F3: Office

M

morgan_moore

Major Contributor
Few grabs from my last short. Cine1, Grade in Resolve 11. (shuttle 422)

I feel that with this short I concentrated a little harder on exposure using the 50-55 zone on my DP6 - better exposure has lead to cleaner better footy than my previous efforts.

The INTs are supposed to contrast the EXTs in that the office is a depressing place.

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Did an interview myself this week with my F3 and Good I love to shoot with this camera. I always use S-log but I think the cinegammas are very good also. It's just that once I started to use S-log it's hard to go back. Love the DR and how you can tailor the look afterwards. Made a split screen between the S-log original and graded footage (in Premiere CC 2014)
 
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VinceinLA said:
What's with not using slog? Skin isn't bad though.
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Ive not had a lot of luck with SLog.

The main problem with 'the sony look' is horrid highlights, now I investigated roll off with 709 settings and cine settings - one can instantly see that the 709 setting 'chainsaw' the highlights, while the cine settings roll them nicely.

Ergo Slog or any CineGamma (apart from 2?) give you a file without the sony chainsaw highlights look.

Now Im a fan of contrast and gradability and cine1 is a low DR gamma - aka a gamma with a lot of contrast, and therefore 'micro detail'

To me it seems that in most scenes Slog puts too much detail in the noise zone and/or does not make full use of the 0-1024 values, it is therefore not making best use of the recording 'space' (10/422) - of course if you had to get a clip free recording of a very wide DR scene Slog could be the only solution but for me mainly that is not the case.

AFAIK Slog was designed for the F35 at 12 bit, and while it is well known that Slog is too flat for 8 bit, I would suggest that it is too flat for 10 bit too and really only suited to 12bit which I look forward to try if Convergent ever get their ship together for prores 444 60p F3 recording.

Just my current thought set..maybe im wrong about Slog, but, well, Ive got logic on my side.

S
 
That sort of goes against all those posts showing great slog footage, as well as my own experience, and I don't feel like it has that much to do with bit depth. See here: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?317621-The-NEW-PMW-F3-s-log-footage-collection The biggest F3 (now F5) show is Parts Unknown on CNN which was all slog to xdcam.

Sometimes the cine 1 setting can be nice for certain shows. I did this recently because I knew edit wasn't going to be able correct the log stuff. I now have issues with it after getting used to where slog is putting highlights. I just shot for 7 weeks to internal cards in slog and can't imagine that stuff not being slog. I had tons of sun and mid day shots along the way. B-cam was a GH4 and it didn't even get in the ballpark of the DR I had. I think those little things must be about 8 stops at best.
 
A commercial shoot also cine1 (different job) here I didnt blow the highs apart from the window (blown in post). but the blown look is what I want. The file goes OK but the edges are a little chainsawed, I think that 12bit may hold those edges.

Here we see that wide DR is not always needed, but tonality ie allocating lots of data to the near clip point is more important.

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Osslund said:
View attachment 88777

Did an interview myself this week with my F3 and Good I love to shoot with this camera. I always use S-log but I think the cinegammas are very good also. It's just that once I started to use S-log it's hard to go back. Love the DR and how you can tailor the look afterwards. Made a split screen between the S-log original and graded footage (in Premiere CC 2014)
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Personally I dont like what the window is doing here, Id probably desat the top end or let it blow?
 
Hi Osslund

I'm with you re slog on the F3 - skin tones rich and natural, generous DR - never not used it since installing it a couple of years.

My question is, what set ups or filters do you use to grade in Premiere CC? I'm using Colorista in FCP7 but at one regular job I have to work in Premiere CC. Until recently i was using the Cineon filter then the 3way corrector but this week I started using Speedgrade.

Thanks
 
I'm using different filters. Often starting of with cineon converter and depending on what I want to do it can be just two filters or up to six. I'm doing it in PP CC because it's so easy to edit and grade at the same time. I also find most of the tools I need in PP CC so very little use for what I do in resolve or the likes.
 
Sam, I really think you should stick to SLOG in 10-bit (you have a Hyperdeck right?) and really try to nail down exposure with the spot meter to get 38 IRE on a grey card - I found SLOG soooo much easier to achieve filmic results from than any other gamma - even if you don't have Resolve, all it takes is to refine contrast in an NLE with curves and boost your saturation a little and you'll be starting in a great place.

In those grabs, the only one that seems natural and filmic to me is the third one down, and that's because there are no bright highlights anywhere in the frame. In all of the other shots there are parts where colours are getting very hot, and the regular gammas do really weird things to colours at high levels of exposure - and those nasty highlights bring the dreaded 'video look' firmly to the fore I reckon.

I know you've been unhappy with your SLOG tests so far, but I really think you should dig further into exposure and grading workflow with SLOG - allocation of bits and bytes be damned, it always looks better.
 
Hi - I certainly have Resolve.

Im not sure what you mean about hot colours.

As far as I can see the cine curves do a very similar thing to Slog in that the STD gammas apply a chainsaw to the highlights in a way that CINE and Slog do not.

They AFAIK as see in the 'same school' - now with 10bit which is not that deep a colour space (compared to 12 or 14 or 16) we still IMO need to use the sensor to the full to bring out tonal changes in the image

One of course want to ETTR and keep a clean noise free file - IMO Slog is a little too flat and close the the noise floor for a 10bit space recording if you want to pull back to proper colour and tonality

A flat and 'underexposed' curve has to come at a cost (one which of course one may be prepared to pay on occasion)

Of course I am still available to be convinced otherwise.

check this.. the cine gammas look quite nice to me?


S
 
And for anyone that is interested ive posted a drama reel 0-1:48 is F3, and after that it is FS100.
All graded in Resolve to the best of my skills. Close to the end is some 5d material, which frankly has the most 'realistic' saturation levels!

Gradind the canon stuff it is certainly true that 'if its gone its gone!'

 
The hot spots I'm referring too are the highlights on the businessman's shirts and the background elements behind the women in the office, they look quite harsh.

I'd personally recommend avoiding ETTR with SLOG footage, the further up into the highlights you go with log the more compressed things become and that causes considerable grief with grading log in my experience. ETTR is much better suited for linear recording methods. Log should be exposed like the zone system - know your values for black, deep shadows, regular shadows, middle grey, skin tone, skin highlights and white - and light and expose your scenes accordingly.

To avoid noise you have to keep details you want to retain above the noise floor, the solution to that is using fill light to lift dark areas you want to retain detail in, and crushing down the rest to hide the noise in the deepest shadows.
 
Just to chime in on how easy it can be to mess up exposure on slog, remember that slog1 achieves 800% dynamic range which means that it can capture levels up to 8.8 times above 90% white. But it does so by cramming it into around 19% IRE. Exposure using Sony's values therefore become essential in order to maximize the benefits of slog to begin with.

It's also why we can use a cinegamma like Cine 1 and produce great results without slog. ie. if the scene has a lower contrast ratio you won't be using the full range anyway of the camera, plus on top of that some of Sony's hyper/cine gammas can extend the dynamic range to 460% which is still pretty good.
 
Grug said:
I'd personally recommend avoiding ETTR with SLOG footage, the further up into the highlights you go with log the more compressed things become and that causes considerable grief with grading log in my experience.
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Indeed

Grug said:
the solution to that is using fill light to lift dark areas you want to retain detail in, and crushing down the rest to hide the noise in the deepest shadows.
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Lifting the shadows assumes the scene is lit - or one has as much light power as you need.. often I dont.

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Overall I kind of agree with you but Im kind of a linear fan - used to being able to ETTR and push pull stuff in post - often keeping shadow detail clean by opening up and letting the highlights go. In stills my 14-16bit cameras blow the highs so well that protecting them is not so much of an issue

My feeling (only a guess) is if I went 444 then those highs would be less harsh in the rolloff

At the moment Im also feeling that cine1 works for me and my lights (or lack of!) presenting a psuedo linear option without chainsawing the rolloff in the manner that the STD gammas do.

The medical bloke I posted I have no problem that the highs are gone.. or would not have a problem with it if he looked a bit less jaggo on the edges.. which is where I think 10bit is collapsing??

S
 
I also need to add since it only recently dawned on me, that two of the hypergammas available on the F5/F55 have the exact same dynamic range capability of slog on the F35/F3. ie. 800%. It's only with slog2/3 on the F5/F55/F65 that the dynamic range extends to around 1300% but even anything above 90%IRE we're talking very high levels of specularity or reflections that we just don't see a lot of in many many shots so not to crap on slog (because I am using it too now all the time) but it really does go to show that slog is not necessarily everything it is made out to be. the Cine/Hyper gammas with the right lighting, etc.. can actually look better. Particularly what I feel is important (and not that I've nailed it yet) when shooting people is the contrast around their face alone. There are some great examples of faces shot using different cinegammas set to the same skin tone level and you can see the variation in skin-tone contrast and how one can look a little better than the other.

I'm neither here nor there, there are just differences to be aware of and I think this is what Morgan has been investigating perhaps more than anyone else here I know.

:beer:
 
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