FS100 - highlights/profiles

morgan_moore said:
I disagree. For example when Sony talk of 'the colour black' the language baffles me
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You appear to be easily baffled by a point I didn't make. Where in the settings does it say colour black?

The "is black a colour" argument is old. Presumably Sam, you wouldn't expect to find black on a colour cube and none of your chroma keying software would allow you to key black? How far does one take pedantry?

I've no idea what context Sony used that turn of phrase and could easily be due to the difficulties of translation.

If it helps just think of black as a value, colours are just values.
 
They use it in the PDF handbook under description of black level

leaving me to have to take a lot of time testing the image

To me Black level could mean..

'we clip all values below X'
'we raise the miniumum value to Y'
(two things I would not want to do)

or

'black level is an adjustment of the very toe of the gamma curve'
Something I would want to do!

Bottom line - I think the camera is starting to look OK and the instruction manual could speed that process if written better - you know as well as I that tuning the cam is a painful process which if time is money is expensive

S
 
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morgan_moore said:
Also crushing does not tend to degrade..

S
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These 8 bit AVCHD files hold up amazingly well to grading but can fall apart when applying contrast. If one were to lower blacks and raise mid tones you can introduce posterisation. There is a nasty little area around 10-20 ire that can disintegrate when using the STD gamma curve. I have absolutely no idea why that should be? But it's there waiting in the shadows for someone to get a little enthusiastic with crushing the black and raising the mid tones then your footage looks like gash. The CineTone curves do not do this and are much more compliant in my experience.

I'd love to know why STD gamma curve has this noisy section, anyone?
 
morgan_moore said:
Bottom line - I think the camera is starting to look OK and the instruction manual could speed that process if written better - you know as well as I that tuning the cam is a painful process which if time is money is expensive

S
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I could've saved myself time by hiring in equipment and live scopes like the AbelCine peeps have at their disposal. It would've taken the guesswork out of the profiles. But shouldn't Sony just provide this info in the manuals? I think so.

The biggest hole in the FS100 documentation is any reasonable description of the shape of the gamma curves.

That PDF handbook has several errors in it, so much so I wonder if it was written by Sony or a 3rd party.

It has been quite the journey...
 
I dont get it :) - on one hand I am a pedant for linguistic accuracy and now you are agreeing that..

Nirv said:
But shouldn't Sony just provide this info in the manuals? I think so.. That PDF handbook has several errors in it.
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Absolutely. Its not like I is caring how they put their sentences together innit.

 
"Also crushing does not tend to degrade.."

That was poorly worded.

Anthing that increases the step size in a file degrades, reducing step size does not

Increasting contrast, by crushing the tow of the curve increases step size and degrades

I meant desaturating does not degrade, and crushing (by darkening the whole image) does not add noise or degrade

S
 
I dont want to make any points. I want to shoot!

Frankly Im excited that my £4k camera, now has; clean 1080, S35, nice skin tones, no dodgy highlights, minimal banding, almost works in the sun, works in the dark , puts out a great image to my monitor, has onboard sound with XLR and is small and light and even offers 60p at 1080

Its a weight off my shoulders.. now onto getting that footage onto screen with some control.. bye bye FCP

:)
 
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Apparently Nirv lives in a world unfamiliar to us. I asked three QUITE experienced colorists today what "knee" is and they looked like I was speaking another language. Also, if you think dinking around with color settings on the 700, exceeds the advantages of shooting raw, you've apparently missed a HUGE revolution in the industry. I shoot with both, and realize that they both have a place. However, I'll take files with more color-space/bit-depth in them ANY day to dialing up compromises on the camera!
 
Thats what I always found weird about the F35 - pages of sony gumph about all the different looks you could bake in

I was sitting with my D3 stills camera and Capture One scratching my head at all that documentation thinking - why?

S
 
Yes, indeed. I was avoiding drinking the Red Koolaid for a long time. Once I started playing with it, I understood. *HOWEVER* there are times that I can't make the commitment to the post. I also REALLY love my F3, and it's near-noiseless image. I got a 700 for high-frame rates. They all have strengths and weaknesses. I shot F3 and 700 for B-cam the other day--both to 10-bit ProRes files. They both ROCK and match really well and post is a snap! :Drogar-Smoke(DBG):
 
LeavingTheCandy said:
Apparently Nirv lives in a world unfamiliar to us. I asked three QUITE experienced colorists today what "knee" is and they looked like I was speaking another language. Also, if you think dinking around with color settings on the 700, exceeds the advantages of shooting raw, you've apparently missed a HUGE revolution in the industry. I shoot with both, and realize that they both have a place. However, I'll take files with more color-space/bit-depth in them ANY day to dialing up compromises on the camera!
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Frankly, I don't know any COLOURISTS that wouldn't know what a knee is.

Who said anything about setting up a FS100 could compare with shooting RAW? You, like double_barrel, like to construct a whole different discussion in your head to fit some preconceived notion.
 
Really language doesnt matter, coming from stills I dont know any cine language,

As far as I can tell..
grade = retouch
knee = flatten the top of the curve
gamma = preset curve to match to a monitor

who cares..
 
Shooting SLOG or REDRaw doesn't absolve the camera operator from tweaking camera settings for the best possible image.
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I was speaking specifically about gamma and color. Your quote suggests or insinuates that one must deal with cryptic settings on other cameras as you do with the Sony. I can assure you that there's no such thing on the Red (or Alexa, etc.).
 
LeavingTheCandy said:
Apparently Nirv lives in a world unfamiliar to us. I asked three QUITE experienced colorists today what "knee" is and they looked like I was speaking another language. Also, if you think dinking around with color settings on the 700, exceeds the advantages of shooting raw, you've apparently missed a HUGE revolution in the industry. I shoot with both, and realize that they both have a place. However, I'll take files with more color-space/bit-depth in them ANY day to dialing up compromises on the camera!
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I suspect that's to do with their backgrounds and experience. Anyone can call themselves a colourist these days, there are no qualifications. As we know, this kind of language is from the days of film and any *experienced* colourist would totally understand these concepts, film background or not. How someone could grade without understanding what they're getting and how it's been captured beggars belief. Unless of course terminology is different (but i'm pretty sure it's not). Just because someone knows how to use resolve does not a colourist make - an innate understanding of light, tone and how it's captured is essential in understanding and being able to enhance the intent of an image. Dicking around with some sliders to crush black does not count.

Also remember that the majority of cameras, even in sony broadcast, are heading to people and pipelines where there is no post because of time, cost or circumstance. So PP are a requirement to help create a look in camera.

The idea of a RAW only camera is quite new and down to Red, but you won't see many reds in a war zone for example. (not least because it would probably be mistaken for a rocket launcher)

cheers
paul
 
it was only when I got into video that I started not shooting raw!

Since the (4k) KodakSLRn in 2004 anyway which was my third digicam and the first to buffer a few frames..

As for delivering to fast deadline in stills we shoot raw and jpg..

I suspicious of video colourists taking on raw and suggesting they know what they are doing - 99% are total newbs from the perspective of nine years of doing it daily

You can tell the misundersatding of raw in vid world by the amount of XXXXs who buy an alexa and shoot prores .. IMO

S
 
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Knee is a term that I saw first in ENG broadcast cams.

A colorist would probably say shoulder, but most of them would also understand knee.

Frank
 
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