F55: F55 vs Alexa skin tone demonstration

starcentral

starcentral

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Thought some of you might like to see this.

This is simple LUT application straight on footage from camera. 6 minutes total time to grade, nothing fancy.

Which camera shot what is revealed at 1:09 incase you want to spend the time guessing. Anyone successfully guess which is which?

http://vimeo.com/96696423
 
The give away was the bronze skin female second from top right, although the F55 and Alexa can get the more pale skin tones similarly, the alexa really seems to shine in capturing all shades of skin beautifully in the same scene. Both great cameras, Alexa edges out the F55 on skin IMO.
 
I was able to guess but I judged more on the sharpness around the eyes with the F55, which I prefer in this test. There is an evenness and honesty about the F55 footage in this case. I think Sony is leading the way to determining a digital cinema aesthetic that chooses not to dumb down the engineering in pursuit of a perceived film aesthetic and I like it. I could see where these would cut perfectly together.
 
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Love T+S, Alexa was on axis and F55 was profile? Kinda cheating though because they would look great on any camera. Funny too the featured music video footage was also shot on Alexa.
 
They did have good skin, yes :-)

The dailies of this shoot, I wish we would have stayed closer to that look in the end. Truth be told, their skin was very pale and they were getting lost in the white BG a little bit, so in the end we warmed the whole thing up, and skin tones even more. It was a move to make all the pieces more consistent (there's 6 in the series).

There's tiny differences between the two cams, but if you can't get 2 Alexas on the job, a 55 as B would be the next best choice by far! I would not hesitate to do it again in a flash. They matched on set and in post easy-peasy.
 
In these straight "add-a-LUT" shots I think the F55 looks better.

The F55 has slightly more contrast in the mid/skin-tones which looks more pleasing to me, the skin tones on the Alexa are a bit "muddy" but it could easily be bumped out in post. I also notice the F55 has a little more pink/magenta in the image but that's a 5 second adjustment.

Overall nice comparison.
 
starcentral said:
I also notice the F55 has a little more pink/magenta in the image but that's a 5 second adjustment.
Click to expand...

The white balances on the cameras don't match perfectly, btw. So it's always going to be up to the colorist to take out that last 5% of difference in this case.
 
Pretty much guessed it based on contrast. The 55 has a little more native contrast than the Alexa. Not a bad thing, just different. I would say they are so close though that honestly Sony has a lot to be proud of being compared to a standard which still costs twice as much.
 
ooh tough one. I 'd say the one on the left was the F55. It's a little pinker. The one on the right, which I think is Alexa has a more mottled look.
 
I printed these two shots and asked four ASC members which they liked best. All picked the F5 over the Alexa.

No one else willing to venture a guess which one that is?

Cheers.
 
Noel are these straight out of camera or been graded?

Asking people which they like more, vs asking to guess which is Alexa or Sony is a bit a different question.

My guess is that the image on the right is Alexa, and the one on the left is Sony. But... I prefer the image on the left because it is slightly less pink, and there is more tonal representation on the face in the skin tones. ie. looking at highlights on nose and contrast levels on check right up to the nose. The left image is an ever so slight tad sharper, so has a little more detail than the right image. But the image on the right "could" be described as more "filmic" while the one on the left more "Sony look".

Anyway nice test Noel.
 
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Really it is nuts to compare these.

Obviously both delogged and within about 5% of each other, when the grade will give a 20% +/- space for tone and colour!

Camera A could easily be made to like like camera B and vise versa?
 
No I think Noel is onto something. Maybe what Sony needs for their marketing campaign is this type of "Coke vs Pepsi taste test" like was done during the 80's generation?

Brilliant Noel, just brilliant. Now when I meet with producers I will print two images from each camera and ask which image they prefer and from there talk them into the Sony explaining that, "in the grading process...." :)
 
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