811productions
Well-known member
Just was wondering if there were other settings out there that people liked that didn't require so much tweaking in post like smooth does....
Is anyone not using the smooth setting?
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thisisapocalypse
Well-known member
It does seem like smooth gives you the most robust image to work with in post, which can be tweaked to look fantastic - but it doesn't look so great out of the camera. If I were going to use anything else it would probably be standard mode.
I shoot with a slightly adjusted standard mode for the most part, images generally look good straight out of the camera. There was a thread months back, discussing an odd shift in the blue channel. I think the majority were finding this in most modes except Standard and Smooth generally.
For me personally, one of the wonderful things about digital cameras is how you can do so many adjustments to the image IN the camera.
I essentially produce 1-2 feature length "movies" ever WEEK. If digital camera technology is capable of reducing time spent "fixing" or "enhancing" the images in post-production, it is a blessing in my book.
The GH1 is somewhat limited in what you can adjust in-cam, versus some pro video cameras, but you can do quite a bit with it.
I know a lot of wedding photographers, and a lot of the newer ones have the attitude that they'll just shoot in "RAW", shoot as many pictures as they can possibly fire off in auto (they're often shooting 3000-5000+ pics at a wedding), without much regard for exposure and white balancing or in-camera color adjustments. Then they have to go home and adjust these THOUSANDS of pictures. For me, TIME IS MONEY....I'm in the business of making videos...not tweaking them.
Sure, doing a lot of in-cam tweaking means you might be somewhat "stuck" with that look afterwards, but when you're "stuck" with something that has the look you want, it just means you're finally learning how to use your camera. You have to get out and put some hours on it....try all the settings...tweak the adjustments...burn some BluRay's with the footage...and see how it looks in your living room...not what someone on an internet forum said is "best".
Lately I've been using the "Nostalgic" film mode a lot, just for grins. It doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room in post, but it doesn't need it...I like it just the way it is...with minor adjustments "in-cam".
Good luck!
I essentially produce 1-2 feature length "movies" ever WEEK. If digital camera technology is capable of reducing time spent "fixing" or "enhancing" the images in post-production, it is a blessing in my book.
The GH1 is somewhat limited in what you can adjust in-cam, versus some pro video cameras, but you can do quite a bit with it.
I know a lot of wedding photographers, and a lot of the newer ones have the attitude that they'll just shoot in "RAW", shoot as many pictures as they can possibly fire off in auto (they're often shooting 3000-5000+ pics at a wedding), without much regard for exposure and white balancing or in-camera color adjustments. Then they have to go home and adjust these THOUSANDS of pictures. For me, TIME IS MONEY....I'm in the business of making videos...not tweaking them.
Sure, doing a lot of in-cam tweaking means you might be somewhat "stuck" with that look afterwards, but when you're "stuck" with something that has the look you want, it just means you're finally learning how to use your camera. You have to get out and put some hours on it....try all the settings...tweak the adjustments...burn some BluRay's with the footage...and see how it looks in your living room...not what someone on an internet forum said is "best".
Lately I've been using the "Nostalgic" film mode a lot, just for grins. It doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room in post, but it doesn't need it...I like it just the way it is...with minor adjustments "in-cam".
Good luck!
thisisapocalypse
Well-known member
That's fair enough - but I think trying to get a picture in-camera so that it doesn't "need" post adjustment for output is a very tough thing to do well - we are very limited by the small LCD and all we've got to work with is the built in histogram and light meter - no scopes, no waveform, etc., and these things are really important if you are preparing your project for broadcast and/or a film festival - and you can blow things out if you try to do too much of what really should be a post production tweak rather than trying to do too much at the time of capture - if you go too far with sharpness, contrast, color saturation, etc. you can't necessarily come back down if things are too intense. While I understand that time is money, it doesn't take a huge amount of time to pull up the scopes in your NLE and adjust the image so that it looks great and you hang on to as much detail as possible - it's really not that difficult and I'd rather do that than risk blowing highlights, crushing my blacks, etc., in-camera where I can't get that detail back. Seems to me the way to get the best image is to use the histogram and make sure you've got what you want in terms of those levels across the grayscale spectrum, the light meter, and do the rest in post. If you're using the same exposure settings consistently you should be able to come up with settings that work for most of your footage pretty quick.
That said, we all have different jobs and different kinds of projects with different client expectations, etc., so if it works for you and your clients are happy - then my point is moot, I suppose.
That said, we all have different jobs and different kinds of projects with different client expectations, etc., so if it works for you and your clients are happy - then my point is moot, I suppose.
thisisapocalypse
Well-known member
Same here - it reminds me of watching outtakes on DVDs where it often looks like they are just using copies of dailies prior to color correction for those scenes, etc., and they just throw them on the disc and they look dreadful compared to the cut of the movie on the disk that has been given proper post production tweaks.
Well for me smooth was the choice until 2 days ago when I started looking through the film modes. Standard is fine, smooth is good for grading I suppose but since I don't usually colour correct, my new favourite is NOSTALGIC. After some time in nostalgic mode, smooth seems bluish. Nostalgic has a yellow/sepia tint that makes it warmer for my taste and I like it. It kind of seems more life-like, more real. I mean if I take a picture with nostalgic and with smooth, I think nostalgic looks closer to real colours...