FS7: Cine EI and LUTs

J

joobny

Member
Hello all,

I'm new to this forum and a friend pointed me in this direction after I recently took delivery of my new FS7 - I've been having a good read of other threads on here but I have a few questions that I'm struggling to find the answers to! I've come from a 5D MKII so jumping to an FS7 has been a pretty big step up.

I'm trying to get my head around using Cine EI mode so I hope these questions aren't too basic and that someone can spare the time to help. Any tips would be much appreciated!

1. Why is white balance fixed to three presets in Cine EI mode? If/when it ends up being slightly off while shooting (because it can't be dialed in), what's the best way to tweak it in post?
2. I know Catalyst Browse allows you to adjust colour temperature but transcoding hundreds of individual clips with tweaked white balances can consume quite a lot of time and extra space! Does anyone have any good tips for a Slog3 post production workflow in Adobe CC?
3. Is there a way of creating an assignable button that toggles LUTs on/off?
4. Do I need to expose Slog3 footage with a particular LUT in mind, or is there a safe way of exposing the footage so that a LUT can be decided on later? If I expose using the 709 LUT - is that the LUT that I have to use in post or am I flexible to use some other LUTs?
5. How can I determine the correct LUT exposure without being able to view a histogram or waveform without turning off the LUT? I can only view the histogram/waveform while viewing the Slog3 footage.
6. I understand that Slog3 footage should have a LUT applied before colour grading. If over-exposing Slog3 footage to achieve lower noise in post, should the exposure be corrected before or after applying the LUT?
7. Some of my clients will only perform some very light grading to footage that I give them. They've often worked with footage shot in Cinestyle from my 5D - does anyone know of a LUT that I can bake in to Slog3 footage or any particular Matrix settings to give a similar appearance to Cinestyle?

Thanks in advance - I've no doubt I'll be posting quite a lot on here in the coming weeks...!
 
1. The White Balance is fixed so that you can use the Sony provided LUTs to delog your footage correctly. If the WB was not fixed you'd need a different LUT for ever possible WB setting.

2. I've not used Cat B to transcode my clips but it shouldn't be too difficult to WB clips as the scopes and controls in CB are quite good. I am able to skip transcoding and work in Premiere CC2014 on the clips directly. For 4k I set my quality to 1/2 or 1/4 to get decent editing performance.

3. There is no quick way at present to turn LUTs on and off.

4. Use the 709/800 LUT to shoot with and in post you can use the same LUT, LC709 Type A LUT or LUTs from other sources.

5. When the 709/800 LUT is applied to your VF you can expose normally. White at 90, and skin at 70 etc as you would with a camera using a conventional REC709 gamma. You can use zebras on top of the LUT to help gauge your exposure.

6. Yes you can use Cine EI gain to raise and lower your exposure. I am shooting at Cine EI 1000 and i'm able to pull the image down to get the exposure where I want it to be by using my scopes built into Premiere.

7. For your clients you could opt to bake in the LC709 Type A LUT. Or use one of the Hypergammas in Custom Mode.
 
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In addition to Surunder's reply:

1. Best way to tweak WB in post is with the 3-way or fast colour correctors. Takes a second.

2. You can export LUTs from cat browse then apply them en masse via a lumetri filter in premiere.

3. No. it's a bummer.

5. Yeah, it really sucks that there's no WFM when you apply a LUT. No LUTs in S&Q mode also sucks. External monitor with WFM and LUTs built in is the obvious solution. Getting used to shooting with Slog image is the other.

6. Yes, adjust exposure and WB before applying the LUT. Then grade as normal.
 
I think it is worth considering the the 'Cine' mode of the camera is designed for 'Cine'ma Production- aka shooting files that will go to a colourist.

1 - those three temps are enough to stop you clipping colour channels, consider helping your colourist by shooting a grey card or a macbeth card before you slate. Especially for scenes that are 'off axis' aka wonky green flouros.

2 - mostly you can paste forward a colour correction so its not 'hundreds' but one correction per scene

3 - annoying ommission indeed - you can assign lut management to the user menu to save a few clicks

4 you can choose any lut in post some may clip without further post work

5 - im tending to not bother with a lut as lack of WFM was doing my head in. In some situations (ones with plenty of light) you can use zebra to correctly expose...
A white card with 800 lut should read at 90 so set your zebras at 95 and iris down until your white card does not show zebra.

6 - before as a lut can destructively clip

7 sorry cant help- but if your client is doing any colour correction surely they can apply a LUT, this should be a 'one click' operation in the colour suite/NLE
 
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Just a correction / note that one LUT is enough to work over a variety of white balances, otherwise the Looks/LUTs in camera wouldn't be sufficient with even the three WB presets, or at all in post.

The reason there are only three WB presets is because of the way Sony designed it to work with RAW recording.

As for exposing with a LUT yes you need to watch out for a lot, check out the CineEI LUT primer thread I wrote here on DVX : http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?329613-F5-F7-F55-CineEI-LUT-primer-quick-quide-amp-history
 
Brilliant, thanks so much for your very helpful responses. They've helped clear up a lot for me!

One last couple of questions for now.

1. Is Sony's Type A a LUT or a Look? In my camera, I can only select Type A as a Look and I was avoiding using Looks for the time being after reading Alister Chapman's article where he recommends sticking with LUTs to start out but maybe I shouldn't be so cautious...
2. Is there somewhere that I can download all of Sony's LUTs for applying to my footage in post? I've only been playing with those that come with Photoshop at the moment.
3. If I'm exposing Slog3 footage while looking at the histogram in the VF, I think I'll generally want to expose to the right for the most part as I want my images to have as little noise as possible. When I'm in a particularly dark environment, it might not be possible to do this at the native ISO. Is it worth increasing the native ISO to bring my exposure up or will this as add the same amount of noise that I'm trying to reduce?

Thanks again.
 
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Sony calls the 4 LUTS they crested "Look Profiles". But yes they are actually LUTS.

You can downloaded Slog3 (and Slog2) versions from my site www.starcentral.ca/forums/LUTs

If you have large areas of black, or are worried about noise for any reason you can employ 'expose to the right' methodology. If you want more precision use the CineEI mode and Exposure Index since it's the tool in the camera designed to help you accomplish over or under exposure.

Cheers,
 
In a dark environment it might be better to shoot in custom mode with one of the hypergammas. Certainly, worth testing to see if you like it.
 
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Definitely agree.

Remember once you overexpose slog two stops you end up with practically the same dynamic range as hypergammas.
 
Nice one, thanks for your helpful responses.

I shot some test footage earlier today with my Canon 16-35 f2.8 mounted with a speedbooster on my Glidecam HD-2000.

Slog3 with no LUTs or grading:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eRheLCGqvY&list=UUOPxx5oQAnVyVe8TZz3FKww

Slog3 with Type A LUT applied but no further grading:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QK125YD4cUU&list=UUOPxx5oQAnVyVe8TZz3FKww

Slog3 with levels effect applied to footage to bring exposure down and then Type A LUT applied but no further grading:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBaT-1X13ls&list=UUOPxx5oQAnVyVe8TZz3FKww

I shot this clip with the Type A LUT applied in the viewfinder and the EI set to 500. I switched the LUT on and off to check the histogram while viewing the Slog footage and it was exposed slightly to the right. The white snow on the mountain tops and roofs looks quite blown out - for this situation I guess I should have set the EI to about 1000 so that I underexposed a little to retain that highlight information, but then the shadows on the balcony would be quite a lot noisier. Am I heading along the right lines?

A few things that I've noticed are that the Type A LUT looks quite contrasty to me and not particularly flat. Does it look right to you?

I also think there looks to be quite a lot of moire/aliasing. Is that a trait of the camera is there something that I can do to reduce this?

Thanks again!
 
Hi,

the Sony LUTs are quite contrasty - they intend to "squeeze" the 14 stops of SLog DR into something more natural and closer to rec709.
In my eyes experimenting with SLog2/3 for some time now, there's no absolut need for applying one of Sony's LUTs.
If you are experienced enough in post production and color space conversion, you can grade manually according to your personal taste and needs.
I'm not experienced enough at this time, so I use the LC709 Type A as a starting point and begin manual grading from this point.

Grading SGamut3.cine/SLog3 without LUTs and muh experience is way easier than grading SGamut2/SLog2.
The huge color space of S-Gamut and it's bigger green part is the real problem for me here.

Your 3rd example with the LUT applied after normalizing the levels look quite natural to me.
Yu can still lower the contrast after the LUT - which is what I do now with contrasty scenes.
 
joobny said:
A few things that I've noticed are that the Type A LUT looks quite contrasty to me and not particularly flat. Does it look right to you?
Click to expand...

The one where you have darkened down looks good to me (and I would expect to have to darken something that was less than 2000EI) - the LUT make the footage look 'normal' saturated and proper - if you want the (so called trendy) wooden look you are best to maybe apply just a small curve to Slog and not use those LUTs, or investigate some more 'art/film' luts

Remember if you apply a lut and it pushes your whites or blacks too far you can pull them back in post

S
 
joobny said:
I shot this clip with the Type A LUT applied in the viewfinder and the EI set to 500. I switched the LUT on and off to check the histogram while viewing the Slog footage and it was exposed slightly to the right. The white snow on the mountain tops and roofs looks quite blown out - for this situation I guess I should have set the EI to about 1000 so that I underexposed
Click to expand...
No. You should have set EI higher than 2000 to underexpose. What you have done is overexpose.
 
Great, thanks again.

Here's another experiment I did with the same clip with Adobe Speedgrade CC:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y-kPruVMO0

I used the Kodak 2393 LUT and then tweaked the contrast/exposure and added a little sharpness. I think it's the happiest I've been with the footage so far. I also discovered that Speedgrade has hundreds of its own built in LUTs which is great for experimenting with.

Currently I have my EI presets as 500, 1000 and 2000. This allows me to expose normally, one stop over and two stops over as per Alister Chapman's recommendations. However it sounds like I shouldn't be over exposing any more than 1.5 stops so I think it'd make sense to have the presets as 1000, 2000 and 4000. That way I can expose normally as well as over and under expose by one stop. Seems like the logical thing to do to me but please correct me if I'm missing something!

Thanks again.
 
You get really spoiled if you use the Odyssey WF. I just output the SDI1 w/o LUT and in the O7Q+ you can toggle between a LUT and no LUT with one touch. This makes it super easy to nail exposure. And a side benefit is that you quickly learn how good exposure in many different light situations should look in the 7's VF. So it becomes natural when w/o the Odyssey.

I also like the weight added in the back of the Odyssey when shouldering.

picture-17.jpg

picture-8.jpg

picture-15.jpg
 
I've been running 800/1050/2000

Anything higher than 2000 I find too noisy and you are losing DR anyway same goes for using anything below 500. For anytime I would think of using EI 500 or above 2000 I use HG8/7 for these situations as they have about 11-12 stops which is probably what you would end up with using EI500 or EI4000 anyway.
 
Cool! Thanks for the tips, much appreciated again.

Here's another test I did, shooting in Cine EI mode and exposing so the histogram was slap bang in the middle while viewing without a LUT. I think I'm probably going to bypass LUTs and just shoot viewing the Slog3 image for the most-part, unless I'm struggling to focus or view the over/underexposed image properly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXMohKR6CFY&feature=youtu.be
 
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