Film Look with DVX

J

Joe Calabrese

Well-known member
I just got a DVX around christmas time and I've been wanting to set one of the scene files to make the video look as close to 35mm as possible. I will be getting a 35mm prime lens and adaptor but I just want to know about the scene settings to closely imitate film.
 
There are lots of different kinds of film. If you have something specific in mind, there are threads where people posted their scene file settings for particular looks. Search around.
 
Film Look with DVX

I really like the look of the KODAK VISION3 500T Color Negative Film 5219 / 7219. If that is possible to do with the DVX, that would be amazing.
 
Let me give my input on this, I just got to use my new SGpro yesterday, and wow, the image it produces is so amazing! No after shooting about an hour with it and my DVX, and after digesting it at 3AM last night/this morning, there are some things that I am happy with and really disappointed with... First off let me tell you what those where, I was extremely happy with the SGpro, blew my expectations out of he water. I was really disappointed with my DVX after digestion. After some CC, the image is just so noisy it is irritating. Because I was shooting and stopping down to make the image look darker in the camera, some images are just too deteriorated, So what I am coming across with is with a 35mm adapter like the SGpro or anything other kind of 35mm adapter, and a good NLE, you can pretty much achieve a great looking film look. Now if you want it sharp and no noisy I think I will be having to looking into something new other than the DVX. I still love my dvx, but when I comes to entering stuff to be put on the big screen, I think the noise would be extremely distracting. So like I said with a good 35mm adapter, some nice primes (35,50,85,105) yo can achieve some out standing stuff to look like any film stock. But when it comes to image quality, then you must start looking at different cameras.

Jon
 
Is that so Jon, I just thought the DVX100A vers was the worst at bring noise in the picture. But seems like it's a thing for the A and B version as well? But as always low light conditions and 35mm adapter is a no go, possibly even so for many cameras.
 
JCal11379 said:
I just got a DVX around christmas time and I've been wanting to set one of the scene files to make the video look as close to 35mm as possible. I will be getting a 35mm prime lens and adaptor but I just want to know about the scene settings to closely imitate film.
Click to expand...


Honestly, just play. Have fun. You have a number of setting you can use, get someone to 'model' as you adjust lighting and then just play with the settings, there's SO much you can do. Find whatever look YOU like the most. More gain, less gain, more saturated blacks, or not, sharpness, whatever. Get the 24p frame rate set and then just go from there. Advise is nice, but there's nothing like learning for yourself. (as I ironically give advise)
 
ditto, plug it in a tv, have someone pose, make a nice image, and correct in camera till your happy.

I, on the other hand, was very lucky when i first received my dvx100b. It came with a little "Film look" button. This was a great feature. It even made the sound of film passing through a gate. It gave the whole intermittent mechanism thing.

:)
 
My 100b has some pretty embarrassing noise issue with the SgPro, No I dodged that by crushing the blacks, I will post a vid of my first images, and there is a porting with a hand rail, and it has no CC, and the noise is just terrible. I was using 0db of gain and still its way just bad. I'm going to go over to a friends with my SGpro later this week and he has a HVX and a V1u and I will mess around with some Hi def options.


Jon
 
Noise/grain with the DVX is pretty widely commented on round here - Now while I'm no expert by any means, I have picked up a few things that you can take to limit it (not opening the iris right up, increasing detail coring and even selecting the appropriate gamma curves can come into play with the amount of noise you see in the picture)

The quickest and simplest thing (in most cases) to do though is light up your scene/talent more :)

JCal: If you want to get a particular film look in camera, I'd recommend perhaps describe (on paper) the generic look you are after in terms of stuff like:

The amount of grain - grainy or smooth (detail coring, detail level)
Colour saturation level - full-on colours or washed out (choma level)
Colour cast (tint) - 300-like bronze, boosted greens, warmth, coolness etc (chroma phase/color temp)
Contrast/Dynamic range - are the blacks crushed, are the whites blown out, is there detail in the shadows/highlights (gamma, knee)
Softness/sharpness of the image - hard-edged detail or more diffuse. (detail level, V_detail level, detail coring)

From there, go into one of the scene files and build it up to look like that - the DVX book/DVD is invaluable for this part as it goes into detail about what each setting does :)

Hope I've given you some ideas at least :)
 
Main goal here JCal11379 is to shoot 24p or 24pA.

Film uses a frame rate of 24 frames per second, so this imitates it greatly.

Have a lot of light pumped out, and light your scene well for better looks.

Have good audio, and set designs, and actors, and story, and yada yada yada.

Now on to the "In camera settings" look.

I usually crush my blacks, I find this a nice way of a film look. I always shoot
flat, meaning I keep all my settings at zero. The only ones I change to get the film look are:

Detail Level. I put this at -4. It just softens it and makes it less sharp.
B.Press. Play around, but Cinelike and B.Press are what I shoot with (lately, I've been pure B.Press)
Shoot Cinelike in the other setting.
And shoot 24pA.

I leave everything else at 0, so I can handle more with it in post.

Make sure your camera moves are nice, and your framing/composition is good to.

If you have all of this, your image will look great!

EDIT- One thing I didn't cover is EXPOSURE. Get your exposure right! To bright or to dark is a no no. You can always fix it in post if need be, but
you might as well get your exposure out of the way and do it on location.

Examples:

Good exposure:

puffin2.jpg


Too bright:
1201497477.jpg


Too dark:

3110-PortraitCW.jpg


Robbie
 
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To bright or to dark is a no no. You can always fix it in post if need be, but
you might as well get your exposure out of the way and do it on location.
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Eh... not true. You can't just fix exposure in post. Once something passes 100IRE, it is pure white and you cannot fix it. Also, anything that is too dark will get grainy and look terrible.

The rest of your advice is spot-on though.
 
Robbie Comeau said:
If you have all of this, your image will look great!

EDIT- One thing I didn't cover is EXPOSURE. Get your exposure right! To bright or to dark is a no no. You can always fix it in post if need be, but
you might as well get your exposure out of the way and do it on location.
Click to expand...


Is there usually a certain level which is right for good exposure?
 
If you can get the sky looking good, then you should be good. I know that when filming skate boarding, you should expose your shot to the sky, so you can see the blue sky and clouds (if it's a nice day, but if the sky is white in perspective to YOUR own eye then there isn't much to do)

So I guess that will apply to anything.

Outside, I usually have my ND filter to 1/8, iris at about 5.6, and a shutter of 1/60.

It depends...IF you shoot 24p, and you use a shutter higher than 1/60, you could get some flickering, and really disturbing footage. 30p is fine with any shutterspeed.
 
Thanks guys for responding. I have been messing around with it a bit and I will follow up with a still of my "film" setting. I have the detail levels at -4 for the softness of film and I have all the settings at cinelike and all others as 0 (someone mentioned this and I like it). I will continue to mess around and get the looks I like. As for sound as someone else has mentioned, I have a lot of experience with that as I am a musician and so audio-wise, I can do pretty much anything.
 
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