My Updated nLOG Picture Profile and FS700 Picture Profile Guide
- Thread starter nyvz
- Start date
nyvz
Veteran
The higher black level is for a number of reasons. First of all I have tried many black gamma and black level settings and nearly all of them seem to have somewhat low precision that causes a bit of a discontinuity in the shadow gamma area and this would show up to be banding in the black levels if it were not for the natural dithering effect of noise. This odd portion of the gamma curve does, however show up in that noise of certain values becomes more pronounced and a bit unnatural. I find that higher black level helps avoid this somewhat by keeping all values away. Granted this is a very subtle effect that many may not notice, but I'm a bit of a pixel peeper and like to point my camera at gamma ramps and pick it apart and optimize where possible. Many probably never see this and might not even be bothered by it especially with little to compare it against.
Also, higher black level for me helps avoid having editors and particular post workflows I do not have control over clip my blacks. I would always rather have slightly higher black levels than have any chance of the black levels getting crushed. It is also easier in post to simply lower the black level than it is to recover blacks that are lost due to some issue earlier in the workflow.
Frankly, I also like the look of black levels that are a bit milkly and smooth rather than crunchy and hard.
I recently went to an event showing off the new F5/55 cameras along with the F65 and the one thing I noticed was that I really prefered the look of the F65 at least the way it was set up in the showroom, both set to slog2 (and apparently a monitoring LUT), and the first thing I saw was that the F55 seemed very contrasty and a bit harsh in its gamma curve and especially in the shadows compared to the F65 which seemed to have a much smoother "filmic" (as some call it) look that seemed mainly due to smoother shadow gamma and slightly higher black levels.
Of course if you have control over your whole end to end workflow and have values that work for you and the look you prefer I encourage you to use those. My suggestions are somewhat tailored to my own preferences and experiences so certainly take them only as a suggestion.
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nyvz
Veteran
I thought I'd share the new version of my nLog PP and Picture Profile Guide for FS700. I've updated the link in the original post, and here is the link as well:
http://noahyv.com/v2/fs700-picture-profile-guide/
http://noahyv.com/v2/fs700-picture-profile-guide/
Thank you Noah. I especially appreciate that you explain your settings thoroughly, so that people can understand them instead of just copying them.
Agreed. Thanks for this.
S.Blanchardon
Well-known member
Thank you for your PP, will try it soon !
NYVZ, I am heading out this afternoon to test your new profile vs the hybrid I made of your old one and Allisters. I am going to do a bright scene with alot of detail and my face (to test skin tone) and a dark scene with detail and my face. I will test my profile with cine4 and cine2 and your new profile with cine4 and cine2. Anything in particular youd like to see in the test? I am looking to lower the noise in situations where mid or high ISO are needed. Outdoor stuff looks great on my current profile, but always room to improve.
Here are my test results....http://aumenmedia.com/blog/2013/03/13/elog-1-0-vs-nlog-1-2/. Noah, I am very impressed with your new profile, and I look forward to testing it further.
nyvz
Veteran
Thanks for sharing that.
As I would expect, from your tests it really looks like black gamma settings need to be switched when you change between CINE2 and CINE4. CINE2 has quite high shadow gamma as it is and the nature of its curve in that area is a bit different from CINE4, so I would guess a much more subtle setting. CINE2 with high black gamma settings has overly flat shadows and loses contrast, detail and saturation far too much in shadow areas as you can see in shots 6 and 8.
I do notice there is a bit of a reddish cast in the skin tones on your test. I wonder if the cinema color mode or a color phase adjustment would help that a bit.
paulcurtis
Veteran
i've done some extensive testing now with the profiles of both the 700 and the 100 side by side, i'm still forming my opinions and testing footage but i'd concur with noah about the dangers of raising the black gamma. It does make me wonder at what point is the sensor data being operated on.
I feel the 700 and 100 are really quite different beasts in terms of what comes off the sensor, what may work in a 100 profile perhaps isn't so good on the 700.
The black level though is important in terms of capture range, if you raise it too high then you're simply not recording anything in the lower part of your 8 bit bucket which is a real waste. You need to adjust the black level so that you are recording at least some real '0' blacks and then you can raise those levels in post if that's what you want.
Once i've had a chance to go through my results carefully i'll post the details fully. I've done range tests on both cameras using a transmission wedge to better understand the curves they're producing.
cheers
paul
I feel the 700 and 100 are really quite different beasts in terms of what comes off the sensor, what may work in a 100 profile perhaps isn't so good on the 700.
The black level though is important in terms of capture range, if you raise it too high then you're simply not recording anything in the lower part of your 8 bit bucket which is a real waste. You need to adjust the black level so that you are recording at least some real '0' blacks and then you can raise those levels in post if that's what you want.
Once i've had a chance to go through my results carefully i'll post the details fully. I've done range tests on both cameras using a transmission wedge to better understand the curves they're producing.
cheers
paul
nyvz
Veteran
Yes, I would be very careful about expecting any PP with one gamma curve to translate well to another gamma curve. The FS100 does not have many gamma curve options in common with the FS700, and certainly none that I would recommend using. For this reason you really need to develop separate PPs for both cameras, just as you really need to develop your PPs quite differently when starting with different gamma curves on the FS700. You really can't just leave all your PP settings the same and expect to get good results if you switch between CINE2 and CINE4 for example. If you must switch between two gamma curves on the fly and you can't have two separately tweaked PP presets for each, your best bet is to leave all your PP settings zeroed out at default settings. Not sure why one wouldn't be able to have presets for both though 
If people really prefer CINE2 for some reason, I may consider creating a special edition of nLog designed around CINE2. It may be useful for bright, controlled, or low contrast environments.
If people really prefer CINE2 for some reason, I may consider creating a special edition of nLog designed around CINE2. It may be useful for bright, controlled, or low contrast environments.