Skin tones on the af100
- Thread starter lennywood
- Start date
leteeci
Well-known member
yap, I don't like those AF100 skintones, also.
It reminds me to JVC PD-1 that own and hate ( bought it on recomendation words of Sanjin Djukic, prompt forum member on dvinfo or similar; I can not remember).
I personally more like skintones from Canon 5dII, panasonic cameras..or even EX3 on CC..
I would buy AF100 othervise, but that realy bothers me..
It reminds me to JVC PD-1 that own and hate ( bought it on recomendation words of Sanjin Djukic, prompt forum member on dvinfo or similar; I can not remember).
I personally more like skintones from Canon 5dII, panasonic cameras..or even EX3 on CC..
I would buy AF100 othervise, but that realy bothers me..
nyvz
Veteran
I keep seeing a lot of magenta in skin tones from AF100 samples, sometimes this is lessened by the whole image being very blue, reducing the relative saturation of the magenta by increasing that of the whole blue scene. I tend to find if you're gonna have any kind of green/magenta shift in skin tones, green works better as it can look a bit warmer, whereas magenta just always looks sickly and unnatural.
I agree with the original poster about seeing in AF100 samples mostly poorly handled highlights and odd skin tones. It also seems to suffer from one of the issues I find in most video cameras which is that the saturation is way too high in highlights, too high in midtones, and too low in shadows. This usually means exacerbates many of the color shifts that make skin look bad as underexposed skin tones become washed out, and normally or over exposed any odd magenta shifts seem to be increased. Also in the still taken from the shot with the man in the kitchen, there seems to be more noise-reduction and sharpening than I would hope, perhaps this is partly from the way the still was taken? It reminds me a bit of many older inexpensive consumer cameras that very often overuse noise filtering and sharpening.
Also, that S-curve looks real bad, I assume it was over done to illustrate the effect? Also an overly-aggressive s-curve is hardly the way to fit more latitude into a scene. All you've illustrated is that an S-curve can increase the apparent contrast of the image. Seems like if anything you've thrown away information by overly compressing the top 1/4 highlights and bottom 1/4 shadows. Gamma and log curves easily fit as many stops as you want into a normal 8-bit image without forcing you into a high-contrast image, if anything low-contrast is the way to fit more in.
I agree with the original poster about seeing in AF100 samples mostly poorly handled highlights and odd skin tones. It also seems to suffer from one of the issues I find in most video cameras which is that the saturation is way too high in highlights, too high in midtones, and too low in shadows. This usually means exacerbates many of the color shifts that make skin look bad as underexposed skin tones become washed out, and normally or over exposed any odd magenta shifts seem to be increased. Also in the still taken from the shot with the man in the kitchen, there seems to be more noise-reduction and sharpening than I would hope, perhaps this is partly from the way the still was taken? It reminds me a bit of many older inexpensive consumer cameras that very often overuse noise filtering and sharpening.
Also, that S-curve looks real bad, I assume it was over done to illustrate the effect? Also an overly-aggressive s-curve is hardly the way to fit more latitude into a scene. All you've illustrated is that an S-curve can increase the apparent contrast of the image. Seems like if anything you've thrown away information by overly compressing the top 1/4 highlights and bottom 1/4 shadows. Gamma and log curves easily fit as many stops as you want into a normal 8-bit image without forcing you into a high-contrast image, if anything low-contrast is the way to fit more in.
Last edited:
Matt Gottshalk
Resident Preditor
Benjamin Eckstein
Well-known member
Yup. Looks like skin to me.
Barry_Green
Moderator
If someone is having an issue with too much magenta, there are ways to fix that -- like, don't use the FLUO matrix, which accentuates magenta and minimizes green. Or use the chroma phase setting; if you have too much magenta, turn the phase down. If you have too much green, turn the phase up. There are settings to deal with these things.
Robert Ruffo
Well-known member
I find that EX1/EX3 seem to gives softer, more film-like roll-off in the highlights. I'm not sure, after a test, that I am a 100% fan of the AFs color science but maybe with more tweaking I would have gotten better results. Ex1 + 35mm adapter gives an easier match to Red MX in terms of color, so we will stick with that for our B cam.
Matt Gottshalk
Resident Preditor
Ask shooter, it was his post/gabs.
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?236025-AF102-Scene-Setting-Tests-SCREEN-GRABS
Here you can see the default scene settings. Skin tones look good on these as well.
i think if your using cine settings, highlights roll off do tend to get bad. you should always expose properly on cine d/v or use a different gamma
I think the point is being somewhat missed here. In my case at least, I am seeing some very professionally produced pictures - good skin tones for the cold, desaturated look of contemporary images up to and including pleasing skin representations for "corporate" type productions.
However, I often work with a very demanding producer who used to be an interior designer and an art director. She uses terms like "Fine Italian brocade" - "Rich organic textures", that kind of thing. I've looked at many, hundreds probably, samples of AF100 slide shows, and I'm just not seeing it... I want this camera to satisfy me, but I still need proof that it will.
However, I often work with a very demanding producer who used to be an interior designer and an art director. She uses terms like "Fine Italian brocade" - "Rich organic textures", that kind of thing. I've looked at many, hundreds probably, samples of AF100 slide shows, and I'm just not seeing it... I want this camera to satisfy me, but I still need proof that it will.
olof
DVXuser Sponsor
I would rent an AF100 set up your own lighting the way your producer likes it and shoot some tests, if you can't get what she is after, then try another cam.
I can get great results with an EXcam. And I have confidence that the AF100 also can produce pretty much any look you want. It just takes a while to dial it in to your liking.
Also remember this is a very inexpensive camera. Maybe you should try an Alexa or F35 for more control.
Matt Gottshalk
Resident Preditor
I agree. The af100 is just a tool like any other camera. Rent one and put it through its paces and see if it satifies your producer.
Personally, i like mine so much that i ordered a 2nd one.
Personally, i like mine so much that i ordered a 2nd one.
Alpha Beta Omega
Veteran
Skin tones is about lighting, colour and exposure. Get all three right and it looks great. I can pretty much mimic how my 5D or 7D look if I want to. I showed a director this week some test footage I took around the office and he said - wow great 5D footage! But it was the AF101.
Andrew J. Allsbury
Well-known member
Agreed, no problems here with my desire for warm skin tones. If its what I'm looking for I can make it look just like my T2i.
lennywood
Well-known member
UPDATE
i am not a patient man, and i was not getting this baby to look the way i had hoped it would look. plus a d.p. friend that knows his stuff and used my camera for chroma key work told me the client told him they had a hard time keying the footage, so i decided to sell it. luckily i found a buyer right away, so the camera sold. i kept my hot rod pl mount, in case panasonic makes some software upgrades that make this baby better, then i will return.
i will keep and eye on dvxuser to see what you guys say about the improvements, if and when they come.
i am not a patient man, and i was not getting this baby to look the way i had hoped it would look. plus a d.p. friend that knows his stuff and used my camera for chroma key work told me the client told him they had a hard time keying the footage, so i decided to sell it. luckily i found a buyer right away, so the camera sold. i kept my hot rod pl mount, in case panasonic makes some software upgrades that make this baby better, then i will return.
i will keep and eye on dvxuser to see what you guys say about the improvements, if and when they come.
Postmaster
Dark Side of the Camera
Steve Kahn
Well-known member
+1
I don't know what you guys are seeing - aside from poorly exposed highlights.
Perhaps you could post some footage...