GH2 and once more: SMOOTH vs CINEMA ???

but when i use cinema in view & sky shots i still get more detail with smooth. so how come cinema get more details if it's more contrasty ?
i mean, if Uwe have tried to match nostalgic with the same exposure as cinema (about 3 click down), i don't think he would have lost any details.
 
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Ben_B said:
The problem with simply underexposing Nostalgic is that you're ignoring the implications of that...less light and less data reaching the sensor.
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I thought that was an interesting point in the context of Uwe Lansing's video test, for it is quite clear that the darker cinematic shots are losing tons of detail due to mudding up.

In the shot of the pond that begins at 0.18, watch the top of the step at bottom left. As soon as the lighter nostalgic version begins the step changes from mud to detail. Likewise with the facade of the dark building in the background. At 0.41, check out the strip of field beneath the left three windmills and see what happens when the nostalgic shot starts. You can see examples all the way through the video.

To a lesser extent I noticed similar in roei z's hi-res comparison's of cinematic and smooth.

Subjectively, to my eye on my monitor, the nostalgic (and smooth) shots looked more correctly exposed than cinematic; and objectively the codec is clearly being placed at some critical threshold with the cinematic.

No amount of post production is going to retrieve detail that the codec has dropped, so with cinematic mode apparently producing dimmer shots with more contrast, users are going to have to be really careful about exposure levels, especially when using 720 settings. What'll be interesting to see is what happens overall to cinematic shots if the user intervenes with extra exposure in camera to ensure no loss of (codec) detail in darker areas.

On a related note, does the LCD preview give any indication of cinematic being darker?
 
PJF said:
I thought that was an interesting point in the context of Uwe Lansing's video test, for it is quite clear that the darker cinematic shots are losing tons of detail due to mudding up.In the shot of the pond that begins at 0.18, watch the top of the step at bottom left. As soon as the lighter nostalgic version begins the step changes from mud to detail. Likewise with the facade of the dark building in the background. At 0.41, check out the strip of field beneath the left three windmills and see what happens when the nostalgic shot starts. You can see examples all the way through the video.
Click to expand...

my thought exactly... i might try a new test trying to match exposure on cinema/smooth/nostalgic - what would be the best shot examine this ?
 
roei z said:
but when i use cinema in view & sky shots i still get more detail with smooth. so how come cinema get more details if it's more contrasty ?
i mean, if Uwe have tried to match nostalgic with the same exposure as cinema (about 3 click down), i don't think he would have lost any details.
Click to expand...

You're probably right.
 
Nostalgic does add a warm cast, but . . . I feel the GH1 and GH2 both compress the shadows. Nostalgic lifts them. I convert everything to CineForm so I have ample ability to correct color. What the cameras need most is more shadow detail. Nostalgic provides more, yet I would still like even more. I guess I'm spoiled with my two Red cameras and how they record almost ALL the shadow detail. The GH series records more like ektachrome than negative so the cameras need all the shadow detail they can get. Damn the yellow cast, bring out the shadow detail. Nostalgic isn't perfect, but it gives the most detail from highlight to shadow.
 
PJF said:
I thought that was an interesting point in the context of Uwe Lansing's video test, for it is quite clear that the darker cinematic shots are losing tons of detail due to mudding up.

In the shot of the pond that begins at 0.18, watch the top of the step at bottom left. As soon as the lighter nostalgic version begins the step changes from mud to detail. Likewise with the facade of the dark building in the background. At 0.41, check out the strip of field beneath the left three windmills and see what happens when the nostalgic shot starts. You can see examples all the way through the video.

To a lesser extent I noticed similar in roei z's hi-res comparison's of cinematic and smooth.

Subjectively, to my eye on my monitor, the nostalgic (and smooth) shots looked more correctly exposed than cinematic; and objectively the codec is clearly being placed at some critical threshold with the cinematic.

No amount of post production is going to retrieve detail that the codec has dropped, so with cinematic mode apparently producing dimmer shots with more contrast, users are going to have to be really careful about exposure levels, especially when using 720 settings. What'll be interesting to see is what happens overall to cinematic shots if the user intervenes with extra exposure in camera to ensure no loss of (codec) detail in darker areas.

On a related note, does the LCD preview give any indication of cinematic being darker?
Click to expand...

I see a ton of noise in the shadows on nostalgic in that test. As for lost detail, this is after web-compression so without seeing the original footage we have no way of knowing what can and can't be brought back. If an area is dark in cinematic and bright in nostalgic it's going to get muddled more on cinematic after web compression. The real test would be to shoot identical scenes with both, and then bring cinematic up in the blacks to match nostalgic and see which is cleaner or if they're about the same. Similarly you can try underexposing nostalgic to match cinematic in the highlights and then bringing them up as well. I have a feeling that nostalgic will perform better in the shadows than cinematic on the same exposure settings for both, but will not hold up as well after you underexpose it to have the highlights match. The question seems to come down to what do you want to keep more detail in, the highlights or the shadows? I personally love a contrasty deep shadowed look but I hate highlight clipping, so I like cinematic. I am also thinking that nostalgic must be bringing shadows up rather than cinematic bringing them down, because cinematic has more highlight detail which seems to indicate it is not brightening the image but nostalgic is. If I want to brighten my shadows I can do it on my computer.
 
Ok, I ran some tests, will post photos etc at some point. What I found was this:

Nostalgic retains more detail in the blacks for sure. It seems to accomplish this by brightening things up in camera. In theory this should result in nearly identical quality to brightening cinema up in post, but it actually keeps more detail. This is most likely because the codec in the camera nukes a lot of that muddled black detail in cinema. The downside of this is that nostalgic also blows the highlights, and causes a lot of noise in the blacks. In cinema the blacks are clean in terms of noise but have less detail and (when brightened) reveal compression artifacting. When nostalgic is stopped down to match exposure in the highlights with cinema mode the blacks still retain more detail and less compression artifacting, but the noise is even worse.
 
Shooting nostalgic gives more detail in blacks. Two issues with GH cameras. Black gamma too contrasty thereby clipping shadow detail and the AVHC codec throwing away shadow detail. I shoot nostalgic to preserve more shadow detail for the AVHC codec to record. Then I convert to CineForm and grade.
 
Mark, you're voting nostalgic because you prefer it over smooth ?
you're absolutely sure nostalgic preserves more detail than smooth ?
(as cinema is off the picture)
 
but if nostalgics color is not as accurate as i have found why should it be used, there is one setting that gives real accurate color but if special look and feal to films are wanted then i see the point of using cinema nostalgic etc.
 
Ben_B said:
... When nostalgic is stopped down to match exposure in the highlights with cinema mode the blacks still retain more detail and less compression artifacting, but the noise is even worse.
Click to expand...

Right you are.. Noise isn´t a problem with a good noise reduction tool like "neat video". And what I´ve seen so far, the noise is only worse with high iso values...
 
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flinty said:
but if nostalgics color is not as accurate as i have found why should it be used, there is one setting that gives real accurate color but if special look and feal to films are wanted then i see the point of using cinema nostalgic etc.
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I have vast options for color correction, I have squat to add shadow detail.
 
flinty said:
but if nostalgics color is not as accurate as i have found why should it be used, there is one setting that gives real accurate color but if special look and feal to films are wanted then i see the point of using cinema nostalgic etc.
Click to expand...
When I'm shooting at night time under incandescent light, I like the slightly amber look of Nostalgic. Perfectly white-balanced incandescent light doesn't look natural to me, I prefer it to look warm.
 
Nostalgic is definitely better than smooth. The colors are a bit altered (what I was splitting hairs about), but a blue-r WB all but corrects for the yellow...
There will still be a little bit of a warmth to the color rendition, but I find this better than the coolness tendency of smooth... more filmlike and kind to skin/highlights.
I want to post what I've shot, but it'll have to wait until the whole of the gh2 piece is complete.

Edit: Ok maybe a couple.

NOSTALGIC
NOST.jpg


SMOOTH
SMOO.jpg
 
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memphishills said:
Tried this last night, as soon as you hit the record button, it is definitely darker on screen than the other modes.
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Hmm, that's what I suspected and why I referred to "preview". The preview (before shooting) responds to lowering the exposure level by closing the aperture, raising the shutter speed, etc, but it doesn't (pre)show the underexposure caused by the film mode. This could catch a lot of people out. What about on HDMI out? Does that preview show cinematic darkening the scene?



I'm pleased my observations about data loss were confirmed by further investigations; it looked to be more than just online compression. The codec isn't dropping detail in shadows as such (it doesn't know what a shadow is), it's dropping detail in all areas that go below a certain brightness. It makes me wonder if that isn't related in some manner to the GH2's apparently improved low light noise levels.
 
Thank you Ian!

Roei-
I have the clip monitor on, and try to do a nice compromise between placing the subject in midtones, and keeping highlights (most scenes are moderate).
This is not so difficult in nostalgic/smooth, because midtones are so close to highlights (which is responsible for the nice roll off).
If the dynamic range of the scene is just too extreme, I reach for my ultra contrast filter.

nostlarge.jpg
 
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