GH2 - Graded City

Uwe Lansing

Uwe Lansing

Veteran
Just a few shots I made in town the last 3 days. I wanted to become more familiar with the grading behavior of the mts-files. The shadows and midtones hold up pretty well but the highlights you have to handle very carefully - otherwise the codec breaks quite fast and heavily... All grading was done in Premiere Pro CS5 with Colorista II (the last night-shot got no grading). About 40% handheld (stabilized in post)...

Kit Lens 14-140
1080p24 + 720p50 mixed
Fader ND for the shots in sunshine


http://www.vimeo.com/19351825
 
UWE,

Very, very nice. Moody. Portrays very well a northern European industrial city. As someone mentioned on Vimeo, nice "filmic" feel. The only dislocation was at 1.50 where you have some strong color come in. But the figure with the bicycle, a silhouette moving across the archway is precious.

And is that just cropping in post? Would love to see a downloadable version. And the music?

Anyway, well done.
 
Thank you stoneinapond! Yes, I just cropped the stuff in post in a 2.35:1 project. The funny thing is, the shot at 1:50 is the only one that got no grading. There is such a strong blue light under the bridge in reality. The music is by Hans Zimmer...
 
Looks good! I read on vimeo that you underexposed for a majority of the shots...but I was wondering which film mode you used? Not sure if nostalgic or smooth would be best for going for the most flat setting.
 
Thanks Owl. I used "nostalgic" for all shots - its now my favorite film mode. It preserves the most shadow details and I like the warmer colors...
 
After looking at all your comparisons of cinema to nostalgic I notice a halo that is usually found from oversharping in all the nostalgic ones, where is your sharping set? Probably wouldn't have stood out without the side by side, I agree that I like the nostalgic look but that halo thing sort of bugs me. It is really evident in real life 2 around the buildings and fences. Didn't notice it in Graded City.
 
royfel said:
... but that halo thing sort of bugs me. It is really evident in real life 2 around the buildings and fences. Didn't notice it in Graded City.
Click to expand...

Royfel, don´t worry about this slight halo thing in the second comparison: http://www.vimeo.com/18997478. It was most likely my fault in post. I didn´t pay much attention to it because my main focus was to try matching this more dramatic look of the sky and clouds. I don´t know what happened there - I´ve already deleted that project. But as you said, in the "Graded City" you don´t see it. So, that´s the best evidence, that it has nothing to do with the nostalgic film mode itself...
 
Very nice Uwe. Can you tell me which fader ND you used? The one I bought terribly degraded the image. Also, did you remove some yellow in Post? I also find Nostalgic mode gives me the greatest shadow detail, but I mostly end up using smooth rather than dealing with the yellow cast of Nostalgic.
Thanks,
Bill
 
Thanks Bill!

billh said:
...Can you tell me which fader ND you used? ... Also, did you remove some yellow in Post? ...
Click to expand...

Its a quite cheap 67mm chinese unit from "HL-Optics" (with step-up ring). I bought this one around 18 months ago on ebay. I suppose it reacts similar to the LCW. Its definitely not one of the bests because it soften the image somewhat with longer lenses and you get a slight brownish color shift. The latter problem is easy to fix in post - same thing with the slight yellow color cast when using nostalgic...
 
Uwe Lansing said:
Thanks Bill!



Its a quite cheap 67mm chinese unit from "HL-Optics" (with step-up ring). I bought this one around 18 months ago on ebay. I suppose it reacts similar to the LCW. Its definitely not one of the bests because it soften the image somewhat with longer lenses and you get a slight brownish color shift. The latter problem is easy to fix in post - same thing with the slight yellow color cast when using nostalgic...
Click to expand...

Thanks Uwe. I checked it again today at 100mm (using the 100-300) with the variable ND set on the minimum setting, and the image degradation is very evident. I love this little camera, and the ECT mode, but the lack of ND filters really is an issue with it.

Bill
 
billh said:
...I love this little camera, and the ECT mode, but the lack of ND filters really is an issue with it.
...
Click to expand...

I agree. I love this camera too and a build-in ND filtering would be amazing. The AF100 has it but its around 6x more expensive. Perhaps a GH3 will offer it...
 
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