Picture styles for typical newscast/documentary?

S

Snapper123

Well-known member
So I've been testing out different settings and picture styles all day (as always), and I've yet to come across a single setting that truly gives me a look that I want to start my career with. To be completely honest, I want a very newscast, documentary look to my footage.

This means:

No contrast - documentaries and newscast videos universally do not have crushed blacks and piercing whites.
Near-realistic colors - nothing too saturated nor colorless
A general color tone - I often find that newscasts do not have blue, red, or green tinges, and at most, usually have a tan tinge (Shade or Cloudy white balance)
Each color being accurate - no pink reds, no purple blues, no crayon greens.
Each picture style relating to the other - while a different picture style may have to be used to ambient indoor lightings as opposed to open outdoor areas (and a different picture style possibly being used for sunny weather as opposed to cloudy weather), any multiple picture styles must relate in terms of overall character.
Ready-made video to hand in - needs a look that does not require grading to look non-embarassing (is OK to have a vintage look, but not OK to have zombie/carrot skin.)

So what exact pictures styles should I keep on my camera for these specific traits? There has to be at least three different picture styles out there (or three different combinations of settings on the same one) that give me a natural, no-editing-required picture style that generally gives you decent skin tones, no camcorder contrasts, and can work in sunny weather, shady weather, or indoors. One picture style for all this would be a blessing, but three that I can flip back and forth is also something I don't mind.

I mean, c'mon, please help! I constantly try so many new settings every time I test, but every single time, just something or other seems "off" from my goal for the look. I definatly am after that smooth, Neutral look, but just any help with exact settings for a truly newscast look would be a blessing - even down to what white balance gives the traditional tone or if I need to shift my color chart in any such direction!
 
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Set to neutral and start shooting. When that doesn't work for you set it to another profile and keep shooting.
 
The neutral on these cameras really isn't all that neutral. The new technicolor Cinestyle would probably work best, but instead of turning down saturation and contrast (like they recommend so you can grade it in post), you might be able to shoot at them set at 0 and not require much, if any, grading and color correction in post.
 
Like, the first issue I'd want to tackle is the contrasty, camcorder look (usually what you get with Standard and such.) Now, these Canon picture styles tend to create amazing colors, but the contrast levels in these styles are just awful and even if your product is merely low-key out-on-the-town interviews, people just react to softer, flatter videos better. The fact that these cameras are digital pretty much declares that they never will see the equality levels our eyes will, but much like the new CineStyle, a way to combat this is (and I have a feeling this is what most newscasting cameras do, either in body or in editing) is to chop off the ends of the black and white spectrum. Basically, any 100% black or %100 white color is going to look too blaring on any electronic devices, straight out of cam. Also, CineStyle plain out dials the contrast down to the point that in general, it's been the closest thing to the human eye than anything I've ever seen from a digital camera to date.

Big problem with this is that it looks so washed out most of the time that it's pitiful. It's like trading one problem for another; it seems like you either have the option to have a 2005 super-contrast FlipCamera aesthetic, or a faded 1990 newscast VHS wash. What mrchsirster posted is almost the exact look I'm going for (though I could even dial down the flatness a tad more to just give me a bit more mistake room), yet with reading that blog, it seems that they used multiple camera models (Sony, Canon, and such) - I'm wondering if some of the more flat-but-still-full-of-life shots were shot with the Canon or with the other cameras?

Because at the end of the day, it may sound lazy that I don't want to do color correction or restore detail, but really, how often do you see this done right? A lot of experienced users just plain seem to jack it up (still making any corrections look like Canon's Standard or Neutral style) and if they encounter troubles with it, I sure as heck wouldn't have a chance with it. But I absolutely love cutting footage and putting scenes together, the general "Windows Movie Maker" type stuff, and you know, when dealing with just simple projects, at the end of the day, it's about just having fun with it, but also keeping to whicheever look fits your style best (for me, I'd rather have a super-flat washed look than a punchy flipcam look, just as a preference).

But I also believe that there's some magical picture style out there that's between those two extremes that somehow hits all the right ranges and color spectrums to really work best in professional outdoor situations. There's also a certain education level to it - after all, there are probably plain out rules to apply to even to newscast cinematography where pointing the camera at a certain angle outdoors will give you more flatness based on things like solar flare or the way that overexposure will flatten the spectrum. But also, I believe the majority of the picture styles out there just don't work in any sort of way for a newscast look, so I'll still playing around with Neutral, CineStyle, and anything else I can find to see what I can do.

Like basically:

I live in an old vintage town with that typical down-town "150 year old buildings" village area, and because a lot of the businesses are struggling there (and these businesses are all so beautiful and well-done, there's a brewery, an amazing boutique, a psychic place, a 100 year old vintage theater), I'd like to create a documentary on these businesses, and I wouldn't mind just having a flat, newscast look. It would fit the topic. Just, CineStyle seems to washed (almost transparent), yet Neutral seems to contrasty, and idk. I already have connections with a major news website for my city (previous photography instructor), so if I do a really good job on it, I'd bet it'd get posted right off the bat.

But I'm pretty perfectionist, so I do want to have great looking picture styles, and if I need to switch them for weather or indoors, I at least still want the styles to "relate" in tone (not have one style look Flipcam and one look Washed.) The honest truth is that I haven't ruled out renting a MKII for the job (it has better light equality and I like full frame anyway) or jumping into a Gh2 (people seem to all love the GH2's "smooth" or "cinema" picture styles.) so idk.
 
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natums said:
The neutral on these cameras really isn't all that neutral.
Click to expand...

True.

I did some tests and Neutral set with contrast -4 is around half way between CineStyle and Neutral. They all work and can be color corrected to match pretty closely, just depends how far you think you need to push it to the edge before bringing the image back to life. I think I will avoid CineStyle for most shots involving beauty and skin tones unless a vampire film.
 
The neutral 0, -4, -2, 0 works really good imo for an all around picture style. I tried the technicolor profile but it's not really doing it for me.
 
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