T2i Color Profiles

M

muroshi

Well-known member
With which color profile settings are you filming?

And why is it recommended to film with a 50 shutter and not 25 shutter?
 
Most people use the Neutral or Faithful picture styles. Usually with contrast all the way down and saturation about half way down. The idea is to capture the data and get a flat low contrast image that you can manipulate later. Out of the box the Standard picture style is high contrast, which looks neat but doesn't give you as many options in post.

In the Zacuto Shootout, Philip Bloom ended up recommending the Neutral picture style, with sharpness at 0, contrast at -4 and saturation at -2. This maximizes the dynamic range of the camera.

Personally after doing my own tests I decided to use the same contrast and saturation settings, but decided I liked the Faithful picture style instead.

Canon describes the Neutral picture style as providing the most exposure latitude, but describes the Faithful picture style as the most color accurate. If you shoot RAW photos you can use Canon's Digital Photo Professional after the fact and play with the picture styles and contrast/saturation settings there on the same image. In every test I did I ended up liking the skin tones better with Faithful every single time, and the latitude seemed very similar.

The 1/50 shutter speed rule is due to the 180 degree shutter rule. On film cameras, they have a rotating shutter. As it rotates, half of it obscures light and half of it lets light through. Changing the shutter speed affects motion blur, and many people prefer the 180 degree shutter setting because it is the most "film like". You can take the shutter speed lower to let in more light, but it will look more "video like". If you go the other direction with a higher shutter speed, the action will look choppier, like the war scenes in Saving Private Ryan.
 
Before you go out shooting willy-nilly with 1/50 shutter, take a second to read THIS THREAD (easily located by using "shutter speed" in the search function). The 180º rule does not apply well to DSLR cameras.
 
robotsound said:
Most people use the Neutral or Faithful picture styles. Usually with contrast all the way down and saturation about half way down. The idea is to capture the data and get a flat low contrast image that you can manipulate later. Out of the box the Standard picture style is high contrast, which looks neat but doesn't give you as many options in post.

In the Zacuto Shootout, Philip Bloom ended up recommending the Neutral picture style, with sharpness at 0, contrast at -4 and saturation at -2. This maximizes the dynamic range of the camera.

Personally after doing my own tests I decided to use the same contrast and saturation settings, but decided I liked the Faithful picture style instead.

Canon describes the Neutral picture style as providing the most exposure latitude, but describes the Faithful picture style as the most color accurate. If you shoot RAW photos you can use Canon's Digital Photo Professional after the fact and play with the picture styles and contrast/saturation settings there on the same image. In every test I did I ended up liking the skin tones better with Faithful every single time, and the latitude seemed very similar.

The 1/50 shutter speed rule is due to the 180 degree shutter rule. On film cameras, they have a rotating shutter. As it rotates, half of it obscures light and half of it lets light through. Changing the shutter speed affects motion blur, and many people prefer the 180 degree shutter setting because it is the most "film like". You can take the shutter speed lower to let in more light, but it will look more "video like". If you go the other direction with a higher shutter speed, the action will look choppier, like the war scenes in Saving Private Ryan.
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot robotsound, sound advice. What about color tone? Also "0"?

What do you guys think of http://www.lightillusion.com/canoncurves.htm ?
 
I stick with the color tone at 0. It is possible to adjust the color settings quite a bit if you need to calibrate them for whatever reason. Shane Hurlbut has a write up on his blog about how he does this: http://www.hurlbutvisuals.com/blog/2010/03/30/color-correction-put-your-best-foot-forward/

Since I'm just using one camera and don't have a color meter, I have skipped this step. I can imagine it being useful on multi-camera shoots though. Back when I used to work with multi-camera NTSC shoots we would always calibrate the cameras to each other with color bars and a chip chart. For single camera usage though, I tend not to worry about that as much.

I haven't looked at those particular picture styles, but I have looked at a lot of the other ones being discussed (Marvels, SuperFlat, etc). There's another thread on here where people are discussing those with screen captures. Personally after researching them all I just use Faithful though.
 
I can't help but neutral looks better, faitfull makes the skin tones sometimes very red and looks more natural, while neutral looks like film.
 
I'm tinkering with picture profiles and sharpness right now

I can't help but feel all my footage is coming out soft, even after I ditched the ND fader, and the only explanations I have right now are 1) sharpness at 0 is too damn soft, and ther's just so much sharpness you can add in post, or 2) I'm a terribly awful focus puller (very, very likely)

so I'm testing the following three profiles over the weekend:
* neutral, sharpness at default, contrast -4, saturation -2, curves to lift shadows
* everything the same, but based on faithful
* everything the same, but based on portrait (some people say this gives the best flesh tones)

edit:
I already tested those 3 on a still image, and on first sight portrait is the one that looks best, by a far shot; maybe it just won't grade so nicely, I don't know: I'll need more experience with it before I find the reason that's leading most people to use neutral; a simple histogram tells me there's a reduction on DR, but it seems very minor, a little tweak at the picture profile curves has a much bigger effect
the jury is still out also on the cause of the softness in my shots...
 
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Why do you leave sharpness default, if you think sharpness is too less with 0 (I do think that too and set sharpness to 1 now, with much better results). Constrast -4, saturation -2. Curves?
 
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sorry, when I said "0 sharpness" I meand "minimum sharpness"; I don't know which number canon assigns to that; now I moved it up three notches above the minimum

and by "curves" I mean that in the profile editor I add a curve for lifting the shadows, so that I can use a lower ISO; it is supposed to generate less noisy footage, but I haven't ran any formal tests

on some occasions I've tortured the curves even more, raising the shadows and lowering the highlights, which expands dynamic range by a very big lot, but leaves too little contrast in the midtones, so it's just for those special ocasions when you'd wish for HDR
 
I will set sharpness to 2 for tomorrow's shooting day. Won't add curves, seems complicated. But rainbow patterns drive me crazy.
 
Canon's 'faithfull'

Canon's 'faithfull'

If you are using canon's faithfull picture style note that it was calibrated for a color temperature of 5200k. So if you are shooting anything that isnt daylight I dont know how true the colors really are. You are better off sticking to neutral .
 
The honest truth is I wish I knew which picture style was used for Black Swan, whatever picture style that's good enough for them is good enough for me. My personal choice is that I like shooting flatter than not, as it makes things look a bit more like the smooth colors of an indie film, really softening harsh colors or tones, but even when shooting flat, I also want a picture style that helps skin tones look realistic - the regular flat style seems to make skin look very sick, red, or just not right. I like Marvel Cine a whole bunch better, but I've heard some negative things about tweaking the settings or using different white balances with it (the creator said that it messes up the curves or induces noise or such???), so I'm a little worried about it. And then, with any picture style, it seems they don't look exactly right unless you have a great white balance for the location, so it's hard to judge which picture style makes things look the best. Ugh.
 
A lot of people find the lowest sharpness setting too soft. I set mine up 2 point from there ( don't remember how its numbered). You can shoot softer and add detail in post but that puts a lot of strain on the NLE and made more render time.
 
If you are using canon's faithfull picture style note that it was calibrated for a color temperature of 5200k. So if you are shooting anything that isnt daylight I dont know how true the colors really are. You are better off sticking to neutral .
Click to expand...

True, shot today with faithful and got magenta tones on the skin of my actor all over, have to reshot the scene with neutral next weekend. That is.
 
For me I am not doing much grading...mostly just working with FCP and color corrector...I don't usually have the time to get into Color and do some heavy grading...But these are my settings...

I always shoot with Picture Style: Neutral and here are the settings...
Sharpness: +3 from 0
Contrast: -2
Saturation: 0
Color Tone: 0

What do you guys think? I do a little color correcting, I like to have a nice crisp image with colors that look sharp but not to contrasty
 
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