GH2 Film Grain

R

rszanto

Member
After spending several days tinkering around with my film grain scans, I decided to finally post some of my results:

http://www.vimeo.com/18197497

Everything you need to know is in the description, and I want to give another HUGE thanks to Emmanuel Pampuri for shooting such lovely footage.

As it stands now, the GH2 is BY FAR the best DSLR out there for achieving the "film" look.
 
very nice. Would you consider sharing your AE comp, minus footage? I'd like to play around with it myself with some high key footage.

Thanks

Max
 
I don't think I can directly share the comp because the film grain scans were purchased from here:

http://www.markushartel.com/blog/learn-from-markus/real-film-grain-files

It's just a single guy selling these, and it's a small price to pay for the quality of the files.

The techniques I'm using are all outlined here (http://cinema5d.com/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=8348&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=80), and for the most part, the process is pretty straight forward. The one thing I learned from my tests was that less truly is more, and that the heavier grain files (1600+) come off looking more like digital noise than grain.
 
Ok,

I have one file with a high resolution and it's possible to get different looks by just resizing it and save it as another file. You can also add blur if the grain is too distinct and of course adjust the opacity.

Edit: I just realized everything I said is written in the link you posted :-)
 
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A useful tip I found out by experience is to not just blur or sharpen the grain, but to apply it to the entire scene as an adjustment layer. That way the grain settles inside the actual footage, rather than on top of it like video noise would.
 
Wow, that stuff looks great.

One question though... Before you added the film grain, were you seeing any noise in the blacks like people have been with the AF-100? Or has the GH2 been clean so far?
 
There wasn't that much noise, but there was quite a bit of "mud" in the blacks. In other words, the blacks weren't really blacks, but instead, were various blotches of gray. The grain, alongside a little bit of levels correction, really smooths out the blacks and even though you lose a bit of shadow information, you gain a lot more in overall color rendition.

The same holds true for all of the test videos I've shot in black and white.
 
how did you scan the grain only? and did you add motion to it? Looks great!
 
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Hey guys,

Those who want some free HD film grain can get it at the link below.

It's the Christmas season and I am celebrating the birth of my baby girl. Ask and you will receive. Was inspired by this effort and made my own as I work in Vegas.

Loved what was done here and wanted to share it with the community.

Full HD 5 seconds of Real Film grain for the masses. Enjoy and hope it works in your projects.....Should be fully uploaded in about ten minutes.


http://www.henryolonga.net/Blog/?p=1338
 
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That file should work great. The only thing I would suggest is that you use a totally uncompressed .avi file rather than a Cineform conversion. Even though Cineform is an extremely lossless codec, it still doesn't capture the full extent of the grain. The only way to make up for it would be to sharpen the actual grain file, which would then result in larger grain chunks that look more like video noise than film grain. Going uncompressed adds a little bit of extra time for the render, but I think it's worth it.

Later today I'll try to upload my "Pi" tests. I've been pushing the GH2's black and white mode to its absolute limits, which makes for a pretty interesting look.
 
But the source file is derived from a jpeg not an uncompressed TIFF or RAW file so going uncompressed is overkill don't you think? On viewing it back I thought it did the trick unobtrusively enough to 'get it done' so to speak. Horses for courses.
 
I can't seem to get the file to work. When I drop into Premiere it just shows as audio only.
 
I like the initial results, but they still look a bit false. Film grain should be more apparent in the underexposed parts of the image than the rest. I'd play with the blending modes a bit more.
 
ok maybe I'm a bit daft but how do you guys get the grain to show well? I've been trying to blend tracks and other tricks but I can't seem to get it to look good.
 
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