manjeet singh
Active member
Barry, Would cine-D and use of zebra solve the problem to an extent? Cine D would give flat colors and zebra will take care of highlights 
Highlight Clipping Seems to be the Main Concern
- Thread starter powervideo
- Start date
- Status
Green Hornet
Veteran
Barry, Would cine-D and use of zebra solve the problem to an extent? Cine D would give flat colors and zebra will take care of highlights
For me, Cine D is only good for inside shooting.
It seems to make highlights glow yellow when shooting outside.
I found this document that explains gamma curves for HMC150. I am guessing the AF100 will have similar gamma curves?
-X
PaPa
Major Contributor
Jan, my concern is buying a 3rd party adapter to allow 35mm primes to go on a 4/3rds mount might throw off the flange ever so slightly that the lens readings will be absolutely useless. I am slightly surprised that such a fantastic camera lacks such a basic feature. Not a flame, just disappointed. Even a digital zoom on the lcd would be a great aid. I don't imagine, with what knowledge of computers I have, that this would require a huge consumption of cpu power, especially when the processor isn't recording but in stand-by. Mind you, i've never built a camera either, so I am just slightly puzzled. Seems either like it's been purposely not added for a future camera to be presented. But that's just speculation, I have no relationship with panasonic to verify such a silly claim.
Forget doing a zoom on the chip, but just getting a digital magnification of what's on the LCD screen would use little effort on the side of the cpu. Literally magnifying what's already there, not having to crop a sensor and then display a magnification of that.
Last edited:
Rick Burnett
Section Moderator
I feel like the engineers didn't spend any time shooting on DSLR video cameras to find out the *good* aspects of what they provide, and only focusing on bringing together a large sensor with what older video cameras had in terms of usability. This makes the second aspect of the AF100 that I know I'll have to work around that I've grown fond of on my 7D. Granted, what is possible on the 7D is not possible on the AF100 because when you zoom in, it's actually using a crop of the sensor. This is easy to verify because you get no moire/aliasing in the image when you zoom in on 1080p, but when you record, you definitely can, and I have tested this personally. What instead might be better implemented is a 1:1 zoom, which shouldn't be processor intensive. While not as nice as the 10x, going to 10x is just not going to be as super useful since we are using a proper OLPF on the AF100, unless we also used some sort of sharpening mode.
It would even be nice if the zoom could stay during record as well which you cannot do with the Canon's and would be nice.
Given the LCD screen is the same as the 5D from what I believe I read, without at least a 1:1 the more I think about it, the more of a pain it's going to be. Using these other focus modes are fine, but lets be realistic, they are VERY distracting to the scene when you are trying to watch and make sure EVERYTHING is looking good.
So, my wish list is now upgraded to the following:
#1 - Digital Zoom for critical focus (at minimum 1:1)
#2 - All ISO settings available easily from a dial, and not having to just pick 3 and use a three way switch for them.
#3 - Remote manual focus control through the port on the back, and not just Iris.
It would even be nice if the zoom could stay during record as well which you cannot do with the Canon's and would be nice.
Given the LCD screen is the same as the 5D from what I believe I read, without at least a 1:1 the more I think about it, the more of a pain it's going to be. Using these other focus modes are fine, but lets be realistic, they are VERY distracting to the scene when you are trying to watch and make sure EVERYTHING is looking good.
So, my wish list is now upgraded to the following:
#1 - Digital Zoom for critical focus (at minimum 1:1)
#2 - All ISO settings available easily from a dial, and not having to just pick 3 and use a three way switch for them.
#3 - Remote manual focus control through the port on the back, and not just Iris.
Barry_Green
Moderator
Well, the problem is that lenses like Nikons are still-camera lenses, and their focus markings are only vague ballparks, not precisely-calibrated measured distances. Even if you had a perfectly-calibrated flange distance, the Nikon (or Canon or Zeiss ZF or Pentax or Olympus or whatever) lens is not designed for precision focusing at a measured distance.
On cinema lenses there are "witness marks" -- line up the two lines, and you'll have exact focus distances. On the SLR lenses (and on the non-pro Red lenses or DigiOptics lenses) there are no witness marks, so there's no way to know when you're at an exact focus distance. And the reason there aren't any witness marks isn't because they were too lazy to paint a little line on there; it's because the mechanicals in the lens aren't accurate enough to guarantee precision focus at those points.
So -- the focus hook is very useful for use with cinema lenses that have proper witness marks. But it will be of only vague "ballpark" use with lenses that aren't equally engineered to the same precision to where you're guaranteed of exact focus.
The part I want to test is the feedback on the native m43 lenses, because they give feedback down to the foot -- feedback that's about as precise as a witness mark. So -- are they accurate? Testing my Lumix lenses (7-14, 20mm, and 14-140) in Japan, each one of them gave highly precise focus distance displays on the LCD panel. How accurate are those distances? If they're accurate... that's pretty darn cool. (and I don't expect them to be highly accurate; my 20mm Lumix lens cost $330, and my 21mm Compact Prime costs $3900, so ... I expect precise accuracy from one, whereas I don't really expect it from the other). But how cool would it be if it were totally accurate? Stay tuned, I'll try to find out.
Barry_Green
Moderator
The focus-in-red is assigned to a user button, so you turn it on or off with that button. There are three to choose from. The EVF DTL has its own button. The focus bar is enabled or disabled in the camera menus. But really, it's so tiny, it doesn't hurt to just leave it on.
There are seven gammas, the same as have been used in the Panasonic cameras since the DVX100A. They will be explained, graphed, and photos demonstrated in the forthcoming "The AF100 Book".
For five of the gammas, knee control is by a four-option menu; you can set the knee attenuation to auto, or 80 IRE, or 90 IRE, or 100 IRE.
For two of the gammas, no knee control. The cine-D and cine-V gammas don't offer a knee, they just are what they are.
There's also three levels of Dynamic Range Stretching, all of which exert substantial influence on the highlights to rein them in.
Would be awesome, yes, but not available on this unit.S-log or similar could be awesome but can you expect this from camera priced like this...?
Barry_Green
Moderator
Absolutely. I just went outside my hard-and-fast rules. If you set your zebras on 100% and used cine-D, and NEVER let the zebras show, you'd have perfectly smooth nice highlights.Barry, Would cine-D and use of zebra solve the problem to an extent? Cine D would give flat colors and zebra will take care of highlights
Barry_Green
Moderator
I believe that's because there's no rolloff whatsoever in cine-D. And I think outside the blue channel clips sooner than the others do. That leaves red and green (which, together, make yellow). So when the blue clips, it's underrepresented in the resultant stream, so the higher the highlights go, the more proportionally the red and green are represented, which makes things go yellow.
The key then is to never let anything clip when using cine-D. Or cine-V. Although it's easier with cine-V, because while there's no knee, there is a more gradual rolloff that helps things from changing color.
D10S
Well-known member
I have noticed the same issue shooting with Cine D outdoors. Besides not having any blown out highlights what is the best way to avoid this "look"?
Barry_Green
Moderator
What good would that do though? Magnifying the LCD's display, whether digitally or optically, wouldn't really let you see any finer detail... I'm sure they could do such a digital zoom if we asked them, but I don't see how that would benefit in focusing?
Barry_Green
Moderator
Don't use cine-D.
That's not flippant, that's the only answer. By the very nature of cine-D, there is no rolloff protection whatsoever. It is incumbent upon the shooter to avoid overexposure. If you overexpose, you'll get colored highlights. That's the tradeoff. If you don't want that, if you want the ability to overexpose, then cine-D is not the gamma to use.
Barry_Green
Moderator
Well, I can solve one of your items -- there is a remote manual focus port on the back, and it does work with an electronic-focusing lens. Obviously it can't work with a fully-manual lens, but if your lens has autofocus capability, the port works. At least, with the Lumix lenses.
As for #1 -- you say "digital zoom" but ... is that what you really mean? Don't you mean you want a sensor crop mode? That's what I'd want.
D10S
Well-known member
Thanks Barry, I understand (now) not to use the Cine-D or even Cine-V to avoid this. But what gamma setting(s) would you recommend?
Barry_Green
Moderator
I never even entertained asking them for that. I would think that's of little to no value, but since both you and grimepoch have said "digital", let me ask again so I clearly understand -- you're asking for not a pixel-for-pixel scan of the sensor, but instead you're asking for a simple digital magnification of the image?
Actually, I guess I can see some benefit in that, it'd be the digital equivalent of a Z-Finder, and people seem to like those plenty well enough.
I'll ask them, although it's getting pretty late in the game for such a feature to be added.
PaPa
Major Contributor
exactly, that's all i was getting, because I can understand the alternative of using a sensor crop magnification to bring it more problems than anything if it's a cpu issue.
But even just taking the image that's displayed on the lcd and magnifying that image, even though it wouldn't be that that clean, it would still let us see further into the image for fine tuning of focus. Of course it would be useful.
Jan_Crittenden
Veteran
But Cine-V is not the culprit. When I set up cameras for a show, I use Cine-V all the time. I like the gamma setting. But would that be the one I would use for filmmaking. Maybe not. For where I want a cine feel yet not be so vigilant on the highlight overload, yes.
Hope that helps,
Jan
Barry and to add, its the same process thats used on the BTLH80.
Pixel-to-Pixel 2.4X function
EDIT: Could it even be something they add in a firmware update if its already too late?
Pixel-to-Pixel 2.4X function
EDIT: Could it even be something they add in a firmware update if its already too late?
PaPa
Major Contributor
it really seems like something that could be added with relative ease. The only reason i might think they wouldn't add it is because it would require it's own button...
but man, it's soo necessary to have that type of a feature. Don't make us wait for the next model please Jan!
but man, it's soo necessary to have that type of a feature. Don't make us wait for the next model please Jan!
- Status