D7000 workflow for best quality

S

Saxon175

Member
Hope someone can give me some pointers to refine my workflow. I'm trying to get the best possible quality from the D7000. Here is what I do at the moment:

Capture
Shoot manual 1080P24, 1/50s shutter speed, aperture for desired depth of field, ISO for correct exposure (close as possible to 100) - use ND filter if outside.
Picture control - modified standard, sharpening 0, contrast -2, brightness 0, saturation -2, hue 0.

Post
Import to AE CS5
Edit native footage (not transcoded)
Stabilise footage (if necessary)
Apply s-curve to correct for the flat shooting style, maximising dynamic range and rolling off highlights and shadows
Correct white balance
Apply desired 'look' using colorista or similar
Use unsharp mask to sharpen
Slice and dice in Premier CS5

While my results are OK, there is plenty of footage I have seen from the D7000 which is better and I was wondering what fellow D7000 users do differently with their workflow. Is there a better picture control, maybe like the technicolor log cinestyle? Is my PP process/order as good as it can be? Thanks for comments.
 
So I guess nobody has a better workflow. That's reassuring. For those looking to learn from others feel free to ask any questions, I'm happy to share.
 
Regarding your workflow, you should experiment with converting the video clips to a better format for editing on the timeline. I am not greatly familiar with Adobe Premier. I batch convert my H264 clips from the camera via MPEG Streamclip to Apple ProRes LT for editing via Final Cut Pro. The H264 clips from the camera are in a heavily compressed final delivery format that is not meant for video editors. Conversion to a less compressed video format should give you better results and reduced rendering times.
 
I am not too familiar with adobe cs5, I use Avid media composer. However, why would you want to start by importing into AE instead of Premiere in the first place. Why not first transcode the raw files from the camera into Cineform's Neoscene codec in either .Avi or .Mov format into Premiere, that way you would have a much better codec for post work than the native H.264 format which was never meant for multi-generational compositing. It might be quicker to work with the native H.264 files but not necessarily better.

Also, since I believe you can do most of your post work within Premiere , I would do everything I could within Premiere, export that to AE to take advantage of whatever post programs Premiere doesn't support Like Synthetic Aperture's "Color Finesse" for much better Color correction with much greater control, and either export it back to Premiere to render out or Render it out in After effects. It seems to me you are going through a lot of compositing and rendering of the raw camera files in AE before you even get it into Premiere for further editing, rendering and final export to your final format.
 
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Use Vegas. Drop the files. Edit in full res real time. COlor correct at 32bits. Export. No gamma shifts. Done.
 
Will Montgomery said:
Out of curiosity, why ProRes LT vs. ProRes 422? Do you work on a laptop?
Click to expand...

I am working on a recent Mac Mini which is basically a laptop without the keyboard and screen. Actually, I compared between ProRes 422 and LT and didn't see a big difference (HQ was very noticeable). I will be moving my video editing setup to an iMac i7 27" and will experiment with the different codec. I don't yet have the funds for a big farm of hard drives. I have a one terabyte raid setup for media. The ProRes 422 and HQ files are enormous.
 
macgregor said:
Use Vegas. Drop the files. Edit in full res real time. COlor correct at 32bits. Export. No gamma shifts. Done.
Click to expand...

I've been using Vegas on my SD files from a Panasonic DVC30, am I to understand that you do not convert the raw Nikon files first? That would certainly save a lot of time and disk space. Is there any disadvantage to working with the H.264 files?

Thanks, Harry
 
Saxon175 said:
... Post
Correct white balance ...
Click to expand...

I'd recommend that you get the correct, or as close to the correct / final white balance in the camera NOT in post. These DSLR's shoot highly compressed footage. Regardless of how flat your profile is you are not shooting RAW. It is more like shooting MiniDV- get things looking 80 - 90% the way they are going to be in the final image, and you'll have a much better / easier time in post / grading.
 
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