New Technicolor Profile Is Amazing

natums said:
brights are more difficult to recover in digital, so most pros I have talked with always recommend underexposing 1/3-1 1/3 stop.
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Also quoting the OP's link: "Film holds highlight detail like nothing else – digital is the opposite (especially HDSLRs) those cameras excel in the shadows."


I'm very perplexed by this thought process.

Unquestionably, film is king when trying to maintain highlights. But what has my attention are the comments about how HDSLRs are great for shadows and how some are now saying to underexpose by a stop or more.

This strikes me counter-intuitive. For one, film is still great at resolving shadows. Also, with the codec and 8-bit color space of DSLRs, I see way more tonal banding and noise in the shadows than I do with film or with high-end digital cinematography cameras (I have shot each format). Whenever I expose to the right, I find it incredibly easy to regain the blacks through contrast/S-curves in Color, but exposing for highlights forces me to pull up the shadows sometimes, which gets too noisy and induces tonal banding. (I use the newest Marvel Cine Picture Style, by the way.)

Also, and this is more of a preference of practice, but I have always been able to forgive clipped highlights when they are motivated: reflections, the sun gleaming off part of a lake, and even pieces of the sky if they are a tasteful and intentional element of the composition. The data lost in these highlights mimics how the human eye also cannot resolve detail in strong highlights and will not be needed in post for anything more than what they are - spectral highlights.
 
@jscott I agree that in a daylight scene, Canon DSLRs w/ previous profiles were very bad with shadows and didn't have the neutral range that film or some of the best digital video cameras had. So underexposing wasn't that smart with DSLRS.

Since the technicolor profile has a much more expanded range of black tones compared to other profiles, you have a bit more range to shoot darker without losing detail. I used to shoot with a similar thought process as you when it came to DSLRs, but after sorting thru all the new info online with the CineStyle profile and trying it out, I am MUCH happier with the it's ability with shadows. So, I have tested out shooting stopped down (just enough to prevent clipping of brights (I used ML zebra to view how much clipping will occur), and shooting with this set up (obviously allowing some clipping if there is a reflection or light source in the frame) has given me a better spectrum since the shadows aren't lost to banding with CineStyle and with my exposure balance I even keep the brights, and the sky especially is something you see a difference in if it is in your frame.
 
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Alright tested some more with NTSC (PAL body) and 40% of the clips have groups of broken frames in them (3-4 frames in hickups). Be aware if using 550D with cinestyle (no ML). edit: 60i , didn't shoot any 24p


(lens used rollei ziess planar 1.4 for sale btw, see vimeo for details)
 
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jdv said:
Thanks for the link. A question: When he says "Neutral" is that the straight up neutral setting in camera, or that setting with a few additions?
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Neutral, and all other styles were set to: (0, -4, -2, 0), (being sharpness, contrast, saturation, and color tone). Also Peripheral illumination correction and auto lighting optimizer were set to off.
 

This is my second CineStyle Test. This I took the footage form my previous test and applied the same color-grading on all three presets (Neutral, Super Flat, and Cinestyle). To my surprise and contrary to most reports, Neutral had the most noise after grading while giving a more saturated and contrasty look.

The grading was done in Colorista II. Shot with the 5DM2.

Download file for best viewing.
 
A technique that I brought up a couple pages ago is: ignoring range for a second, can't highlights be controlled in post no matter how overblown they are? Can't you chop the color white off the end off the light curve in post? This wouldn't fix the "cloud of white" aesthetic, but it may indeed save some shots that only have minimal overblown highlights from looking so glaring in solid whiye colour. You may be able to change a highlight pool from bright white to dull cream or grey.

Newscasts have seemingly done this with blacks and shadows for decades, not sure why it can't be done with whites. Newscasts and documentaries usually don't care about restoring detail, but they do want their shadows and highlights to look tame in colour rather than wild.
 
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Marlon: looks great, especially the water

Snapper: Well... of course you can wash out the highlights... but they are still gone, aren't they? Sure you can reduce the "damage", but... kinda missing the whole point with it then.
 
Martin Oller said:
Alright tested some more with NTSC (PAL body) and 40% of the clips have groups of broken frames in them (3-4 frames in hickups). Be aware if using 550D with cinestyle (no ML). edit: 60i , didn't shoot any 24p


(lens used rollei ziess planar 1.4 for sale btw, see vimeo for details)
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So you confirm that with the 550d + cinestyle we get bad video encodings? :(

this is an extremely important matter dont you think?

BTW 60i??
 
Sandro: No it works great just don't use NTSC setting on PAL body (and possibly vice versa?) About 40% of my clips were broke (including some in that vid). Not the end of the world... but loosing some 10 frames for slow-mo if shooting PAL (50fps instead of 60.)

sorry, 60p of course , not 60i ;)
 
Zech said:
Neutral, and all other styles were set to: (0, -4, -2, 0), (being sharpness, contrast, saturation, and color tone). Also Peripheral illumination correction and auto lighting optimizer were set to off.
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Thank you Sir! I actually preferred both versions (corrected and non) of neutral over the other styles. Of course, as you mention, those differences were fairly minor. Neutral appeared to my eye slightly more film-like.
 
Martin Oller said:
Sandro: No it works great just don't use NTSC setting on PAL body (and possibly vice versa?) About 40% of my clips were broke (including some in that vid). Not the end of the world... but loosing some 10 frames for slow-mo if shooting PAL (50fps instead of 60.)

sorry, 60p of course , not 60i ;)
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Well I like to shoot in 60p and even 30p sometimes, but mainly 60p/24p. I wonder why this happens, could it be the more details to store and the CPU can't handle them? BUT in Canon world doesnt exist a "regional" body, 550d/t2i are all the same since you can switch between the regions, so if this is a bug it must happen to cameras sold in USA too!
 
Zech said:
Neutral, and all other styles were set to: (0, -4, -2, 0), (being sharpness, contrast, saturation, and color tone). Also Peripheral illumination correction and auto lighting optimizer were set to off.
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Great series of tests.
How over exposed was the 2nd round of shots? I was very surprised to see how much skin detail appeared in the over exposed series, and that the normal exposure was far softer and smoother. I would have thought the results would be the opposite.
 
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Martin Oller said:
Marlon: looks great, especially the water

Snapper: Well... of course you can wash out the highlights... but they are still gone, aren't they? Sure you can reduce the "damage", but... kinda missing the whole point with it then.
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Well, that's sort of the thing; it's a technique that probably has to be used in moderation and for specific scenes, but I do think it's technique/curve that would make a lot of productions easier. Again, things like newscasts, documentaries, indie productions, ect ect don't really care about bringing back tons of detail all the time, they just want things to be calm looking, and I think if the "calm" aesthetic was harnessed even without bringing back detail, that many more productions would benefit. I think at the end of the day, this is what folks from all filmmaking corners are trying to do. We all have seen so many productions with blaring highlights and mess, even if the set lighting was controlled in a decent way.

I mean, here's just an example of a documentary:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS1yzjNjJGs

All throughout, there's things like hair, shirts, outdoor scenes, ect ect where quite a bit of detail is lost, but it never seems to look glaring or like an abyss. It's all sort of calm, smooth, and easy on the eyes. Personally, I do think that many videographers would love to even tackle achieving that sort of look first, and then moving on to complex detail recovering second. I mean, this doesn't at all apply to everyone, but sometimes, I feel like many folks complain about things sort of beyond their production level, where there's some basics of color and exposure that they're kind of skipping over...I mean, DSLR's probably aren't the best things in the world, but if some old 1995 camera is beating out someone's DSLR production in terms of calm exposure and light curves, there's probably some step missing....

And I sort of think this step is someone creating a picture style that automatically, cuts off about 10% of the black and white end without compromising on realistic contrast or color. Not sure would effect this would have on obtaining white balance, working with zebras or historgrams, ect ect, but wouldn't it automatically give a video a much more calming look? Sort of like an old documentary? So far, it's a look that I just don't think I've ever seen with a DSLR, yet it's a look that I'm actually a pretty big fan of in terms of what students of videography should start out learning with.
 
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Here is one project i am doing. Shooting with 60d and cinestyle. Grading in Apple color. Not using the lut.
Cinestyle is actually quite amazing holding all the details in highs and lows and improves the dr quite much. It holds the grading also quite well even when pushed to extreme.

Password for clip is geefilms

[video]http://www.vimeo.com/geefilms/bengtskar[/video]

 
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> I feel like many folks complain about things sort of beyond their production level,
> where there's some basics of color and exposure that they're kind of skipping over.

Yes...

Not to mention framing, coverage. Basic, basic things. Too busy learning about LUTs to learn how to use a tripod. Pixel peeping getting in the way. Can't see the forest for the trees...
 
jaakkon said:
Here is one project i am doing. Shooting with 60d and cinestyle. Grading in Apple color. Not using the lut.
Cinestyle is actually quite amazing holding all the details in highs and lows and improves the dr quite much. It holds the grading also quite well even when pushed to extreme.

Password for clip is geefilms

[video]http://www.vimeo.com/geefilms/bengtskar[/video]
Click to expand...

Loved your clip...you have some perfect shots there my friend and your colour grading is amazing...well done!
 
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