F35: Make it more filmic

macgregor

macgregor

Veteran
We all know it. Film stock is capable of capturing a lof ot detail in the highlights, and struggles on the shadows, at least compared to digital.
So there you have cameras like the Red, which have tons of shadow details at their base ISO but they clip highlights very early.
The F35 with its film-like tone curve is pretty decent at this, right?

Anyway, we all know how good noise reduction is getting these days, and as Acky posted the other day, the F35 has a ton of info in the shadows that we normally don't use it.

So what if we use it?
Heck, lets shoot Slog, and rate the camera at 2000ISO. We'll get an extra 2stops of DR in the highlights, and a much more filmic tone curve (tons of highlights, less shadows), yeah baby!
Noisy footage? Of course! But Neat video can do magic and now that it can be integrated inside Davinci resolve, it's a super simple process. Best $100 ever spent! (disclaimer, they don't pay me anything to say this).



So if the F35 already had a very pleasing highlights rolloff, imagine how good it's going to be now with an extra 2 stops (or 3 if you're crazy) in the highlights.
I shot these tests on 10bit 422, I see no banding issues of course, but I'm sure 12bit 444 would be the best for this workflow, as most information gets concentrated in the lower part of the histogram.
 
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I think Kassim Norris summed up my experience/feeling/thoughts best. " Film creates and holds a separation between the characters and the audience. With digital you don't get that separation — digital places you in the world." I strongly agree, but the F35 combined with the right techniques/settings/technology certainly comes close to the magic of film for me. Just tried 2000 ISO with the 7q 12bit444dpx shooting through a vintage Cooke zoom. Wow! I think my incessant search for a satisfying image might finally be over...
 
mavs said:
I think Kassim Norris summed up my experience/feeling/thoughts best. " Film creates and holds a separation between the characters and the audience. With digital you don't get that separation — digital places you in the world." I strongly agree, but the F35 combined with the right techniques/settings/technology certainly comes close to the magic of film for me. Just tried 2000 ISO with the 7q 12bit444dpx shooting through a vintage Cooke zoom. Wow! I think my incessant search for a satisfying image might finally be over...
Click to expand...

Please share.
 
Just so I understand- you are physically setting the F35 iso to 2000 and not just pushing exposure in the grade to an equivalent? Interesting that there's more highlight latitude up in that ISO range.

Wondering what your neatvideo settings are in terms of temporal vs. spatial? Are you using a profile you built? Neatvideo works exceptionally well using that method- shooting a grey card or finding any neutral unpatterned block of color.

Time to get neat video v4 OFX for resolve... and some stronger NDs.

I'd be interested to know what the F35's built in NR does at iso2000 in conjunction with neatvideo. Instinct tells me just leave it off so you start with as much detail as possible to avoid the mush and let neatvideo do its thing.
 
trafficn said:
Just so I understand- you are physically setting the F35 iso to 2000 and not just pushing exposure in the grade to an equivalent? Interesting that there's more highlight latitude up in that ISO range.

Wondering what your neatvideo settings are in terms of temporal vs. spatial? Are you using a profile you built? Neatvideo works exceptionally well using that method- shooting a grey card or finding any neutral unpatterned block of color.

Time to get neat video v4 OFX for resolve... and some stronger NDs.

I'd be interested to know what the F35's built in NR does at iso2000 in conjunction with neatvideo. Instinct tells me just leave it off so you start with as much detail as possible to avoid the mush and let neatvideo do its thing.
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Nope, I'm doing the 2nd, what you call pushing exposure in the grade. WHy are you surprised that you get more range this way? You're trading shadows for highlights, this is how most cameras work, you could potentially do this with any camera that shoots log or raw.
I only use temporal NR. I should build a proper profile as you mentioned, I need a good printer to print the Neat video card though.
 
Copy that- hah I thought you were physically jacking up the ISO (never cranked it past 450 yet) which would have decreased the DR from its max 800% so was surprised this voodoo would shift the DR even farther into highlights. So are you doing this with a reverse S curve adjustment?

I forgot neat video has its own profile card- really any patternless mid grey will do better than going shot per shot as long as you feed it 4 or more frames to reference grain patterns from.
 
trafficn said:
Copy that- hah I thought you were physically jacking up the ISO (never cranked it past 450 yet) which would have decreased the DR from its max 800% so was surprised this voodoo would shift the DR even farther into highlights. So are you doing this with a reverse S curve adjustment?
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Uhmm I'm not sure about that, specially in CIne EI mode where ISO only affects monitor output but not the HDSDI outputs.
 
macgregor said:
Noisy footage? Of course! But Neat video can do magic and now that it can be integrated inside Davinci resolve, it's a super simple process. Best $100 ever spent!
Click to expand...

What you mean? Resolve studio support neatvideo for long now. Or you mean now you can use neatvideo in free resolve too? But neatvideo ofx is not $100. Is more like $250.
 
I'll be honest, I'm not really convinced. Nor do I really see what all the hype is with the F35. It produces pleasant images, but no more so in my opinion than an Alexa or Epic in the right hands. I guess cost is the factor there. But I don't see it as any more film-like.

I think there is something else psychologically going on with most of us these days, we forget what film looks like. Even modern film stocks tend to look more digital to me. Both a combinaton of the stock itself and the modern scanning technology/digital post production. I think that with so many modern films shot on newer film stock and digital cinema cameras, we've shifted what we perceive the film-look to be and are willing to accept something more digital looking as the film look.
I don't think there is anything wrong with that, but if we really want to find the film look we have to go back to older film stocks.

Show me a digital cinama camera that can produce images that look like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY6uw3WpPzY
 
Ahh, of course there's a link to a 50 year old movie :huh: With the right amount of carefully selected grain, add some flicker, dust and jitter, a competent AE artist could do a great job mimicking that.
 
SJX said:
F35 don't have iso 2000. :)
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Haha I've never shot it above 450 so I feel slightly ridiculous thinking it would crank that high

Mac, I've kept it in Cine-EI too- I figured in regular CINE or Custom mode when you navigate outside of native ISO the DR % might start to drop or become remapped as with other cams.

As with SJX I'm also mainly wondering what kind of adjustments you made in resolve and how you measured stops gained- perceived is certainly fine in this context but I know there's probably a more scientific method too.
 
Here's a couple war movies shot on the F35, not musicals though roxics. Zhang Yimou's cinematographer shot 4 movies on it and believed it was the best digital cinema camera in existence, he liked the look of it better than Red or Alexa. He could have used any other camera, even film. He also shot a Woman a Gun and Noodle Shop on it.
http://youtu.be/zgqpS_wi-J4
http://youtu.be/mGNmUDRGQVo
 
trafficn said:
Ahh, of course there's a link to a 50 year old movie :huh: With the right amount of carefully selected grain, add some flicker, dust and jitter, a competent AE artist could do a great job mimicking that.
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If a competent AE artist can make anything look like anything then why even start with an F35 specificially?
I don't believe the film look is just grain and flicker and a little color grading.
For reference, look at the film Hemingway and Gellhorn shot on Alexa, where they attempted to match digital to older film stock and it didn't come off very well.
https://youtu.be/bkfXS3HH3wE?t=3m10s
You could say "well they're just incompetent" but I don't believe so.


DarkMatter said:
Here's a couple war movies shot on the F35, not musicals though roxics. Zhang Yimou's cinematographer shot 4 movies on it and believed it was the best digital cinema camera in existence, he liked the look of it better than Red or Alexa. He could have used any other camera, even film. He also shot a Woman a Gun and Noodle Shop on it.
http://youtu.be/zgqpS_wi-J4
http://youtu.be/mGNmUDRGQVo
Click to expand...

I've seen The Flowers of War and it's a great film. Good choice to run with that one.
But again there is nothing about it in my opnion that makes the F35 a superior camera compared to others in its league. It produces a nice image and can definitely work to help suspend one's disbelief. But I can say the exact same thing about many films shot on Epic and Alexa.
I'm not talking crap about the F35, just saying it doesn't have the film-look any more than these other two digital cameras do.
 
roxics said:
It produces a nice image and can definitely work to help suspend one's disbelief. But I can say the exact same thing about many films shot on Epic and Alexa.
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You're automatically fired from life if you think the Epic and Alexa are even on the same page...
 
I was genuinely distracted from the other qualities of what makes SoM visuals what they are by the quality of the print. For me, some of the dirt, flicker and jitter that Criterion repairs can ruin or detract from the experience of watching an old film. I realize this is also psychological/preference. Or I should say its worth watching both the original and restored versions.
 
roxics said:
I've seen The Flowers of War and it's a great film. Good choice to run with that one.
But again there is nothing about it in my opnion that makes the F35 a superior camera compared to others in its league. It produces a nice image and can definitely work to help suspend one's disbelief. But I can say the exact same thing about many films shot on Epic and Alexa.
I'm not talking crap about the F35, just saying it doesn't have the film-look any more than these other two digital cameras do.
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You actually have to look for subtlety, not just in the image but the way the camera handles motion in particular as well as what it does with highlight and shadow. This is not matched with any other camera to date, and if you look for it, it's very noticible in contrast with Alexa or Red cameras which come off looking very 'videoey' and while F35 doesn't look exactly like film; it comes closer than any other camera thus far.
 
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