Flaat for the a7s

Samuel H said:
It's a very nice lens in general, I haven't tested it yet scientifically but it feels sharp when closed down a bit. And talking about feelings, the a7s+summicronC combo just FEELS RIGHT in my hands, just as if it was a rangefinder.
Click to expand...

The one bad thing is the filter thread is pretty funky. Do you use the 39mm ND filter or some kind of step-up ring? Mine is not completely secure.
 
It's a special Leica ring. But, as usual, I didn't care: I bought a step-up adapter that was close to matching, and glued it to the lens. I needed it anyway, they don't make proND filters that small.
 
Well, I'm finding them really accurate and without the stability issues of sgamut, but to each his own... He's not using slog2 either, and I'm absolutely in love with it. So flat. So lovely.

In any case: I uploaded two new versions of El Escorial, one with corrected exposure, and one color graded. I don't see any issues, with over-saturation or with anything else, but there are more experienced eyes out there so please tell me if you find anything.



 
How do you compare your profile against Kholi's one? side note: i actually liked better the colors in the non graded version, didn't like the slight green shift in the color corrected one.
 
I just shot a short walk down the street at night using this profile; there was either no lighting or sodium lights only. It looked quite good, straight out of the camera, I thought, and reflected the actual colors I was seeing, albeit on auto ISO so the camera brought the general exposure up a bit lighter than I was seeing. Good contrasty image.
 
@arturochu:
I will compare it with Kholi's on the spydercheckr when I do the a7s-vs-BlackMagic shootout, probably next week. I should have done it already when I compared against the other picture styles, but I forgot.
Regarding the grade, I added a bit of MB Mojo and this brought the building from rosy towards green. I think it's subtle and I like it, but, unlike the technical accuracy of the original profile, this is an artistic choice and those have never been my strong point XD

@wallrc:
Glad to hear :)
Flaat has exactly the same contrast as S-log2, but a lot more saturation and a bit more accurate colors. It does look good right out of the camera, and I agree that it is contrasty enough to be used almost as such (just adjust the black point).
Also: if the a7s was recording 15 stops of DR, as Sony said, it would look horrible out of the camera; but in terms of total DR it's not really that different from, say, my old 5N+Flaat, and I did upload ungraded videos with that.
 
Samuel

What do you use to record your step wedges on the waveform? Is it a reflective or transmissive chart?

Flaat looks good but you loose the known Slog2 curve and gamma for post, which can be fine if it's just you doing stuff. I'd be a bit concerned about colour channels clipping because of the saturation. Personally i'm finding just moving away from SGamut helping a lot.

cheers
Paul
 
* I point the camera at something bright and with no flickr (usually: clear blue sky or a white building) and do an exposure ramp (constant aperture, change shutter speed); then add ND, and do another exposure ramp. Then I crop and arrange the bits I need and get two curves which I join using the overlapping section (here you can see the midtone wedges are "stronger green", that's the overlap, and the fact it works so well is what gives me conficence that the method is solid).

* The Slog2 curve and gamma are preserved: I didn't play with the knee or black gamma parameters. Colors are not preserved, but if you're not shooting sgamut (and I wouldn't) you're losing that anyway. Flaat is very similar to Slog2 with Cinema color, I just fixed blue/cyan and green bright tones at the expense of magenta bright tones (I shoot much more sky and trees than... what's bright magenta, again?) (do the mouseover thing on this).
 
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Thanks for posting this! This may be my go-to setting from now on. The colors are more accurate than anything else I've seen or tried on my own, it needs surprisingly little grading for a log setting (LUTs are not necessary), and the noise is almost imperceptible.
 
Not really, sorry. I'm experimenting with shooting with a fast shutter and then adding per-pixel motion blur in post, but no idea about how good the results are yet, I've shot the footage but haven't got around to editing it and adding the motion blur.
 
Hello Samuel,
first, i am very happy with you flaat profil!
I was in Barcelona and have shot great footage on A7S with your profil on a holiday.
Now i grade the footage by add contrast and a little of sharpness in Premiere CC.
What can i do more to give them more deepness-color(sorry i can explain it right)
 
Mmm... Flaat is not desaturated, so I don't think adding saturation is what you're after. What I usually do is add a curve that keeps the blacks dark but brings the midtones up a bit and adds a slight S shape. That's usually enough (e.g. here), but often I also add Mojo too (a little bit here, tons here), or MB Quick Looks (no a7s example yet).
 
how do jo make the curve in CC ?
DSC00616.jpgDSC00617.jpg
This are to stills, first with flaat, second without PP.
I like the DR and the color correctness, but how i can make it more vibrant?
 
This is what I got:
DSC00617_.jpg

By simply applying this RGB curve:
DSC00617__.jpg

BTW I would shoot a bit more light at the sensor (i.e. overexpose a bit more)
 
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