My Updated nLOG Picture Profile and FS700 Picture Profile Guide

nyvz

nyvz

Veteran
Just wrote a lengthy blog post going over my latest FS700 Picture Profile and going over my findings about the most important PP settings in depth:

Noah Yuan-Vogel presents "nLOG v1.2" and FS700 Picture Profile Guide
http://noahyv.com/v2/fs700-picture-profile-guide/

So far I've been very happy with these settings and with my FS700 in general with only a few small caveats, but let me know what you think!

EDIT (3/8/2013): Updated to v1.2
 
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Something worth noting is that I usually find the onboard FS700 lcd is great for some things, but generally it clips blacks a bit and boosts saturation (especially reds).
 
I agree, the LCD is not quite a good reference. It is definitely a stop to dark. Makes it hard sometimes to juge, I just look at my histogram. Still I have a tendency to overexpose because the LCD is so dark.

Anyhow, I tried the PP today in various conditions (shot all day outside) and went from sunny, to overcast, to low light. The rolloffs are very nice and finally no more of that green magenta-ish colours. I'm very pleased. Only thing I noticed was an increase in noise in the shadows and that at any given ISO. Maybe it's just because they aren't crushed as much (I set Black Levels at + 10) so once I bring them back down that noise may go away.

Thanks a lot for sharing your experimentations, I much appreciate it.
 
So after color correcting a few clips I see that the noise issue goes away when bringing my shadows back down to where they belong. I will probably lower the Black Level as I was always at around 10% or so, or maybe am I overexposing?

Oh and I am uploading a sample clip for you, probably not exactly the type you'd hope for as it's skateboarding, but I just started using the PP this morning and it's the only shot I got that I can share.
 
Here's the link in advance, as I may go to sleep before the upload is complete.

https://vimeo.com/49001051
Password: nlog

Example straight out of the card (transcoded to ProRes 422 LT with 5DtoRGB) and then with adjustement to shadows, mids, whites and saturation.

Oh and you can always download the original as I rendered it as 100% quality QT file instead of MP4 just to keep it as close as possible to the original version.
 
The password worked for me.

@Cory
There is a link near the end of the blog post to a video for which I was hired as DP with my FS700 and used all the preferred values in the nLOG PP. Here is a link as well: http://www.jest.com/video/198058/romney-gaffes

@Alex
Yeah to some extent black level may vary depending on your workflow. I always err on the side of safety and avoiding clipped black/white in post since I have been burned many times by that in post since editors are often aware of those issues and colorists are often not used for web content. That said, I'd say any black level between +5 and +10 are good options, for example when I'm shooting alongside DSLRs and dont want my black levels to look milky in comparison I'll use +5 or +7.

As for noise, I find there is very slight noise at ISO640 and it is very acceptable considering how much dynamic range the camera gives you, but I would say that for scenes/projects where you are regularly underexposing or going near/over ISO1600, the appearance of noise can be reduced quite a bit by using a BLACK GAMMA more in the range of -4 to +2. The tonal range visible at +7 is really worth it in my opinion if you are shooting lit scenes at lower ISOs, but for available light or night shooting lower values are probably a good idea.
 
Hey Noah! Just realised today that with your profile highlights can not go past 100% although we are using Cine4. Is that because of knee settings or what? Is there any way I can use that top 10% as protection with your profile? The way I transcode with 5DtoRGB automatically brings the 101 to 109 back to safe zone if I ever do get anything up there. Thanks for your help, loved your profile these past two days on a job too!
 
AlexBlais said:
Hey Noah! Just realised today that with your profile highlights can not go past 100% although we are using Cine4. Is that because of knee settings or what? Is there any way I can use that top 10% as protection with your profile? The way I transcode with 5DtoRGB automatically brings the 101 to 109 back to safe zone if I ever do get anything up there. Thanks for your help, loved your profile these past two days on a job too!
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Yeah, this picture profile is designed to be broadcast safe, so the knee value I use keeps highlights under 100%. I generally recommend this to avoid any chance of having various post workflows (or lack thereof) clip your highlights. If you really want to use superwhites for some reason, you can just change your knee value. Generally the default 95%/0 value or 105%/0 to keep the knee point as far out of the way as possible is the best bet. I wouldn't call it "protection" though since it wont protect detail, just use use 9% more of the available 8bit range which may slightly protect against posterization in highlights. It basically can upgrade you from a 7.9bit per color range to up to an 8bit per color range (or 23.7bits per pixel to 24 bits per pixel)... Basically 16million colors or 13milllion. Really not much of a difference in my mind and not so much worth messing with unless you are absolutely 100% confident in your workflow and how it handles highlights.
 
nyvz said:
Yeah, this picture profile is designed to be broadcast safe, so the knee value I use keeps highlights under 100%. I generally recommend this to avoid any chance of having various post workflows (or lack thereof) clip your highlights. If you really want to use superwhites for some reason, you can just change your knee value. Generally the default 95%/0 value or 105%/0 to keep the knee point as far out of the way as possible is the best bet. I wouldn't call it "protection" though since it wont protect detail, just use use 9% more of the available 8bit range which may slightly protect against posterization in highlights. It basically can upgrade you from a 7.9bit per color range to up to an 8bit per color range (or 23.7bits per pixel to 24 bits per pixel)... Basically 16million colors or 13milllion. Really not much of a difference in my mind and not so much worth messing with unless you are absolutely 100% confident in your workflow and how it handles highlights.
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Ah, this explains why when I was reading about AVCHD files clipping off highlights in OS X, I was seeing absolutely no difference between 5DtoRGB transcoded ProRes and the original AVCHD files (shot with your PP). I've moved toward a flatter workflow (used to just bake the look in-camera) but I've also heard that superflat profiles can actually make it effectively like you're only using 6 bits out of the camera's 8, because you're pushing all of your shadows and highlights so heavily toward the mids. It makes sense to me, only because I'm a total novice when it comes to flat profiles and things like LOG. I suppose when you only have 8 bits, you better be trying to maximize what little range you have. What are your thoughts on this?
 
jshbckr said:
Ah, this explains why when I was reading about AVCHD files clipping off highlights in OS X, I was seeing absolutely no difference between 5DtoRGB transcoded ProRes and the original AVCHD files (shot with your PP). I've moved toward a flatter workflow (used to just bake the look in-camera) but I've also heard that superflat profiles can actually make it effectively like you're only using 6 bits out of the camera's 8, because you're pushing all of your shadows and highlights so heavily toward the mids. It makes sense to me, only because I'm a total novice when it comes to flat profiles and things like LOG. I suppose when you only have 8 bits, you better be trying to maximize what little range you have. What are your thoughts on this?
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6bits out of 8 is a pretty big exagerration, no matter what you do, you'd never waste a whole bit, no matter how crazy your log curve or gamma curve. Keep in mind that 8 bit is 256 values per channel, and 7bit is 128, and 6bit is 64. 7bit cuts in half the number of values per channel. 7bits per channel would give you only 2.1M colors vs 8bits 16.7M, youd have a tough time throwing 87% of color range to get down to 7bit. Also I think the 8bit issue is exaggerated, 16 million color values is quite a bit, and live action video often tends to naturally dither fairly well on its own, so I think you'd have to be pushing 8bit pretty hard or manufacturers would have to be screwing up their internal processing to see significant banding in even 8bit per color video images in most cases. Of course 10bit or 12bit or 16bit is better, but you probably wont notice the difference in 99% of shooting and screening situations unless something else is screwed up. Keep in mind that a ton of LCD screens out there are only 6bit per channel with internal dithering functions and most people probably cant even tell the difference between 6bit and 8bit LCDs.

I think a lot of people do not quite understand the value or purpose of log. Also this is all kind of not an issue since there is no Log curve in the FS700. But assuming there was, the whole point of log is to distribute the bit range evenly so that the whole luminance range of the camera has a relatively even number of values assigned per stop of light. Light is logarithmic, sensors see this linearly, and gamma correction gets it most of the way back to logarithmic but log gets it all the way back to the way it naturally operates and into a realm where you aren't risking losing crushing out the low end. In a standard gamma curve in the FS700, lets say the stop of detail about 10stops below clipping only gets about 2% of the range whereas the middle stops 4-5 stops under clipping each get maybe 10%. In log they may all get 8% throughout the whole range. One of the other benefits of log is that some pros like to do color and grading operations in log space since log operations may tend to look more natural given that light operates in that way normally.

I'd say if you can, get your look in camera, but if you are not sure, err on the side of lower contrast (more log-ish) since you'll probably do better having to crush/compress out detail later than having to stretch detail in a luminance range that got very compressed and in camera and only has a very small portion of the 8bit range assigned to it.
 
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Hey Yuan, I applied your setttings and so far I'm liking what I see a lot. However, It does seem to me that with the green set so low, nature shots may come a bit too undersaturated (grass, foliage etc.). But overall, the image quality out of the camera looks much more balanced with your profile.
 
Thanks for this profile, I quickly tested it filming by filming my kids skylanders gamefigures hence they have all kinds on weird colors in them. I was especially pleaced how this was the first time i was able to get a good and accurate color rendering on the translucent yellow base that the figures have.
Only thing i noticed that bright reds might be just a little on the dark side and may shift a little towards magenta, for example red like coca cola bottles labels. I have to do some outdoors testing on how the colors render in sunlight as soon as the raining stops someday. This slight shift might be due to different lenses.
what lens did you primarly used when making this?

Thanks a million for this profile :)

I used a panasonic plasma screen for this quick, so the colors on the screen are prety spot on. Only annouying thing with plasma screen is its black parts gamma that loose some detail on the darkest shadows
 
Had to switch away from this cause skin tone and reds are off :/

Picture profiles are horrible to adjust cause i could not find any documentation on for example what range the diffrent black gammas use. I kept your knee cause it makes post producion easier, and tuned the shadows on the flat profile so they do not look so weird. Still thinking about investigating gamma 1 would work with fine tuning
 
Drazen said:
Hey Yuan, I applied your setttings and so far I'm liking what I see a lot. However, It does seem to me that with the green set so low, nature shots may come a bit too undersaturated (grass, foliage etc.). But overall, the image quality out of the camera looks much more balanced with your profile.
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Just received my FS700 and went out shooting using your profile Noah, and I have to agree with Drazen, The greens are really...blah. I've taken off a lot of the color depth and phase shift and adjusted the WB points +1 to magenta and -1 towards cool and I *think* I'm on the right track. My background was Sony Z1, then HVX200 with Canon H1, then Canon DSLR's for the last 3 years so I'm a bit rusty in adjusting PP's. Thanks for getting me started :)
 
phillip palacios said:
Just received my FS700 and went out shooting using your profile Noah, and I have to agree with Drazen, The greens are really...blah. I've taken off a lot of the color depth and phase shift and adjusted the WB points +1 to magenta and -1 towards cool and I *think* I'm on the right track. My background was Sony Z1, then HVX200 with Canon H1, then Canon DSLR's for the last 3 years so I'm a bit rusty in adjusting PP's. Thanks for getting me started :)
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I totally understand. If you're not happy with green/magenta saturation levels in particular, I'd recommend switching to PRO color mode with similar color level settings -4 to -2 I believe. That should fix it. STILLS color mode specifically desaturates magenta and green, perhaps too much, but unfortunately there is no great way to change that bias besides switching color modes.
 
Sami2 said:
Had to switch away from this cause skin tone and reds are off :/

Picture profiles are horrible to adjust cause i could not find any documentation on for example what range the diffrent black gammas use. I kept your knee cause it makes post producion easier, and tuned the shadows on the flat profile so they do not look so weird. Still thinking about investigating gamma 1 would work with fine tuning
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Could you elaborate? I'm always adjusting this profile a bit and am using a slightly modified version now myself and will update to v1.2 after some more testing, but any further details would help me optimize. I would say that this and other Sony cameras in general do have issues with reds in particular, and it can be hard to get them to look just right. I've been pretty happy with it so far, but it may depend on the exposure level the red in the scene falls under, since there can be issues at certain levels no matter what PP you use.
 
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