GH4 Opinion on these skintones?

Zak Forsman

Zak Forsman

Major Contributor
I've been a GH4 owner from the day they were released and like many people I immediately set mine to CineLike D and everything else to -5. But as we know the results of that have been... not great.

Over time, I've come to the conclusion that I should be focusing on skintones first and foremost, putting dynamic range and highlights a close second. The CineLike D profile yields some unnatural yellow blotches in skin that I never cared for. But reading here, someone had mentioned that the Natural and Portrait profiles rendered skin pretty darn well, so I've been focused on nailing down profile settings under one of those (the only difference I can tell between the two is Portrait is slightly more saturated).

My settings in this video are:

ISO 200
WB 4200
Natural
Contrast -3
Sharpness -5
NR -5
Saturation -2
Shadow/Highlight 0/0
Luminance 16-235

Curious what others think. Definitely want to make the most of this camera before moving on to whatever big thing comes next. We have already shot two features with it and about to embark on our third.

 
IMO, her skin tone goes from red'dish to white'ish indoors to yellow'ish outdoors. Did you stick with the same White Balance throughout?

PS. I doubt any non-pro would care about the various skin tone variations unless exceedingly hideous.
 
Very nice, and lovely glass. But you might try Cine-D again, without dialling anything down except the sharpness and noise reduction..
 
not bad at all. But what do you guys think about the exposure? to me it looks a little underexposed. as does a lot of the clips I see including my stuff.
 
I threw this up on my home theater projector. I think it looks great. Not underexposed at all. Might want to give my settings for optimal skintones a whirl too--

Cine V (-1, -2,-5,-3,0). Luminance 0-255, idynamic low, Highlight 0/Shadow+3
 
I have almost the exact same settings except contrast -5 normally.

I also have no problem with blown out highlights and dr if the skintones are accurate.

Looks good. Will try to see if there is a huge change in -3 vs -5 in contrast later. There probably isn't that much.
 
mr bill said:
Very nice, and lovely glass. But you might try Cine-D again, without dialling anything down except the sharpness and noise reduction..
Click to expand...

The color errors are present in Cine-D, no matter the settings. Their just exaggerated when you shoot super-flat and then try to resurrect in post. Natural yields more accurate color across the board.
 
The interior skin tones look quite naturalistic to me. The exteriors looked a bit yellow and a bit oversaturated (for my taste.) Very subjective, though. In both cases you're definitely in the right ballpark.
 
On a vectorscope, your skintones inside lean a bit too much red in them. I think this might be an issue of mixed lighting. The issue is exaggerated when she is closer to the window. The last two shots just before you cut to outside really show this pink shift.

Outside, skintone is perfect. It sits nicely on either side of the line, swinging from a slightly more pink in her cheeks to a slightly more yellow near her neck.

For the inside look though, it's right in the ballpark for a great look, some levels and a skin-tone qualifier really brings it to life:

Skin Tones_1.1.3.jpg

Skin Tones_1.1.2.jpg

Skin Tones_1.1.1.jpg

Full res w/ vectorscope readings here:
https://i.imgur.com/Sbfxevz.jpg

Edit:
Just for fun, here's a scope reading of a segment of her skin on the last interior shot as compared to a similar reading from the last exterior shot.

Inside:
O46UuHL.jpg


Outside:
y8Dlwzj.jpg
 
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