Could anybody guide me towards getting good results with the AF100?
- Thread starter Sttratos
- Start date
I can't post the frames that prompted me to start this thread because I no longer have the footage and I didn't keep any frames. I don't usually hold footage after I'm finished with it. I always give it all back.
The weather has not been very nice lately. Yesterday we had a little sun but I was too busy. But I'm not making this stuff up.
Ok, understood. I think recognizing or rather finding out it's limitations may mean I may have to give up on it. It's just super annoying to never know how your material is looking until you can watch the playback later.
The advice to underexpose faces and lift the mid tones in grading is a solid one. It is actually one of the only ways to get good looking skin tones under sunlight with the AF100. The AF100 has a well registered problem with highlights handling. Some try to play it down and say it's operator error. But it's definitely not as some others will testify, even in this thread. It's a very real fault of the camera and the only way is to underexpose as if there was no tomorrow. When you think your skins are underexposed, underexpose some more and you might be just there. The problem with this is that faces come out looking quite flat as with some of the examples posted here. The skin looks nice but it's a rather flat image. This is the reason that most good looking skin tones you see posted from the AF100 are either studio lighting, lots of soft lighting or flat lighting. If it's a good looking daylight shot it will have that underexposed flat look to it or it will look bad. But it's not that contrasty faces are not possible with the AF100. They are, specially under fully controlled situations. Like night shots for example. But even when the lighting is high contrast you can't really have highlights on your skins with the AF100. The contrast is there but the bright side is pretty flat looking:
This is one of hscully's screen grabs which are some of the best looking AF100 frame grabs I have seen out there, where they are not mushy or have ugly clipping, or are over sharpened and over saturated. They look really nice. But they are done under more controlled situations.
But under direct sunlight it's hard to control that. As said many times you have to close the iris till you see 55-70% (it varies depending on who you are talking to) zebras only on the brightest spots of your skins. This means effectively killing all hot spots on your skins, meaning no real highlights. Brighter parts of the face are not necessarily highlights. So you can get nice high contrast faces with the AF100, such as the above, although no easily. But you absolutely can't get anything such as these, neither in a studio or under sunlight:
Attempting anything like that with the AF100 would be suicide and would turn out a nasty yellow and have posterization all over it. To expose with the AF100 in all these shots you would have to close your lens till these highlights were no longer highlights but just brighter parts of the face, effectively flattening you faces. If you are willing to understand that and accept it, you can make ok looking skins with the AF100. If what you want is cinematography such as the above the AF100 is the wrong camera as it just can't handle it. Despite that, people will try to tell you that it's a matter of price point and if you want such images you should shoot film, RED or Alexa. But it is not. The GH2 costs much less and can give you much better results and so can the Canon 5D for example. It's a design flaw. If you can live with it good for you. If you can't you need to look elsewhere.
The closest thing and the best result I have seen around here towards that look is this:
It's again from hscully. But I would love to see that frame moving to see if that highlight would take an uncontrollable life of it's own and look all nasty once it's in movement. So I can't judge if it was fully successful. The image is also very desaturated which helps disguising the problem.
But in my experience any highlight will turn nasty specially if the actor is moving his face around much. So you have to pretty much kill any highlights.
Yes!
I have the exact same problems. This is it.
But not only this. I also get noise if somebody is wearing black clothing for example, even outside during the day. The other bad thing is the washed out images. I was getting washed out images before when I was using the flat scene files. But I have since switched to Barry's and I still get washed out images. Although less it is still washed out. Don't know why since I have master pedestal at -5 and color saturation at 0. But it looks washed out unless I heavily correct curves in post.
hscully
Veteran
What is "it?"
He's talking about extreme highlights, and how film (or whatever they were shot on, obviously Godfather is film) handles them in those screen shots from other movies and how it is difficult to guard against extreme highlight problems. He makes a good point. What are you talking about? Really, I would like to help you if I can but without any images I don't know what you're talking about. Yes, you can get noise in the blacks if you underexpose too much, using certain gammas. It's all about how you use it.
You can see that the blacks in my images above. No noise, No BS. Granted with this contrast ratio it's expected to be cleaner where gradual fall off will show more noise but you can deal with it. The reason I posted these images was that I was so happy about how beautiful the blacks were, when I was shooting it I was concerned and wanted to share that the camera did great! This is shot with an AF100, night time exterior. There is no grading on this at all. So, you can get beautiful blacks with an AF100 if you set it up well, light well, and expose well.
What does "washed out" mean? It could be light in the lens washing out your image. It could be anything. You named your thread "Could anybody guide me to getting good results with the AF100." Post something, share your work if you really want help. Griping without evidence seems to me that you don't really want what your thread subject states. Come on, Man. What the heck? Post a screen grab, tell us what camera settings you used, tell us which lens, tell us what you did to light it, show us the WFM from your NLE. The way to good results is to practice and work. Show us the work!
For the record I wasn't specifically comparing the AF100 to film. I just used these frames because those were movies from the top of my head that I knew had the examples of highlights I was looking for, and I didn't feel like searching Vimeo for 7D, 5D and GH2 footage that show them handling these situations that the AF100 never could.
But it's not only "extreme" highlights. It's any highlight. The AF100 absolutely can't handle highlights. Skins have to be underexposed for them to render even close to properly. Any sign of a hot forehead or nose bridge, even if just slightly and very mild, starts turning yellow or producing posterization or both. The highlights roll out is absolutely horrible for a camera that calls itself a cinema camera. I would exchange better highlight handling for anything. I would rather have the highlight issue fixed than 10 bit out, focus expand or anything else. Because bad highlights captured at 10 bit will be just that. The camera will still be limiting you and 10 bit wont do anything to help really. Shooting people under the sun is extremely difficult if they move and I'm not talking about moving from a shade to bright sun. I'm talking just turning their heads. If their faces pick up any "specular highlights" you're finished! It looks terrible.
You're welcome. They are very nice indeed. I like that they are not over sharpened or over saturated to artificially hide the camera's lack of sharpness and image pop.
John Andersson
Well-known member
I agree that there's little or no headroom for highlight roll-off on the AF100. I got a better result out of my GH1 when it came to how highlights were treated and it does limit what you can do but there's also good footage to be squeezed out of it.
If Panasonic would do something on the next, if any, AF-series camcorder they should put in a whole new image process to steer away from clipping, skew and the loss of detail. But as long as you are stuck with the AF100 you better never ever overexpose something that should look good.
If Panasonic would do something on the next, if any, AF-series camcorder they should put in a whole new image process to steer away from clipping, skew and the loss of detail. But as long as you are stuck with the AF100 you better never ever overexpose something that should look good.
hscully
Veteran
The highlights thing can be a problem. I shoot in controlled light so probably less so for me than a doc or eng shooter but I've had stuff blow out beyond repair so I've seen it and it's a problem but is it all that different with other cameras in this price range? Honestly, I'm asking. Editman, forgive the intrusion but you've moved to the F3, right? Do you have any difficulty with the highlights with it if you clip them? I've been on set with it, as an actor though, and it produces great images but I've never had the opportunity to test that. The F3 is at the high end price-wise for me right now, not that I wouldn't want one.
About cameras that compare in price, does the 7D, 5D, GH2 (I have one), FS100 do better than the AF100 in this regard? I just thought it was something we all had to deal with. I saw the Zacuto shootout stuff (not the last one, the one before) and all the those "affordable" cameras had a hard time with the clipped highlights. What magical qualities do other cameras have to recover over exposed highlights? What am I missing? If you're over exposed you're over exposed... Dr. it hurts when I do that, don't do that!
To be perfectly honest, I do not want to switch to a DSLR. The lack of control and tools on board are show stoppers for me. But from what I've seen, they suffer the same problem and introduce other unwanted artifacts. We'll see what improvements accrue to the next version of the AF, I guess. Until then, I think I need to take up residence in the AF-100 Defenders Retirement Home
About cameras that compare in price, does the 7D, 5D, GH2 (I have one), FS100 do better than the AF100 in this regard? I just thought it was something we all had to deal with. I saw the Zacuto shootout stuff (not the last one, the one before) and all the those "affordable" cameras had a hard time with the clipped highlights. What magical qualities do other cameras have to recover over exposed highlights? What am I missing? If you're over exposed you're over exposed... Dr. it hurts when I do that, don't do that!
To be perfectly honest, I do not want to switch to a DSLR. The lack of control and tools on board are show stoppers for me. But from what I've seen, they suffer the same problem and introduce other unwanted artifacts. We'll see what improvements accrue to the next version of the AF, I guess. Until then, I think I need to take up residence in the AF-100 Defenders Retirement Home
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John Andersson
Well-known member
Yes I do have the F3 today. Just like the AF100 it clips and skews but this is with normal REC709 gamma curves. The difference is the skew leans more towards blue/green on the F3. Move to the Hypergamma and it hardly ever clips or skew and when you engage S-log there is so much headroom you can say it never clips or gets ugly. It looks just like shot with an Alexa in most aspects.
So with the F3 I have the choice of shooting with gamma that hardly ever clips or I can shoot in REC709 and it will clip and skew about as much as the AF100. Would love to see a couple of these Hypergamma curves on the AF100 and that would have been a great 100A update.
So with the F3 I have the choice of shooting with gamma that hardly ever clips or I can shoot in REC709 and it will clip and skew about as much as the AF100. Would love to see a couple of these Hypergamma curves on the AF100 and that would have been a great 100A update.
The key word here is squeeze, and you have to squeeze really hard to get just a little drop of juice.
You don't need to overexpose really. If you don't underexpose you are already in trouble.
Right on the money about Panasonic should release a real update for the AF100.
The reason I hang out around here and still try to fight with the AF100 is because I really like the camera, or rather want to like the camera. I really want Panasonic to release a real update for the camera. In this day and age it's not worth it to own any over $10K camera. It's better to rent such cameras for the few jobs that really require it. But you have to have a work horse go to camera for everyday stuff and this shouldn't cost over 10K IMO. A DSLR is out, although the GH2 almost makes it worth it to have it as a main camera. The FS100 and FS700 I just don't like the sony look in them, don't like the form factor and a couple of other things, specially in the FS100 which doesn't even have NDs or SDI. I might as well put up with the GH2. The C100 is looking interesting though. But if Panasonic would release an AF100 update even if with the same chip as the GH2 and all the other features where the same as the current, as long as it could make the images the GH2 makes and handle highlights like the GH2 does it would already be a huge improvement. I would go for that again over a FS100/700.
Yes it is. The 5D for example handles highlights that the AF100 can only dream of. The 7D and GH2 also do way, way better than the AF100. The AF100 is honestly crippled.
Not much experience with the FS100, but the 7D, 5D and GH2 are definitely better in this regard. It has already become an usual practice for me. Every time the AF100 is giving me nasty highlights I grab the GH2 and point at the same shot and it gives more pleasing results. Sometimes it may even show less DR but the blown out is not nasty like the AF100.
Digital or video is notorious for producing ugly highlights compared to film. But this is not the case here. The AF100 takes it to another level. It's not that the other cameras are magic, it's the AF100 which is unable. It's not about how early or when it blows the highlights, it's about how it does that. We can argue and discuss the whole day the reasons and how to get around them, but the point is it just shouldn't be that way. Nobody is asking Alexa level highlights, we are just humbly asking at least Gh2, 5D level. For a camera of that price and designed for video it's embarrassing that still cameras costing less can handle it better.
hscully
Veteran
Cool, thanks. That makes sense that it does something untoward in REC709. Maybe Panasonic is listening about the Hypergamma curves. I am amazed at the S-Log stuff. I really want to shoot with that. I've just been clowning around with RAW stills in photoshop and it makes my head explode how much I like the way they look and the things you can do with them.
PaPa
Major Contributor
Always under expose. You make skin too bright, it will start to look pastel and digital like. Then boost slightly in post if you have to. Never over expose.
Here is an example, but when originally graded, there was wayyyyyyy too much magenta. Need to boost the greens ever so slightly to make this look just right:
did a subtle correction:
Here is an example, but when originally graded, there was wayyyyyyy too much magenta. Need to boost the greens ever so slightly to make this look just right:
did a subtle correction:
PaPa
Major Contributor
The GH2 with the hack has some incredible information in the highlights that unfortunately the AF100 does not do. And trust me, I've tried very hard.
GH2 before and after:
RAW:
Graded:
Always under expose. You make skin too bright, it will start to look pastel and digital like. Then boost slightly in post if you have to. Never over expose.
Here is an example, but when originally graded, there was wayyyyyyy too much magenta. Need to boost the greens ever so slightly to make this look just right:
did a subtle correction:
Papa, it looks good. But it does have that flat-ish look I was talking about. But I know this is not your fault. It's pretty much what you get with the AF100. I just think there's something wrong with the fact that this is good advice when shooting with the camera: "Always under expose." What we should be saying is always expose right. That the right advice to get ok images from the camera is to underexpose should already point out that there's a clear problem. Again, nothing about what you said, your advice is of course correct. I just don't understand the people who try to pretend there's no problem. Of course, you're not one of them. Hope I'm making sense here. By the way, the series is pretty funny.
Yes, they produce much better results indeed in my experience. There's just something about the 5D that makes people love the image so much, reason it's still very requested even though there are supposedly better cameras technically. I think one of the things that make people like it so much is how well it handles the highlights. I think this is responsible for 90% of the reason people say it looks so filmic even though it's low rez and full of artifacts. I'm not a particular fan of the images as a whole but it does handle highlights way better than the AF100 and so does the 7D. And the GH2, what can you say. The little thing is truly amazing. Technically it should not be so, but it just does something right. Yes, the sharpness is supposedly not real but aliasing, but yet post-sharpened AF100 footage still can't touch it. It handles the highlights way better and the image just has a pop and texture that few cameras can match in the under $10k category. It's not just contrasty.
Both of course have other limitations, but their handle highlights very well and when it comes to the GH2 specially, image quality is very good specially when you consider the price. Their limitations is more concerning form factor and lack of video shooting features. Rolling shutter you have even with RED.
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The GH2 with the hack has some incredible information in the highlights that unfortunately the AF100 does not do. And trust me, I've tried very hard.
GH2 before and after:
RAW:
Graded:
Yes. It's really puzzling how this can be. A hacked GH2 is probably the best bang for the buck if all you consider is image quality.
PaPa
Major Contributor
The flatness of the image is due to the nature of the subject. This was for a web comedy where we wanted flattering lighting, nothing too harsh and in that sense i think the AF100 performed wonderfully considering what we fed into it.