Question about 'SHOOTING FLAT'.

I

ironpony

Carbonite Member
They say with DSLRs to shoot flat but so far I am getting mixed results in this. For example, if I shoot flat at night, outdoors, and then add saturation, constrast, etc, later, the image is more noisy and has more unwanted color spillage compared to shooting non-flat. But if in the daytime, if I shoot flat, it has less spillage and noise when grading in post.

It seems that shooting flat does not apply to all circumstances and only some. But I having trouble understanding the concepts of when it is acceptable to shoot flat and not so. I am using the Canon T3i which is H.264 as well. Can anyone give me some pointers in the right directions? Thanks.
 
Don't shoot flat for H.264, as you can't push it in post. Raw is a different story. If you can hack your camera with the Magic Lantern Hack, give it a try. But it takes a lot longer!
 
are you sure? then why do they make the cinestyle for the 5d cams at all? it must be somewhat feasible or there'd be no point.
 
Flat does not work but it does!

Grading a flat image will induce banding - but if your scene doesnt have many smooth tones, or your output compression is low enough res to hide those bands it does not matter.

So I guess shooting a bit flat might not be too bad for the right scenes. Its all a trade off.

S
 
I think it was a fad promoted by people who sell "looks" plugins. There is a tradeoff - you get a very small increase in dynamic range for a noticeable loss of detail, which you cannot recover in post. It's not worth it.
 
Okay thanks people. As for shooting underexposed, it depends on what counts as underexposed. Usually I try to aim for one notch below what the camera thinks is properly exposed because the camera does overestimate a little usually. I have magic lantern as well, but I only use it for some things, and not sure if it's worth risking what I cannot take back in this case, if shooting non-flat is better anyway.

morgan_moore said:
Flat does not work but it does!

Grading a flat image will induce banding - but if your scene doesnt have many smooth tones, or your output compression is low enough res to hide those bands it does not matter.

So I guess shooting a bit flat might not be too bad for the right scenes. Its all a trade off.

S
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Okay thanks, but I am kind of lost and do not know what this means. What is banding in this definition?
 
I shoot a lot for HIGH END clients who do have MONEY FOR THE POST but they barely ever have TIME. If i was living in fantasy world i would be shooting flat but experience has thought me that reality doesn't match my fantasy. Thus shoot how you want the image to look as it will most likely be your look for the rest of the project.

Underexposing was the trick back from the days when cameras didn't have such high latitude - today they do. Moreover you will be better served with some grads in your mattebox to step down that overexposed sky. I'm convinced that post people will offer different advice, yes when it's time (see my first sentence) to actually go through proper post then flat has advantages. I, on the other hand, speak from perspective of seeing many many projects not even going through proper coloring stage so in that case shoot for the look you want NOT flat.
 
How is putting time in pre-production help shooting flat, since saturation contrast, color tone, etc decisions are made in post therefore?
 
ironpony said:
How is putting time in pre-production help shooting flat, since saturation contrast, color tone, etc decisions are made in post therefore?
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They are only decisions made in post if you leave them to post. Decide what you want before you shoot and shoot it.

fix_it_in_pre_black_tshirt.jpg
 
Well, Never Say Never. If you are shooting in a controlled environment then do not shoot flat. I have found myself shooting a lot lately in very much other than controlled environments and I have found that flat profiles are my tool of choice. What I have been doing is shooting a lot of run and gun stuff in places like back stage at concert venues and in bars with very unpredictable available light. I have been using flat profiles (GLOG profiles from Postmaster on a FS-100) and what they afford me is very much analogous to flashing in the film days. Now these kinds of shoots would need a good deal of post work now matter what picture profile I use so going with the flatter profiles totally lose their disadvantage. I love having the control over the shadow detail that the flat profiles give me. I would never shoot in those kinds of situations with baked in contrast.
 
David G. Smith said:
Well, Never Say Never. If you are shooting in a controlled environment then do not shoot flat. I have found myself shooting a lot lately in very much other than controlled environments and I have found that flat profiles are my tool of choice. What I have been doing is shooting a lot of run and gun stuff in places like back stage at concert venues and in bars with very unpredictable available light. I have been using flat profiles (GLOG profiles from Postmaster on a FS-100) and what they afford me is very much analogous to flashing in the film days. Now these kinds of shoots would need a good deal of post work now matter what picture profile I use so going with the flatter profiles totally lose their disadvantage. I love having the control over the shadow detail that the flat profiles give me. I would never shoot in those kinds of situations with baked in contrast.
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Totally hear ya. But you're thinking about it before you shoot rather than intentionally leaving decisions to post, which is what a lot of people who preach shooting "flat" want to do. Not too different than shooting without any other kind of plan, the old "spray and pray."
 
Well here's an example. I was doing some tests at night and I white balanced sodium lights outside. The lights were white which is what I wanted, but every time I do this it looks desaturated, since all the orange is sucked out of the image to get there. I didn't really like this as much, cause it wouldn't match other scenes, under different lights, where there is a lot more saturation. So I shot flat and tried adding saturation in post, and there is blue noise as a result. I did another shoot test, same area, and this time adding saturation in camera. It looks a little better cause the noise is more yellow and not as noticeable at least on my eyes.

So what sounds better in that case? Shooting flat, or not?
 
There does not need to be a third (fourth?) thread about those sodium lights, and you're missing the point entirely besides. What did I say about getting serious?
 
Yeah okay. Just determining what's best when shooting flat. I guess since shooting flat costs a lot of money in post, I will not do so since I am tight on my budgets.
 
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