I just did some test again and, even if I use AdobeRGB for the video test (which I thought was better in my previous test), I now realize that it results in a little yellow/green hue. That's why I now recommend sRGB with -1 in saturation (AdobeRGB is less saturated). Sorry.


Settings for 550D (Tamron SP AF 17-50mm F/2.8 XR Di):
- Technicolor Cinestyle with Sharpness: 0, contrast: -4, saturation: 0, Tone: 0.
- Neutral with Sharpness/Contrast/Saturation/Tone to 0.

Settings for D7000 (Nikkor AF-D 20-35mm f/2.8):
- TassinFlat with Sharpness: 0, Saturation: 0 and Tone: 0 using AdobeRGB as Color Space.
- Default Neutral with sharpness to 0 and AdobeRGB as Color Space.

---------------------------

My curve is quite good for post-production (only use it with low ISO) and it may interest filmmakers who shoot with Nikon gears. If Nikon want it, the video mode could be much more powerful. Among other things, they could do the same that Canon with Technicolor and extend the dynamic range in Video with a specific curve for video. Indeed, I'm just applying a curve on the neutral picture control of Nikon. So it's basically a curve on a curve which results in a loss of dynamic/quality.

Here is a link to download the picture control with its LUT:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/30153818/TassinFlat+LUT.zip.

Thanks for reading.
 
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Blackpeppers,

Thank you for sharing these videos and your picture setting. I downloaded and loaded it in my d7000. So far I really like it. A question for you. What do you mean when you say -1 saturation is not enough. Do you mean it starts to lose its original colors a bit?
 
Wow! Thanks for your work here - this is the first alternative profile/LUT I've seen for the D7000, I'll certainly be checking it out. From what you're showing here it looks like it does a decent job on highlights. I'll admit to rather liking the crushed-black look, and I'm interested that you've kept a measure of that in this profile.

The obvious difference is between the Nikon's mild tendency towards yellow versus the Canon's (stronger, to my eye) tendency to magenta/red. I've seen altogether too much DSLR footage that shows skin tones on the ruddy side of pink, not to my taste at all. Neither is Nikon's yellow tinge, but it seems easier to correct out without breaking the rest of the shot. Given Panasonic's tendency towards green tones, if we averaged all three we'd probably end up at something genuinely neutral.

Thanks for sharing - much appreciated.
 
be careful with shooting too flat. the color space is too tight and you cant fake range without consequences. when you bring back the color, the codec will fall apart.
 
@ Bumkicho: Yes, -1 for saturation (adobeRGB) results in a loss of color information. It can be graded but be careful.

@ Macgregor: Yes, it does. Everybody should do some test to see what color space is better for him. I just did some tests again and sRGB seems better on skin tones than AdobeRGB which has a green/yellow hue. I was wrong (sRGB seems better to me), I'm going to modify my post. Anyway, If you choose sRGB you should set saturation to -1 (AdobeRGB is less saturated than sRGB).

@Efexone: You're right. That's why my curve isn't a S-curve. I choose to keep a linear section which preserve skin tones. I could have get more dynamic in shadows but I didn't because I would have altered middle tones.

Thanks for your feedbacks.
 
Good stuff. :thumbup: Definitely looks better in the midtones than mine (mine are like superflat on top of superflat :grin: ). I tweaked it a little bit to pull back the last little bit of highlights possible without looking weird. Most noticeable in skies, with more detail in clouds and deeper blues.
 
The Picture Control editor in Nikon's ViewNX 2 software (free). You can create custom curves and upload them to your camera. Only works on video and JPGs, though it will embed into NEFs and probably work on Nikon Capture NX 2, too.
 
Ah. Nice! I did not know that. (Since ViewNX 2 is not available for Linux.)

I tried your profile, but could not see any advantage so far. I can convert between both of them with visually nearly no difference. Are flat styles really that useful?

 
They're somewhat like taking RAW video, as far as the exposure goes. Flat styles give you more latitude, more detail in light and dark areas before clipping. Useful for getting as much dynamic range as possible, so you can choose what to clip instead of relying on the camera's settings.

Try taking a clip of a higher dynamic range scene, like a sunset or at least something with the sky and shadows in the frame at the same time. In your clip above, there's really nothing extremely bright or dark, so you don't see the full effect of the flat styles.
 
I downloaded the Tassin Flat and love the look but I can't get LUT Buddy to load the Lut in Premiere Pro - could anybody save out the Lut as a preset and post it here? - would be most grateful!
 
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Hi Guys !

I just created mine few days ago. My curve is very different from yours as you can see :

Capture d’écran 2012-08-11 à 00.42.23.png

Here is the result :


Do you think i'm loosing information in the blacks and whites with my picture style ?

Leo from France
 
You're definitely not loosing anything in the blacks or whites, but you're throwing away half of the codec's color space (instead of using 0-255, you're using 64-200 or something like that, so, you're recording luminance in 7-bit instead of 8-bit), I would predict banding and posterized noise in the final images (can't judge those on youtube, though, since it adds those artifacts anyway).
 
+1

Lifting blacks doesn't help at all (you just lose some valuable data space for your image. What we actually do is pushing shadows up to attribute them a larger space on the 8 bit scale (say 0-120) and inversely for HL (190-255) wich leave you 121-189 for midtones (I'll personally advise you to let this part linear because it's where the skintones are so if you don't want weird looking skins, better keep it linear and not to grade it to much).
 
Thanks guys for your feedback. It's really helpful to have support on this topic because i think it's a very tricky and subtle thing...

Here is my conclusion concerning my Custom Preset : In outdoor situation, there is few posterized noise, but indoor, with less light, it's very different.

But i'm still a bit confused : how can i really see when black aren't lifted or crushed ?

I found on the net :

Tassinflat
AlvaroYus
Flaat 11p
Flaat 10p

I can't really choose between them, do you have a preference ? or maybe an other custom preset ? (I've a Nikon D5100)
 
Lifted blacks: there is no true black, just gray.
Crushed blacks: You have blacks but there is no details in it.
But you can have both: you don't have details in shadow area but your black isn't black

I didn't test each curves, I can only say to you that i was extremely careful with skintones on mine (Tassinflat made with a d7000 but D5100 has the same sensor if i'm not mistaken). I recovered details in shadows and highlights but not too much to preserve linear skintones which can be hard to grade otherwise (since everybody knows how a skin should look like). Anyway, I think all the custom presets you named are as good as mine (maybe a bit better) but Nikon's picture controls (same for Canon) are limited because when making a custom preset we apply a custom curve on a factory preset (Neutral for example).. We don't have access to the raw data from the sensor and a log-like curve doesn't really make sense on a 8-bit codec so actually we can't really go further (in terms of dynamic range) than the already made custom curves. Except if Nikon contacted us to make a new log-like factory preset and released a firmware update to get 10 bit quantization which won't happen. ^^

Anyway, choose the custom preset you prefer and don't set saturation too low, I would recommend -1 with Neutral (It really depends on factory presets) you could loose data.
But if you have total control over lighting, you should use a factory preset. The image quality will be better.
 
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