Skin tones

[flinty]

RoeiZ i think i should have said what the cameras capabilities without grading are rather than out of the box,

Ian-T your saying OK after the block ending overall i prefer the GH2 so we agree

jiclark@ucsd.edu what is a point and shoot, tm700/900s they perform pretty well so i am told,my footage goes on BD i never did see the point of hooking cams to the tv like you say,but i know many wedding filmers that dont tweek about with their footage in post and i dont blame them its ok for special short films but i dont blame them wanting good useable footage from their cameras,

so i say again overall i prefer my GH2 to my previous canon.

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

RoeiZ i think i should have said what the cameras capabilities without grading are rather than out of the box,

Ian-T your saying OK after the block ending overall i prefer the GH2 so we agree

jiclark@ucsd.edu what is a point and shoot, tm700/900s they perform pretty well so i am told,my footage goes on BD i never did see the point of hooking cams to the tv like you say,but i know many wedding filmers that dont tweek about with their footage in post and i dont blame them its ok for special short films but i dont blame them wanting good useable footage from their cameras,

so i say again overall i prefer my GH2 to my previous canon.

You should know that I have a somewhat 'low' opinion of 'wedding videographers'... and one of the reasons is because there's this sort of 'minimalist' effort that I have seen in the past. When the Wife and I were active in the wedding biz, we would often sell a package for 12-14 hours on the wedding day, plus rehearsal shoot, plus a couple casual... the videographer... show up on the day... shoot the 'important' elements, leave... deliver a VHS, or later DVD... done... for us the day film was only the beginning.

Once we transitioned to digital mostly, or even when shooting film, scanned, there were a number of requests... compositing several images because someone blinked... heck dropping in an 'absent groom'... no one told him he actually had to stand next to the bride for most of the day... come on... there was an open bar to be had...

Anyway, the point is, there is a lot of post processing that I think is required for providing a quality product. The Wife use to whine about having to perform an 'unsharp mask' operation on her digital images...in addition to any color tweeks because White balance of any sort can only go so far... that's just the nature of the beast...

As for a 'point and shoot'. The Wife and I are giving seminars at local libraries of late to people who are not pros, just want to make better images. Many of the 'cameras' they bring in are 'point and shoot', as long as you 'like' the resulting image, where the camera has automagically figured everything out... all is well... but if you want to change anything... well, there's no option but to go with the the automagical results. It allows for 'fast' production... but no user modifiable options... if you don't like shinny faces because the flash always comes on at a certain light level... tough... if you want to change the shutter speed for a certain effect... tough... if you want to play with flash and when the image is captured to give blur+sharp images... tough...

So, the point is, if you want more control, something you have to take more responsibility in the process...

As it is the Wife is a little miffed that her Fuji S5 is showing its age against my GH-1 'hobby' camera... So I'll probably have to buy her a Nikon when Nikon figures out how to do video well...

 

[Boncrek]

Anyway, the point is, there is a lot of post processing that I think is required for providing a quality product...
...if you want more control, something you have to take more responsibility in the process...

+1

Flinty, are you asking for a do it all magical camera that will automatically get the tones you want in-camera?
As people have said before the GH2 is more accurate in skin tones and is able to be easily graded, easier than the Canons.
If you dont like the thought of having to grade your footage then I believe you have the wrong camera and are in the wrong forum....on the wrong site even.
I understand that there are people who prefer the production side vs the post side of things.
That doesnt mean they dont respect the art of grading however and anything they can do to make they're editor/colorists job easier they do it.
Even Canon users have developed different picture styles than allow better grading of the image as they see its benefit too (even with those skin tones)
If you'll be the one editing the content then and grading is not for you then maybe a point and shoot is what you need.
Pro quaility requires Pro finessing/controls. No Pro camera looks good 'out of the box'.
If you dont like post processing on the GH2 I can only imagine your dislike if you had the RED

To the user that stated that this forum is biased...well I haven't seen that.
Plenty of users here list the GH2s problems and some threads have that as they're sole purpose.
Maybe the reason that so many users here give good feedback on the GH2 is because its a great cam.
Did that ever cross you're mind?
Quite frankly I'm tired of all of this complaining and moaning about how a DSLR 'doesnt do this' or 'doesnt do that' when its not a video camera.
I could buy three GH2 for the price of a handycam videocamera so thats incredible.
6 if you wanted full raster chips (although NAB has shown some cams that offer that now at a lower price)
Sure we'd like to see improvements but its just a tool and shouldn't define your work by its drawbacks.
So if your work requires skin tones on a pro level then pick the camera that does the job for it and move on.
If the Pana GH2 doesnt do it for you then move on.
It works for many people and is a tool in there arsenal that gets the job done.

 

[Lpowell]

The basic formula for the "Canon" look is:

- Warmer color-balance
- High color saturation ( especially reds )
- Higher contrast
- Crush the blacks to eliminate deep shadow detail
- Reduce image detail.

Sounds cool.. no where can I DL the plugin??

 

[TheDingo]

Sounds cool.. no where can I DL the plugin??

I'm a Vegas Pro editor, so for me it goes something like this...

1- Warmer color-balance

Vegas "Color Balance" plug-in

2- High color saturation ( especially reds )

Vegas "HSL Adjust" plug-in

3- Higher contrast

Either Vegas "Brightness and Contrast" or my preferred method is Vegas "Levels" plug-in

4- Crush the blacks to eliminate deep shadow detail

Vegas "Levels" plug-in

5- Reduce image detail

Not sure what the best route is for this, as I rarely ever want to reduce detail, but I am guessing that the Vegas "Gaussian Blur" plug-in, either added directly or to a duplicate layer that has been blended with the higher res original might do the trick.

Once I had something I liked I could save all of the plug-ins to my own plug-in package, so I could then apply everything at once to any clip.

 

[flinty]

Did you guys listen i said i prefer the GH2 to my previous 550D i just wish it had the skin tones like my canon,that is all i would add from the canon to my GH2 apart from maybe some more lens options like canon have.Most of my filming is lansdscape/wildlife where skin tone does not matter luckily only accasionaly i film street fairs etc where they do,ill end it there.

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

Did you guys listen i said i prefer the GH2 to my previous 550D i just wish it had the skin tones like my canon,that is all i would add from the canon to my GH2 apart from maybe some more lens options like canon have.Most of my filming is lansdscape/wildlife where skin tone does not matter luckily only accasionaly i film street fairs etc where they do,ill end it there.

This is sort of me saying, I like my GH-1 but it doesn't deliver Fuji S5 skin tones... the S5 doesn't even do video, but the 'skin tone' produced by the Fuji senser + processor beat out, in my opinion, either Canon or Nikon. Fuji has vacated the DSLR market... so not only don't I have a 'next generation' Fuji option... I'll not be seeing Fuji sensors unless I buy a cheep shot camera, or a 15-20 K Hasselblad back... which doesn't shoot moving pictures either...

At this point, all I ask out of a image capture system is that I have the ability to adjust to 'real' or as 'real' as possible... remove any cast, and avoid major saturations...

And in order to find 'real', I use color charts and grey cards... rather than human complexion for my references. The only time I use human complexion for a reference is when I'm in a museum, and I can get a few shots of artwork on the wall, before the dozents descend upon me, so I take a quick snap of my hand in the available light... Then I have at least some sort of reference... and even then, my had does change color depending on the situation... damn... but it's better than nothing...

Once I get to that 'real' rendering of color, if I want to put 'northern europeans' into a 'pinker' cast... that's an adjustment from 'real' based on an aesthetic choice... whether that ends up as 'Canon Color', is sort of immaterial.

Having done at least one outdoor scenic... there are any number of 'greens', or in my area, shades of brown... with about one or two months of 'green', but sort of a yellow green, vs. deep green... and then there's the desert with browns, reds, and yellows... anyway, there are any number of 'adjustments' to get different looks, or subtle shadings...

While my scenics were mostly B&W, I did do some amount of 'filtering' in the camera to bring out certain colors, etc. and would spend hours in the darkroom printing with slight variations, dodging, burning, different paper, etc... to get a 'look'...

I didn't do much color printing, because it was expensive, and because of wanting to obtain a 'creative' goal, I would have spent quite a bit in processing, as well as equipment to assist in the color calibration process...

The 'problem' with how you posted, seems to me to be from the kick of 'how is possible to achieve a Canon color look from a GH camera'... to 'I don't tend to spend time in post'... to 'well I don't shoot people much anyway'...

To me if there is a 'look' I'd like to achieve... then ask... 'how do I get there?'... and if someone says it requires post processing... well that's where it's at...

As an additional note, it would be nice to have an example of imagery that you know how much 'additional work' was put into the post processing, because showing a sample video... doesn't tell me how much work someone put into the thing, and how far from the 'camera output' the result is.

The whole area of 'color timing' is pretty much a industry itself. Trying to 'conform' color differences across a number of film stocks or capture methods... is a big problem...

Which of course for the no/low budget filmmaker is good reason to just use one camera or one brand and model of camera for a film...