Blacks and Gamma seems crushed in bright sun

K

Kevin Sio

New member
I've noticed that when shooting in bright sunlight the shadow areas, blacks and gamma, seemed crushed. The Black Stretch scene file doesn't do much to correct this. I am reluctant to dig around in the scene file settings without some guidance. Any ideas. Thanks

Kevin
 
For bright sunlight, I'd use the following scene file settings:
Detail: -2 to -4
Chroma Level: -2
Master Ped: 0
Gamma: Cinelike D
Matrix: Norm1

Cinelike D offers the largest dynamic range available, it may look rather flat if there isn't much contrast in your scene to begin with, but I find it needs little adjustment in post to look good in bright sunlight. The Master Ped setting adjusts the slope at which the gamma curve goes into black, so a minus setting will drag the tones below 20~30 IRE down, while a positive setting pushes them up. You adjust this to what you feel is right for the scene. You may also want to reduce detail to avoid hard "video-looking" transitions on sun-lit areas, and choose a matrix and chroma level that will keep the saturation in check.
 
I should probably add that the 3xx series of cameras aren't particularly well known for recovering detail from the shadows. If possible, expose your image as brightly as possible so that your subject falls into the 35~50% range as Cinelike gamma can trick you into thinking you have more dynamic range than you really do, especially if your subject is back-lit, so try to avoid such lighting situations or you're going to get a face full of noise even at -3db.
 
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