Please Critique My Scene File Settings

[nedcam]

I have been using my AF100 more lately but am seldom in control of the post. The editors' feedback has always been positive but I am tweaking based on my field monitors. Originally I had used settings of a combination of Barry Green, Abel, Olof and McGee plus I have The AF100 Book. I am so paranoid of blowing facial highlights that I have my zebras at 65% and with Caucasians stop there when I see them on cheekbones and foreheads.

I like warm skin tones and that has been my one complaint with this camera. I carry warming cards to trick the white balance, looks good in the field monitor but on my 27" iMac and Cinema Display editing monitors faces look on the pink side. I black balance at the beginning of the shoot day, I tend to always shoot in 60 degree shutter, ASA 400 unless situation warrants upping it, sometimes -3db. So, knowing that I am mainly corporate and documentary, where I have little control except perhaps for some face powder I carry in my belt pouch, do you think I have maximized my settings?

Detail Level -4 (Don't want footage too soft)
V Detail -4
Detail Coring -3
Chroma Level -2
Chroma Phase 0
Master Ped -2
DRS Off
Gamma HD Norm
Knee Low
Matrix Norm 2
Skin Tone Detail Off

Some of these tweaks are the result of me monitoring threads regarding looks on this forum when I first bought the camera. But since I seldom edit my own footage I don't get the eyeball feedback I normally would. Thank you for your advice.

 

[robbin]

I tend to turn detail coring to -7 and raise sharpness to 0. Usually use cine d with norm2. chroma -7 and chroma phase -1. DRS1 for outdoor filming. Experimenting with masterped +4 right now to get a flat image. Im using hyperdeck shuttle to record to prores and resolve for grading. If you dont have external recoder these settings might be to flat for you. Lowering chroma helps with chroma clipping.

 

[spotts]

This is close to what i've found to work best for me for general use indoors and out. I've found Norm 1 to be a tad cleaner than Norm 2, and I'll often lift blacks a bit in sunny outdoor
situations by setting M. Ped to -1. I also prefer a bit more chroma saturation, so will set Chroma level to 0 or 1 depending on the scene. Also, I find more consistent color balances shooting outdoors by using the Variable WB setting to manually adjust according to time of day.

 

[mcbob]

I've been using Chroma Phase +1-2 (IIRC... whichever one shifts color towards magenta) and like how it affects skin tones, FWIW. I also typically shoot Cine V/HD Norm and just watch the WFM carefully to avoid skin clipping/posterization.