AF100 Settings for Post-Production

although cine-d doesn't have knee protection it doesn't really need it because it does a darn good job rendering higher tones. Other gammas really blow out data that cine-d maintains. Cine-d sucks for low light and night time shots though.
 
I agree with astigmatic. The thing that's different is that Cine-D doesn't have "adjustable rolloff". It has a linear slope (or nearly linear). In the non-cine gammas, you have the "knee" which gives you the ability to adjust the highlight rolloff. You can let it go pretty much linear if you choose "high", or you can choose a sharp slope if you choose "low". In cine-D you don't get the choice, it's directly linear.

But, even without the ability to adjust how the highlights roll off, cine-D still delivers more dynamic range than any of the other gammas.

Put a different way -- your highlights will last longer in cine-D than they will in any other gamma. However, you can't change the "shape" of the highlights like you can in HD NORM or BPRESS or whatever, where you use the knee. You can change the way the highlights roll off in those gammas, but when it comes to hard clipping they will still clip before cine-D does. If you're adjusting and grading in post, you may prefer to use Cine-D and capture the maximum detail (just do NOT let anything clip!) If you're not going to be doing a bunch of grading, you should experiment with the knee to see what it does to highlights to see if you'd prefer a normal gamma with knee, instead of the linear/flat look of cine-D.

If you really want to add some type of automatic highlight protection to cine-D, you can put the DRS on "1" and that will attempt to rein in the highlights rather aggressively. I advise folks to experiment with this to see if they like the look; we ended up using it on "A Verse Before Dying" for many of the outdoor scenes, especially the wider shots that had a lot of sky in them. I advise extreme caution against using DRS 2 or DRS 3, because they add substantial and aggressive noise in the shadows, but DRS 1 is pretty mild. It mainly yanks down the highlights, and will usually only add maybe 3dB of gain in the shadows at max.

Note -- Cine-V has the same restriction against using the knee, so it doesn't have adjustable highlights either. However, there is a bit more curve to Cine-V, it's not quite as linear or flat a slope as Cine-D.

As far as cine-D being no good in low light and nighttime shots -- it is definitely darker than the other gammas. The difference between "high" and cine-D is substantial and noticeable.
 
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Barry_Green said:
As far as cine-D being no good in low light and nighttime shots -- it is definitely darker than the other gammas. The difference between "high" and cine-D is substantial and noticeable.
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My main concern with cine-d and lowlight/night is that the noise becomes really apparent in the darks. Also, this is def a case where some knee "shaping" may be needed. Imagine filming in a city at night. One will pump up the exposure, but the surrounding lights like lamp posts, cars, and building windows will clip really hard. Some knee control may get you better bleeding/glowing around the all the light sources.. This is in theory, I haven't had a chance to test this out.
 
Barry, thanks for the great explanation and it follows what I've been seeing, but I wasn't really sure what the theory was behind that curve.
 
Barry_Green said:
If you really want to add some type of automatic highlight protection to cine-D, you can put the DRS on "1" and that will attempt to rein in the highlights rather aggressively. I advise folks to experiment with this to see if they like the look; we ended up using it on "A Verse Before Dying" for many of the outdoor scenes, especially the wider shots that had a lot of sky in them. I advise extreme caution against using DRS 2 or DRS 3, because they add substantial and aggressive noise in the shadows, but DRS 1 is pretty mild. It mainly yanks down the highlights, and will usually only add maybe 3dB of gain in the shadows at max.
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Sorry to reply to an old post, but the above intrigues me and sounds like a very good option. My question is though, does this setting will switch up and down constantly when lighting (e.g. landscape) changes continuously, or is there a mild transition from one state to the other?

Thanks,

Martin.
Recent owner of the AF101 and Barry's book... :thumbsup:
 
It's odd, I found Cine-D to have the opposite problem in a lot of areas with highlights (and odd colors). It seems all the gammas on the camera have some sort of uneven Chroma clipping issue, but they all react differently depending on the light because I've blown things out with Cine-D and others and I get solid white, but if what's blowing out has any sort of color to it that's strong then it chroma clips. I find having the Chroma level turned down solves this almost every single time because the chip isn't being forced to keep what's clipping highly saturated via your settings, and so no chroma clipping occurs.

Cine-D, with lowered Chroma of like -5, lowered detail levels, etc. seems to be a really great option and as Barry said, DRS1 can save you in those really tough spots. Also don't go too crazy about the noise because outside in good light the noise is going to be much lower and you'll likely drop the blacks later hiding a lot of it. If you're on-set and you know you want to hide the noise in-camera a bit more, just drop your master-ped a tad until you're happy. Then, you can have the blacks a bit blacker, but have the highlight/midtone advantages of Cine-D.

The greatest issue Cine-D poses I think is banding. Depending on what you're pointing it, at it seems the most likely to cause nasty banding indoors. Outdoors it's much harder to come by but indoors it's all over the place. Just gotta be careful and watch out for it.

None of these gammas is perfect for every situation. The best you can do is learn them and setup settings that make you happy for given situations. Indoors, outdoors, bright skies, overcast, low-light, etc. Do the best you can and just make sure at least that your Color matrix is consistent if you can, because that's the only thing likely to really throw anything off in post.

For color I tend to choose Norm2 now since it's the cleanest matrix, but it's a little too blue and the reds are a bit too magenta so I add a -2 to -3 phase adjustment to dial in the colors where I like which tends to make it more 5D looking with more oranges and yellows. Magenta skin tones scare the pants off me. :)
 
Benjamin Eckstein said:
I am really curious about this, because I do understand that Cine D offers no highlight protection, but it seems to capture a much larger latitude, right? I've been mostly using CineD, but sometimes using HDNorm when I want a punchier image, but usually only in more controlled environments. Because I can seem to capture a wider latitude with Cine D, I've found it better in less controlled environments. For instance I looked at a shot with clouds the other day and switched between HDNorm and CineD. D seemed to show a lot more highlight detail but Norm basically went to white (overexposed) way earlier.

Just trying to understand it a little more, but I do think D seems to be the most versatile, although I am pretty much always adding some contrast in post.
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You don't completely lose detail with blow cineD. It's there:

beforeafter01.jpg


beforeafter02.jpg
 
WARNING: SHAMELESS "YOU-DO-THE-HEAVY-LIFTING" REQUEST BELOW

Hey Barry, would you mind recommending your best scene file settings for some standard cinema set-ups (i.e. nighttime/low-light, bright controlled interior, dark controlled interior, daytime exterior)

I'll give you DP credits if you like : )

Thank you kindly.
 
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