Getting the best out of D800: hypotheses/tips for your consideration

[stokstad]

Hello!

Im just curious about what settings you dial in when working with the D800, now that its been out for quite a while. I have been shooting a lot of unpredictable documentary footage and found out the hard way what did not work in some cases. Since it is a limited 8-bit file you get it can be really frustrating trying to grade a shot that was not shot in an optimal way.



This is some hypotheses/tips I have for getting the best picture with the D800:



1. ISO 400 is the the sweet spot for rendering blacks while maintaining low noise. Under 400 ISO i can see alot of banding in the dark areas with the flatter profiles (flaat, neutral).

2. ISO 800 is the maximum value for shooting with flaat profiles and consequently not having a lot of colour noise.

3. ISO 1600 is unpredictable, rendering alot of noise in some scenes while being relatively clean in some brighter scenes. It will be alot harder to grade in any scene though since the picture seems to brake down much faster.

4. The flaat profile is good for skin colours but seems to be acting strangely on my d800 in regards to blacks and whites. It does not clip in either the darkest or brightest part of the histogram.

5. The neutral picture profile could be better for lowlight shooting since it seems to render less colour in the noise, thus in my eyes looking less distracting. It is rendering skin tones rather bleak though.

6. Flaat 10 seems to render colours more extreme than flaat 11, even when dialing down saturation. At the same time it seems to work better in low light.

7. Vintage, manual nikon glass greatly reduces moire patterns from my experience (objective), rendering beautiful sharp pictures but with a nice film, softer, low contrast feeling. (subjective)

8. Volume levels are to be set to manual and not higher than about 8. The audio seems rather noisefree at level 5 but work pretty well at 8 if its not a very quiet setting. This is refering to using an external microphone without extra gain-settings.

9. The DX-mode is slightly worse in IQ but still works pretty good and can be usefull.

10. 720/60p is really not very good, getting alot more moire and alaising. It can work OK with short DOF and non-complex pictures.

11. 1080 24p seems to render better IQ than 30p. (less images on the same compression might explain that)

12. You can set the dial-middle-button to fast zoom for focusing while not shooting, I like it on the least zooming setting so that the framerate is maintained.

13. You can set the AE-L button to switch to still settings if you want to take a quick still.

14. U can set the Fn button and the one above that on the cameras front to quietly change the aperture while not shooting. But this works when doing hdmi-out so if you shoot that way it could be great.

15. Try to expose as bright as possible without clipping. This camera exhibits less noise that way and you can dial down the exposure in post. (not really sure about always using this method).

16. Get Neat Video. It will help to take away compression artifacts and get you alot more headroom for grading your footage. Try shooting a varied scene in the different ISOs and use that material for building a profile for Neat Video in each ISO-step (or the ones you use). I think that WB can affect this so it would not be optimal for every shot but it helps alot when grading because the noise gets worse when you pull colours.

17. Get some film grain to apply after neat video. It will hide alot of video-uglyness!




I would love to get some comments on this and hear if someone else is doing things differently. Im also very unsure right now if using the flaat profile is a good idea since it is not clipping on the histogram. Also not sure whats best in low light conditions: to shoot flat and darken the image or shoot more contrasty and not get the noise baked in. Also very curious about how good the HDMI-out prores footage is, especially rendering motion without compression and how much more colour you really get.

 

[stokstad]

After some tests with different ISOs it seems that flaat 11 actually seems better in lowlight (ISO 1600) since you pull down the blacks so much, taking away alot of the noise. Still not sure about the white clipping though. Flaat 10 could be even better but the colours does not seem to be as good in my eyes.

 

[wuffer]

Hello!

I have been shooting a lot of unpredictable documentary footage and found out the hard way what did not work in some cases.

me too.
but as I'm a noob/idiot, I skipped a lot of serious tests, which I regret now, as I thought naively I just could rely on my experiences with shooting and editing jpeg's...

3. ISO 1600 is unpredictable, rendering alot of noise in some scenes while being relatively clean in some brighter scenes. It will be alot harder to grade in any scene though since the picture seems to brake down much faster.

> 800 only in emergency and/or very controlled and tested light situations, I agree. I prefer to adjust shutter speed and fast glass (yes, ISO 1600+ can look unbelievable horrible, really 'sh1tty²')
Looks like the D5200 is the better tool here.
By the way - are you sure with the 400 ISO sweetspot?? That would simply mean... I wasted a year of footage, fighting with noisy shadows?! Time for tests now!^^

picture profiles

Maybe it's just me, but I would like to avoid excessive grading because it's so timeconsuming. When filming landscapes, I would rather wait half an hour (read: half the day^^) for the right light, the magic moment, than try to rescue something.
Coming from photography all this grading tools feels very dump comparing with photoshopping 16 bit tiffs. :-| So I would always try to achieve the best look in the cam, leaving only a slight graduation, selective saturation control, de-noising, WB-photofilter, vignette, local desaturating and sharpening for pp - that's more than enough for me!

Standard is 'portrait', sharpening 0, contrast and satuation depending on the available light. (Has anybody ever restored footage from a very foggy day with a very flat profile? It's not a rhetorical question! I failed!)
I'm in doubt with 'brightness', while I like the darker midtones (-1) very much, they may easily add shadow noise. So I let 'em at 0 and fix it in post.

7. Vintage, manual nikon glass greatly reduces moire patterns from my experience (objective), rendering beautiful sharp pictures but with a nice film, softer, low contrast feeling. (subjective)

+ 1
the same for some of the first AF-Versions, too. About the low contrast I'm not that sure, my older glass has a bit more microcontrast as newer AF-G versions, which seemed to built for sharpness (and forum-tests^^). Have a closer look at the 55mm micro nikkors, they are superb IMHO.

8. Volume levels are to be set to manual and not higher than about 8. The audio seems rather noisefree at level 5 but work pretty well at 8 if its not a very quiet setting. This is refering to using an external microphone without extra gain-settings.

Which micros did you use? My sweetspot is around 11-14, up to 17. I need always a reserve for some unexspected but great o-tones near the micro.

9. The DX-mode is slightly worse in IQ but still works pretty good and can be usefull.

that's a tricky one. While sometimes indeed useful, on other circumstances it's really soft like sh1t. You need absolutely top notch lenses in their best apertures to achieve keepers here. While it works with some optics quite acceptable, it is a pure waste with others (70-200 for example on the long end- or my trusty 20/2,8). I would really avoid it and better changing lenses, especially for landscapes(!)..

10. 720/60p is really not very good, getting alot more moire and alaising. It can work OK with short DOF and non-complex pictures.

to avoid, simple.

11. 1080 24p seems to render better IQ than 30p. (less images on the same compression might explain that)

yeah. Stopped shooting with 30p because I had the same feeling and went back to 25.

12. You can set the dial-middle-button to fast zoom for focusing while not shooting, I like it on the least zooming setting so that the framerate is maintained.

indeed, the magnifier is a great help. But what did you mean with "maintained framerate" ?

13. You can set the AE-L button to switch to still settings if you want to take a quick still.

hm, I had always a bit of trouble because the metering differs a bit for video and for stillshots. Maybe I should try this.

14. U can set the Fn button and the one above that on the cameras front to quietly change the aperture while not shooting. But this works when doing hdmi-out so if you shoot that way it could be great.

The sense of this eluded me to be honest. Maybe it's just because I came from (manuel) photography and used to change apertures with the reels and/or directly at the glass. Didn't know that it works while recording with hdmi, that would be great. But for my taste it's a bit too slow. I was suprised how great the noisy aperture clicks could be suppressed in the audio, so this is normally not a problem.

15. Try to expose as bright as possible without clipping. This camera exhibits less noise that way and you can dial down the exposure in post. (not really sure about always using this method).

I have my doubts, too.
The live diagramm is not always telling you the truth about the red channel, I'm afraid.
* just checked it: it's only the GREEN channel *

so don't rely on the LV histogramm alone, especially when shooting people in very warm evening light - your skintones will badly burn and clip.
custom WB as often as possible (sadly don't work when programming the shutter for taking movies, only Nikon knows why)

But the biggest concern for me at the moment is the UI of AE and the lousy codec of course. ETTR is so simple and quick with PS, but trying to achieve the same with AE is like paying piano with boxing gloves...
I hate all this video codec colour correcting passionately^^ as nearly all my free time get adsorbed with arranging the shots, finding the right locations etc. and of course the cut itself. So I sacrify the last bit of DR and IQ happily at the moment.

Also not sure whats best in low light conditions: to shoot flat and darken the image or shoot more contrasty and not get the noise baked in. Also very curious about how good the HDMI-out prores footage is, especially rendering motion without compression and how much more colour you really get.

there is a polish photographer around at youtube with an interesting d5200/d800 video-comparison: He preferes to enhance the contrast with a custom picture curve and by clipping the very dark parts he achieve some astonishing clean high ISO shoots.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gB-Edxfo8I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWptd3joLrc with pic styles for the D5200; maybe worth a trial with the D800?

But to be honest, as I ‚lost’ my second D800 to my GF, I think about a D5200 or G6 for High Isos.

 

[Samuel H]

Thanks to you both for posting these very detailed thoughts


Regarding color with Flaat profiles:
All Flaat profiles share exactly the same color palette, the only difference between them is a curve. But it's not an RGB curve, it's a luma curve, and that affects the distribution of saturation across tones when you grade them to a similar final result. You can solve this by using luma curves in post, but I hardly ever feel the need for that.

 

[stokstad]

I have my doubts, too.
The live diagramm is not always telling you the truth about the red channel, I'm afraid.
* just checked it: it's only the GREEN channel *

I did not know that! That can be really useful to keep in mind.


As for the grading and correcting, im using colorista II inside of premiere right now and its a great app for making the process quicker. I agree with keeping the grading minimal and that has really dawned on me trying to make some iso 1600 shots shot in autoWB look good. Its hard.

there is a polish photographer around at youtube with an interesting d5200/d800 video-comparison: He preferes to enhance the contrast with a custom picture curve and by clipping the very dark parts he achieve some astonishing clean high ISO shoots
*

The first one shows what I have seen on iso 100 for the d800. The blacks get really colourful when pulled or when dark enough! Thats what iso 400 fix by introducing some fine noise.

That looks really clean. I wonder if he used neat video or if the D5200 is a lowlight beast
I downloaded the picture profiles he used and will try them for the D800.

Standard is 'portrait', sharpening 0, contrast and satuation depending on the available light. (Has anybody ever restored footage from a very foggy day with a very flat profile? It's [/COLOR]not a rhetorical question! I failed!)

I havent tried portrait very much. Thanks for the tip.

 

[stokstad]

Seems to me that the Picture profiles he used is quite similar to the portrait profiles, but he has put sharpness on 8 (!) and adjusted the black levels a bit. It does not make the d800 much better but iso 1600 seemed more usable than on a flat profile.

 

[Samuel H]

(Yes, you have tried Portrait. Flaat is Portrait with a different luma curve)

 

[stokstad]

(Yes, you have tried Portrait. Flaat is Portrait with a different luma curve)

Yes I was aware of that

But since contrast (luma curve) is locked on the flaat profile I haven't really tested how the portrait profile responds to changing those values after situation.

Would you consider making a lowlight-tailored flaat profile by the way?

 

[Samuel H]

I've basically stopped Flaat development: picture profiles seem to be a thing of the past for most shooters. Or, at least, downloads and donations are way down (more clearly for Canon, but also for Nikon, and it started from a much lower level). Blackmagic and 5D3+RAW seem to be all the rage now, and they don't use picture styles. So I'm dedicating my spare time to other things...

 

[stokstad]

I've basically stopped Flaat development: picture profiles seem to be a thing of the past for most shooters. Or, at least, downloads and donations are way down (more clearly for Canon, but also for Nikon, and it started from a much lower level). Blackmagic and 5D3+RAW seem to be all the rage now, and they don't use picture styles. So I'm dedicating my spare time to other things...

Im sorry to hear that! Will probably end up devising my own profiles, but need some deeper understanding of color, channels and curves first. (time to read up!)

 

[wuffer]

Thx for sharing your thoughs, plse update your experiences.

The first one shows what I have seen on iso 100 for the d800. The blacks get really colourful when pulled or when dark enough! Thats what iso 400 fix by introducing some fine noise.

In photography, AFAIK the sensor handles 100-1600 (800?) internally, extra gain amplification is only added above 1600.
On this background, your sweetspot around ISO 400 IS logical ... allthough on the cost of a little less DR. Special curves for 1600 + would make a lot of sense.

That looks really clean. I wonder if he used neat video or if the D5200 is a lowlight beast

I think the clips are heavily denoised etc. and the light is low, but not that bad; I only added 'em to show the theoretical potential.


@ neutral vs. portrait pic style:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikon-d800-d800e/19

comparsion, 'neutral' has more DR, but enhances shadow noise (wish we had ADL in video)




Hi Samuel,
I'm sorry about hearing that too.
The only reason I skipped your interesting work was messing around with all other aspects of filming, like dramaturgy etc. Have around 3(!) TB of uncutten footage now

 

[Samuel H]

Well, don't be so sorry!
The profiles are quite good as they are already, if you ask me. And they seem to work just as well on every new camera they release. So there's not a lot to be done anyway.
Plus, other stuff will get done instead, and it will hopefully help filmmakers too

 

[stokstad]

In photography, AFAIK the sensor handles 100-1600 (800?) internally, extra gain amplification is only added above 1600.
On this background, your sweetspot around ISO 400 IS logical ... allthough on the cost of a little less DR. Special curves for 1600 + would make a lot of sense.

To clarify: ISO 400 is only needed when using flatter profiles. If you use a profile that does not lift shadows ISO 100 seems to render nice blacks (but with no information). Its seems like when you reach the DR input availible (either from picture profile or sensor, dont know which) its a bit higher in lower ISOs, but the information is ugly with colorful banding.

A practical conclusion from this is that if you need ISO 100 for other reasons than DR a profile with a little less DR in shadows might be good.


It seems that we agree on using different profiles for different light-situations. The only problem is matching colours, but that should be okay if you stick to portrait?

 

[stokstad]

Another thought: It seems that the hue often steer towards green/yellow, maybe one should adjust it towards red/magenta?

 

[wuffer]

Another thought: It seems that the hue often steer towards green/yellow, maybe one should adjust it towards red/magenta?

Theoretically, this could be fixed very easily. Either by shifting the WB a bit, or by making a custom WB on a slightly green 'greycard', for example a normal card with a 1/8 green Lee filter.
But, practically, I would prefer adjusting it in post with a simple photofilter because the red channel get so easily clipped. Beware of burnt skin tons.

 

[wuffer]

... on using different profiles for different light-situations. The only problem is matching colours, ...

yeah. Inserts (intermediate cuts/shots?) could help only sometimes.

Its seems like when you reach the DR input availible (either from picture profile or sensor, dont know which) its a bit higher in lower ISOs, but the information is ugly with colorful banding.

So, in conclusion, we are running in deep troubles for this last extra bit of DR. It's the sensor (I had this shadow noise with all profiles and you will find it in allmost every untreated footage available)
So, in practical, the sensor is not really that captable...

But is it really a problem?
First, you could fix it a bit: In scenes with a lot of detail is it often not that destructive, while large areas (eg dark clothes) could be easily adjusted with a curve or denoised.

Second, there are much more important aspects in filmmaking, especially as a one-man-band...

Think about the output devices: Most of the viewers will look your film on a cheap LCD-screen anyway...
I always thought about an anecdote of Phil Collins: After mixing his songs in studio, he put the tape in a sh1tty car radio and listening while driving on highways - it must be acceptable under exactly the worst conditions.

 

[Samuel H]

It's not the sensor. It's the in-camera image processing, that cuts a lot of corners in order to run real-time at video frame rates. You can take a JPG still with one of those crazy profiles that give you lots of noise, and you'll be amazed at how clean the shadows are.
But the conclusion is the same: there's only so much you can do by playing with picture controls, because you can't get rid of the image processing step that's killing the DR.

 

[stokstad]

It's not the sensor. It's the in-camera image processing, that cuts a lot of corners in order to run real-time at video frame rates. You can take a JPG still with one of those crazy profiles that give you lots of noise, and you'll be amazed at how clean the shadows are.
But the conclusion is the same: there's only so much you can do by playing with picture controls, because you can't get rid of the image processing step that's killing the DR.

Yes, and the practical knowledge from this seems to be that:

1) Shoot flat profiles between ISO 400-800

2) Below or above those ISOs shoot with something that crushes the blacks a tad bit more to prevent banding (below) or noise (above).


Of course: This only holds true if it goes in line with the overall look you want. But for my purposes I often don't have time to adjust/change profiles on the go, so I need a simple plan with maybe 2 or 3 matching ones that I can quickly scrub between with easy to remember/asses parameters.

 

[stokstad]

Theoretically, this could be fixed very easily. Either by shifting the WB a bit, or by making a custom WB on a slightly green 'greycard', for example a normal card with a 1/8 green Lee filter.
But, practically, I would prefer adjusting it in post with a simple photofilter because the red channel get so easily clipped. Beware of burnt skin tons.

After watching the first episodes of 24 Im not sure if I love or hate the digital greenish lowlight tint. Probably neither. Would there be anyway to apply a photofilter inside of premiere?

 

[wuffer]

After watching the first episodes of 24 Im not sure if I love or hate the digital greenish lowlight tint. Probably neither. Would there be anyway to apply a photofilter inside of premiere?

It's done quick 'n easily via After Effects, so you are still inside premiere.
Even better is the selective colourcorrection, for example you could concentrate the warm tint on the highlights alone and leave the shadows a bit cooler.


*edit*
I checked: you could do it directly in premiere!
which version you're using?