Finally slapped together my FS7QQ - Rig, Steady-cam and a DIY LUT

stefanhuberfilms

stefanhuberfilms

Veteran
FIRST OFF: Why can’t new threads which get „auto saved“ (whatever that means) be stored somewhere? just when i was almost done with writing this, (Resolve i think) decided to lock up my machine. RESULT: ALL GONE GRRRRRR


OK, Once again:


Hi folks!


This week, i finally got my 7Q, so i thought i’d share some pics of it plus a LUT i made...


The RIG:


I won’t go into detail on the Camtree rig, we discussed it already here.

IMG_1553.jpg_MG_4416.jpg_MG_4418.jpg


The HOOD:
This is the hood i made from 3mm thick, black POM (Delrin) plates. POM usually comes with a glossy finish, so i decided to sand it with a rotary sander and afterwards polish it to get a nice matte finish. I also drilled holes in it to have the connectors and buttons accessible. First i had some hand knobs to mount the Hood to the Odyssey, but these were kinda bulky, so i decided to just go with hand tightened M4 allen screws. The Hood is easily foldable, since i included „hinges“ made from the carrying belt of an old tripod bag. Currently i just glued the fabric to the plates, i will soon rivet it together, to provide a more rugged finish for on set use.

IMG_1549.jpg_MG_4420.jpg_MG_4422.jpg_MG_4423.jpg


The MONITOR MOUNT:
I made this mount from a rod clamp i had left (thanks to Frank Glencairn :) ) and a 15mm Shaft which i screwed through one of the 3/8“ holes on the handle of my rig. This is more flexible than i thought first, since it allows me to angle the 7Q up and down without loosening any of the screws/knobs. The clamp is screwed to the Odyssey with one 1/4“ allen screw.

IMG_1550.jpgIMG_1554.jpg


The FS7QQ on a Steady-cam:


Not much to say about this one, the only thing i had to do is cutting of an 3x1cm area of Olofs battery plate to have enough space for my monitor mount on the bottom of the steadycam. I went with an CD 48" cable from the bottom to the top. I will have to get some 90° BNC connectors though.

IMG_1560.jpgIMG_1563.jpg


That’s it from the production side, now on to the post process:


The LUT:


I read that some people asked for a LUT that somehow gets cdng RAW files in the ballpark of 4K2HD. So i had my first try making my own LUT.


DISCLAIMER: I didn’t have any experience in making LUT’s before, just fooled around with curves a bit to get the black levels match.


What i did while shooting: exposed the shot, so that the black levels were around 10 IRE. Changed recording mode and shot the same in 4K2HD, without altering the exposure.


What you should do:


1. Shoot something in RAW/4K2HD if you haven’t done that already


2. Download the LUT, unzip it and drag it to the LUT folder of Resolve


3. import your files into resolve as usual, no ACES, just simple DaVinci YRGB


4. in the Media tab, right click on the ProRes clip —> clip attributes —> set Levels to Data Levels instead of Auto (or Video). This can make a huge difference, because Auto or Video Range often cuts of the last bits which are located in the headroom between 100%-109%.
1_converted.jpg2_converted.jpg

Auto Levels before:
4K2HD_before_converted.jpg

Data Levels:
4K2HD_after_converted.jpg

Side Note: to all the Premiere editors out there, this could be useful, regarding Full Range in Premiere.


5. in the Edit tab, drag the Footage into your Timeline - i had a 4K RAW file and a 4K2HD File side by side.


6. Leave the ProRes file as is, for the RAW file, adjust the following in the Camera Raw tab:
+ Decode Quality: Full Res or Use Project Setting
+ Decode Using: Clip
+ White Balance: As shot (or choose what you want if you screwed WB up while shooting :) )
+ Color Space: BMD Film
+ Gamma: BMD Film
3_converted.jpg
+ do NOT tick the Highlight Recovery box, you could get different results. in a production scenario i would of course tick it, why not having some extra room in the highlights :) - although i don't know how much there is left to recover when the exposure was pushed by 2.5 already...


+ Exposure: +2.50
+ Everything else: Standard


7. Apply the LUT (right click onto the RAW clip, 3D-LUT....)

8. take a look on the Scopes and be amazed how close it is :) (i could have done better, and tweak the greens and reds a bit more to get closer, will do if some people are interrested)

EDIT: don't be confused about that orange point in the curves, made it by accident :).
4KRAW after the process:
4K2HD scopes_converted.jpg
4K2HD after the process:
4KRAW scopes_converted.jpg

9. export the files and start editing, make sure to tick the "Full Range" box in the Delivery tab.

10. leave Feedback here, and let us improve that LUT :)

cheers!
 
Last edited:
Looks cool, I'll try the LUTs in a moment. The hood is a smart DIY. I like that it's small and compact, a must for me.
 
With the highlight recovery the way this works is this:

Generally when the green channel clips that is considered the brightest value, green is more sensitive than either blue or red. Clipping on the O7Q waveform takes this into account (after matrixing)

What HR does is to say right, green has clipped but red or blue hasn't, so what i will do is to scale and mix in some of the unclipped red or blue channels to give the impression of detail. Basically reconstruct the missing green information. We can do this from a colour viewpoint because highlights clip to white not to an unknown colour.

Therefore the benefit of this is very scene dependent. If you are shooting foliage against a bright sky then you'd see more detail, or perhaps a stucco wall that has been blown out can be retrieved in terms of the subtle texture. If you have a face that is blown out it's unlikely you'd get a very good result but YMMV.

You should be able to keep this checked in your workflow. By going through BMDFilm you have plenty of range and you won't clip. No one knows exactly how the BMD curve is designed other than it's based on a LogC curve, but remember that a log curve defines a particular amount of dynamic range to hold. Your step with the 2.5 exposure is scaling the signal to use more of this curve. If you have HR checked then just be mindful of this gain value not pushing the top of the curve into clipping (I'm pretty sure it won't).

To work out the value for this gain in exposure, match a grey card in your workflow with the AVCHD version of the same recording. I don't use Resolve any more but i have absolute exposure values in SpeedGrade based on doing this.

There are a number of ways of getting better de-noising by increasing this gain, denoise and taking it back down afterwards. But that's about squeezing everything you can out of the files.

Hope this helps
Paul
 
Thanks for the heads up paul, very informative. You don't use Resolve anymore? Already got the Beta version of the coming CC Update huh :) ?
 
stefanhuberfilms said:
Thanks for the heads up paul, very informative. You don't use Resolve anymore? Already got the Beta version of the coming CC Update huh :) ?
Click to expand...

Actually not. Using the shipping SpeedGrade CC. Took a little while to wrap my head around it but find it a lot more solid than Resolve - it does what it says on the tin and there's no automagical-we'll-do-this-for-you

I do have a 3rd party plug in which i'll post about as soon as i'm allowed to though...

cheers
Paul
 
stefanhuberfilms said:
So not one user tried the LUT yet?
Click to expand...

Just downloaded, I will try it asap.
I have had the same problem with the grip cable, it's placed in a awful position.
Let me say that I have rigged the 7Q in the same way you did but really I don't feel comfortable in certain situation. In long shooting day it's very hard to focus with the monitor so close to the eyes, it's too heavy on arms, and it's non balanced on horizontal. Thinking to use a EVF and put 7Q on the back (I will send you a picture soon).
For fast color grading I'm still using looks (I'm a lazy man), you have so much datas for grading that you can do almost everything.
For shirt project with a grading budget I ring very interesting (especially for skin tones) after effect.
This is shot a 2K at 200 fps
…before
no color.jpg
after grading with Looks
color.jpg
 
I find it pretty doable with that setup. Since I've added that coiled cable, I find myself sometimes angling down the grip extension by a bit less than 90 degrees, which makes the handling much more convenient in some situations. My current workflow is to transcode everything in resolve, edit in PR and then grade it in Speedgrade. I made myself preconfigured looks in SG, to have starting points for my grade, mostly it's just a bit of contrast in the mids and overall saturation added though... I find the LUT I made optimal to match RAW and 4k2hd, makes grading with preconfigured looks easier and faster. Incredible how much one can squeeze out of 10bit ProRes btw, really like that screengrabs!
 
stefanhuberfilms said:
I find it pretty doable with that setup. Since I've added that coiled cable, I find myself sometimes angling down the grip extension by a bit less than 90 degrees, which makes the handling much more convenient in some situations. My current workflow is to transcode everything in resolve, edit in PR and then grade it in Speedgrade. I made myself preconfigured looks in SG, to have starting points for my grade, mostly it's just a bit of contrast in the mids and overall saturation added though... I find the LUT I made optimal to match RAW and 4k2hd, makes grading with preconfigured looks easier and faster. Incredible how much one can squeeze out of 10bit ProRes btw, really like that screengrabs!
Click to expand...


Hi Stefan,

Thanks for sharing these pictures of your rig!

I'm interested in the way you've mounted your O7Q; any chance you could share part #'s for all the mounting hardware (handle, connectors, brackets, etc.) you've used here? It's hard for me to identify some of it from the pictures alone, and I will likely order these parts without ever seeing them in person. I'd rather not get the wrong parts if I can avoid it :)

Thanks!
 
Hi!
The handle is part of this rig: http://www.thecinecity.com/eshop/CAMTREE-Hunt-FS700-Cage-for-Sony-Nex-FS700.html
which got already discussed here: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthrea...ig-Cage-the-indian-knockoff-of-the-Movcam-Rig
The bracket is just a random rail bracket, i don't know which manufacturer unfortunateley. You can use any rail bracket.
For example, this one would do the job: http://www.amazon.com/SmallRig-Rail...qid=1405316085&sr=8-1&keywords=15mm+rod+clamp
you'd need to make the hole "C" larger though, i drilled through it with an Ø8mm drill, got some play, but works.
The stud you can see on the pictures is a custom one i made on a lathe. just a simple Ø15mm Aluminium stud with a smaller diameter on the back to fit through one of the 3/8"-16 holes of the handle, then countered with a M4 screw.
Ask a friend or local metal worker, it's not a hard job to do, took me around half an hour to turn that part.
I'm still experimenting with the material of the stud, wondering if POM works better...
 
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