FS7: Green and yellowish highlights are almost white

A

A7s_user

Active member
After my first use of a FS7 I have a dummy question. Of course I've booked watched Doug's tutorials before the first use, but do not know how to proceed today.

Yesterday I did film my first firworks (as always I only film fireworks displays) with the following settings:

All reset to start
Custom Mode (I prefer that over EI/slog, at least till now)
White Preset A with my on other cams (ie A7S) always successfully used temperatur for fireworks
Gamma HG8, later STD5
Black Level -3
White Clipping off
For matrix I've tried High Saturation, Cinema, Standard
Shutter off
UHD PAL 25p XAVC-I
AGC off
ISO2000
Detail off

For the first try all blue, violet colors and all reds seem to be fine (on camera screen), silver and white is perfectly crisp and not too blown out, gold is still bright (a liddle reddish, but this happens on the A7S too) - all is fine. So the iris with my nikon adapter seems to be well set (not fully open, maybe f2.8-f4, lense is f2.8)

But, the bright colors (at small stars the same as with big and extremly bright comets) like green and yellow are almost upto totally white. These stars burn a lot of metall powders like magnesium, as reds do. But with the bright colors green, yellow and the light pastel colors like salmon (metall burning too), the camera totally fails with my settings. A7S is much, much better - till now.

This evening I have an important and very big show here and I need urgent help please:

Which setting (other than slog, that would be too much try for today) could I change, to have much better bright colors? May I oversee any seeting, which cuts very bright highlights or some auto AGC adjustment?

Thanks a lot for any fast help within the next few hours.
 
Sounds like you don't want to hear it but If you want accurate colors I'd definitely not use any STD or HG curves or matrices other than an slog with an sgamut. If you need it to be edit ready and not need a LUT in post, you can turn the 709 type A LUT on for the internal recording.

If you are completely against slog or recording or post LUTs for some reason you probably need to test all the gamma and matrices to find one that works for you, they all seem to have problems with bright colors and rendering certain colors incorrectly in my experience... I generally avoid Sony STD gamma at all costs and avoid hypergamma/cinegammas whenever possible when I need the best image and especially the best color.
 
before I started filming fireworks I tested my cameras using point source lights such as colored LEDs. They simulate fairly well the challenges they will face filming fireworks. I was able to tweak my gamma and saturation settings and I got excellent results when I did the actual on-site recording.
 
Thank you both and especially Noah for the private hints.
Of course I would never rely on a brand new camera, never used before, at a job for a customer. This time I was waiting and hoping for my own FS7 till the very last moment and rented one as it not arrived, to be able to try it a big fireworks event with several displays, to check the settings and image for later jobs. But of course it would have been awesome not to loose all footage.

In the end I did not find any good solution in custom mode - so very bright, metal burning colors like green and yellow and pastel colors are just bad or better, not existant, with any Gamma and any Matrix. I tried EI mode and Slog3 too, but have to check that footage.
So, my own FS7 will hopefully arrive soon and I will check with my bright LEDs lights, as I always do. I cannot believe, that the FS7 fails that much, as the image and dynamic range from bright to lowlight gold, besides the greens and yellows, was great. I really think and hope, it was a mistake by me and there will be the perfect settings even for those bright colors.

I will tell...
 
You need to remember the FS7 is not a F65. It's a $8000 camera. Most of the time it's pretty darn good. But you will see times it's not so good and the limitations will show.
 
Yes, but A7S and of course even much better is my old EX1R (3CMOS). I really doubt the FS7 will fataly fail to reproduce very bright highlights, at least as "good" as the A7S. With a User Gamma or Slog3 it was slightly better.
If it fails, there is a brand new one for sale soon.
 
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nyvz said:
Sounds like you don't want to hear it but If you want accurate colors I'd definitely not use any STD or HG curves or matrices other than an slog with an sgamut. If you need it to be edit ready and not need a LUT in post, you can turn the 709 type A LUT on for the internal recording.

If you are completely against slog or recording or post LUTs for some reason you probably need to test all the gamma and matrices to find one that works for you, they all seem to have problems with bright colors and rendering certain colors incorrectly in my experience... I generally avoid Sony STD gamma at all costs and avoid hypergamma/cinegammas whenever possible when I need the best image and especially the best color.
Click to expand...

Noah,

You seem to have done a lot of testing of the various shooting modes. It'd be great if I could get you (and anyone else who wants to) give me your opinion on these test videos. Which clips do you like or dislike?

Password = LUT

Fruit: http://vimeo.com/123667983

House & Tree: http://vimeo.com/123668118

Raisin Box: http://vimeo.com/123637675
 
A7s_user said:
Thank you both and especially Noah for the private hints.
Of course I would never rely on a brand new camera, never used before, at a job for a customer. This time I was waiting and hoping for my own FS7 till the very last moment and rented one as it not arrived, to be able to try it a big fireworks event with several displays, to check the settings and image for later jobs. But of course it would have been awesome not to loose all footage.
.
Click to expand...


Because of the dark sky, many shooters tend to open 'er up and try to make dark into day, so it's no surprise that the images are 10 stops overexposed. Shoot fireworks like you're shooting the sun. ND2, F11 and you'll have no problems with highlights.


Ultimately, we need a three chip 4K camera soon. I never did much like Beyer sensors.
 
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Because of the dark sky, many shooters tend to open 'er up and try to make dark into day, so it's no surprise that the images are 10 stops overexposed. Shoot fireworks like you're shooting the sun. ND2, F11 and you'll have no problems with highlights.

Could well be that your issue is exposure rather than color. Those greens and yellows may be just plain brighter and therefore more likely to blow out, making them "white".
 
basspig said:
ND2, F11 and you'll have no problems with highlights.
Click to expand...
But you would cut off all structure and clouds of the night sky, any sparks and low light charcoal golds, anything, that makes the fireworks image live.

basspig said:
Ultimately, we need a three chip 4K camera soon.
Click to expand...
THAT's the point! I was so happy few days ago, when the first 2/3'' 3CMOS Sony sensor was announced. Probably too expensive for my needs but a sign, that Sony does develop 4K 3CMOS.
But till then I have to get the best out of the A7S and the FS7, and keep my EX1R to compare with the real colors...
 
mainstreetprod said:
Could well be that your issue is exposure rather than color. Those greens and yellows may be just plain brighter and therefore more likely to blow out, making them "white".
Click to expand...

They are a lot brighter because of its nature of the mixtures with high metal fuel within the stars and the bright colors (red is not that bright, but with metal fuel too, blues and violets are much cooler without metal fuel...). But A7S, not being really suitable with all its color to orange and cyan shifting problems, seem to do it better than the FS7 on my first try. But it was just a try, and I was hoping that I simply oversee something. When my own FS7 arrives, I will go very deep into it. If I find greens and yellows, I will share.
 
Doug Jensen said:
Noah,

You seem to have done a lot of testing of the various shooting modes. It'd be great if I could get you (and anyone else who wants to) give me your opinion on these test videos. Which clips do you like or dislike?

Password = LUT

Fruit: http://vimeo.com/123667983

House & Tree: http://vimeo.com/123668118

Raisin Box: http://vimeo.com/123637675
Click to expand...

The password doesnt seem to work. But if it's the same videos I as the one in your Looks vs MLUTs article, I consistently chose the 709TypeA look, which follows with all my previous experiences with the FS7 and other Sony cameras.

They all look pretty bad in the raisin box test, but a lot of them seem to have the problem with unrealistic looking overemphasized reds that is common in pretty much any matrix besides SGamut. Truthfully I almost chose A05 because the dull scene needed some punch but it was still a bit too over the top for me. The Fruit was an obvious one for me since the oversaturated yellow flame was a clear ugly sign of STD/HG gamma problems that come from the 1D gamma curve. And then the House & Tree was a bit more subtle as none of them looked quite bad or exhibited strong telltale artifacts of the other two samples but it was the subtle, softer contrast and smoother colors that drew me toward the TypeA look again, and I could tell I was choosing it because it appeared to have the most DR, where the white windows seemed very bright in most of STD/HG gammas but was a softer greyer white in the TypeA with clearly quite a bit more extra room in the highlights beyond it that didn't exist in the other ones. It probably helped that the 3rd party LUTs used weren't great looking, with the Oskar LUT being way too magenta and the Stopgrad LUT crushing the shadows way too much, if they weren't so objectionable I might not have spotted them next to the TypeA LUT since they also didn't have the normal artifacts that always give STD/HG gammas away.
 
Noah, thank you very much for the detailed analysis. To be honest, I don't agree with very much of your comments but I'm going to take a fresh look at the tests in a couple of days and really try to see what you are seeing. Thanks.
 
A7s_user said:
But you would cut off all structure and clouds of the night sky, any sparks and low light charcoal golds, anything, that makes the fireworks image live.


THAT's the point! I was so happy few days ago, when the first 2/3'' 3CMOS Sony sensor was announced. Probably too expensive for my needs but a sign, that Sony does develop 4K 3CMOS.
But till then I have to get the best out of the A7S and the FS7, and keep my EX1R to compare with the real colors...
Click to expand...


do you really think that it cuts off too much of the darker details? do a Google search on bass pig ultimate fireworks video and take a look at the letter part of the video. I shot this with 3 PMW ex3 and PMW ex1 cameras.the challenge with fireworks is that you're trying to compress something that has 20 or 30 f stops of dynamic range into a camera that has 10 f stops of dynamic range. I think it's important to protect the highlights because that's where the fireworks lives.
 
Yes, the strukture in the sky, the lit ground and audience by flash explosions, near buildings etc. is all part of the show, as well as all the low light golden charcoal sparks and effects. Just pure colored stars you could render in a 3D package, in my oppinion. I am a pyrotechnician and know, how the single mixtures/colors should look like. And I managed to get my wanted look with 3CCD/VX2100 and with 3CMOS/EX1 + EX1R. I do regulate aperture all the time during the shows, there is no way to get perfect gold the same time you have a bright silverwhite finale.

So, there is a dilemma:


  • the EX1R (and the new X200 as well as the expected X300) can have almost perfect natural fireworks colors with the correct settings, the 1/2'' sensor is just good enough for light gold, but the lense solutions are very bad at the wide end (even with converter) and its not UHD/4K.
  • the A7S with Odyssey is a UHD option, but the heavy shift of a lot of colors towards orange and cyan prohibits the use, if natural fireworks are expected. The big advantages are: because of its sensitivity it takes perfect skies, much better than the EX1R, there is no field of view problem whith the correct lenses - so its a 50:50 pro:cons
  • the FS7 may be a good option, I like the codec & recording options, the size of the cam, the e-mount, the battery solutions, its sensitivy (on the first look) and a lot more. For the colors I have to check more, but I am afraid, that highlight colors never will be a touch that natural & intense, as with a 3CMOS sensor.

So, I need a FS7 or X300 with e-mount + 50p UHD and a least 1/2'' 3CMOS sensor for under 10k $...
 
A7s_user said:
Yes, but A7S and of course even much better is my old EX1R (3CMOS). I really doubt the FS7 will fataly fail to reproduce very bright highlights, at least as "good" as the A7S. With a User Gamma or Slog3 it was slightly better.
If it fails, there is a brand new one for sale soon.
Click to expand...

3 Chip cameras will be always better in colour rendition, no matter what people say. The new Varicam HS is the latest 3 chip camera, but only HD and 2/3"...

As I tested the A7s beside my own FS7 I can tell you, that the overall colour rendition of the FS7 is far superiour.
There must be something wrong.
There are several LUTs that claim to desaturate highlights, so that can be part of your problem too.

You definitely should upload some seconds of your original footage, sothat we can understand exactly what's going on.
I hope you are going to use SLog or are you going with other gammas?
 
Doug Jensen said:
Noah, thank you very much for the detailed analysis. To be honest, I don't agree with very much of your comments but I'm going to take a fresh look at the tests in a couple of days and really try to see what you are seeing. Thanks.
Click to expand...

I guess I should comment in your other thread about this subject, but clearly it seems a lot of other people don't agree with me either from the votes that were cast. I may just be approaching from a different aesthetic standpoint than others as I am particularly sensitive and offended by the significant limitations of the Sony picture profile system which comes from a broadcast world that I will never fully understand where 1d gamma and a color matrix are the primary determinants of the image, and they seem more designed to fill an arbitrary image container than to capture useful scene information fully and faithfully. Simply the fact that most STD/HG gammas can't handle primary colored highlights and arbitrarily clip off highlight dynamic range is enough for me to avoid ever using them if I can avoid it. For me, it is simply a no-brainer to use the look/LUT system or shoot SLOG/Sgamut as it bypasses the whole legacy paint system and simply gives you colors and tones that look right from shadows to highlights without any yellow/cyan highlights or ugly knee points...
 
I would never say that the paint menus don't have limitations, but so do MLUTs. In fact, just the fact that you can't white balance with a LUT is a deal breaker right there for me. When I look at the overall look of all the LUTs I've seen vs. my own scene files, the LUTs lose by a significant margin to my eye -- even if the paint menus fall short in their own ways too. The bottom line is that the paint menus are the lesser of the two evils for a WYSIWG worklfow, in my opinion. Seriously, there is no way in hell I could deliver a baked-in LC709TypeA LUT and ever expect to be hired again, nor could I look the client in the eye when I did it.

http://www.vortexmedia.com/LUTS_VS_SCENE_FILES.html
 
Doug Jensen said:
The bottom line is that the paint menus are the lesser of the two evils for a WYSIWG worklfow, in my opinion. Seriously, there is no way in hell I could deliver a baked-in LC709TypeA LUT and ever expect to be hired again, nor could I look the client in the eye when I did it.
Click to expand...

Why do you think the TypeA LUT is so horrible? Do you mean because of the whitebalance limitation of only being able to choose from three presets, or are you referring to something else? Frankly I don't own an FS7 but nearly did buy one because recording LUTs seem like the killer-app. I didn't buy one and stuck with my FS700+7Q for a few reasons, partly for that and other odd limitations and bugs with the FS7 that may one day be fixed in future firmwares, but by then the the 7Q will probably already have recording LUT capabilities.
 
The problems with shooting fireworks with the EX1 is 4:2:0 color sampling and long GOP MPEG just doesn't do well with sharp saturated colors and lots of movement of high detail points of light. But using a HD-SDI recorder that can work with 4:2:2 color and near lossless compression looks much better.

There isn't presently any camera that can capture the higlights and the darker parts of fireworks (backgrounds) without blowing the highlights by 5-8 f-stops. I shoot just fireworks, not the people below. When Zambelli commissioned me to make the Ultimate Fireworks video, we shot from the launch site and I chose to focus on a shooting style not seen in fireworks videos: the ultra closeup. It looks more like something you see in Hubble telescope images than what we're accustomed to seeing from a mile away. But shooting that style enables the resolution limits of the camera to be less apparent.

I'm not thrilled with the fact that the FS7 is a single imager, but so far I 've been impressed with the color quality and lack of noise. Not so much with the A7S, which I was considering. It would not be a good choise for fireworks unless you crush black in post.

I think I managed to stretch reasonably good dynamic range out of the EX3, and with some post production tweaks, achieved a good image. Shooting with hot shrapnel falling on your head is a challenging situation though. I was lookup up and dodging hot sparks more than into the viewfinder during the grand finale.
 
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