Technicolor CinemaStyle: Best Practices

I shot a race event today and adjusted my CineStyle to 0,-2,+2, 0. After working with Neutral 0,-4,-2. 0 on my last shoot I really felt Neutral even dialed way down had already gotten too heavy in terms of contrast and saturation.
This picture looks very close to what I'd be looking for to start grading without a curve.
 
johne said:
just out of curiousity, has anyone shot green/bluescreen wit the cinestyle preset. I did a quick test and found it a pain to get enough of the green back in the
image to get a clean matte. I didn't spend much time on it but some of the other standard presets on the 7d (landscape or portrait srry can't remember) did a better job IMHO.
Anyway info is appreciated. Maybe cinestyle is not worth the trouble under controlled lighting circumstances?
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whatever PS you use, dial the sharpness down all the way to avoid edge artifacts when doing greenscreen work
 
dial the sharpness down all the way to avoid edge artifacts
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To all.... that is why you dial sharpness all the way down.

So many people think they don't like what they see but this is the reason. Realistically DSLR's weren't originally meant to be video cameras. It's a trade off. In order to make it work for video, sharpness down.

Philip Bloom has even mentioned long ago to turn sharpness all the way down. Look at his stuff, even though he turns all the way down his stuff looks great. Obviously he shoots right and spends time composing with the right light in production and the right amount of grading in post.
 
draven4 said:
To all.... that is why you dial sharpness all the way down.

So many people think they don't like what they see but this is the reason. Realistically DSLR's weren't originally meant to be video cameras. It's a trade off. In order to make it work for video, sharpness down.

Philip Bloom has even mentioned long ago to turn sharpness all the way down. Look at his stuff, even though he turns all the way down his stuff looks great. Obviously he shoots right and spends time composing with the right light in production and the right amount of grading in post.
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It depends. These videos were shot with standard picture style and imo they are among the best if not the best looking dslr footage I've seen:

http://vimeo.com/5000009
http://vimeo.com/7118904

What matters more is how good your post skills are.
 
That's what i was getting at. Even though standard picture style is used he turned down sharpness all the way. My main point is that it helps footage realistically for our "moving image purposes" and the end result looks great. I think many people think turning up sharpness will help the image "look better". Not necessarily true.

Post skills terribly important. That's what separates pros from non pros among many things like composition and use of light ect ect.
That's why bigger budgets look so great, they know how to treat images well in post. But I will tell you that the DP's know how to shoot the image to leave room for post grading, something I think many people don't do or are afraid of doing because they want the best image in camera. But that's just a different method. Nothing wrong with that either, but it's more set in stone that way.

I work in the online editing world and every dp we work with shoots flat, with images that are meant to be graded. In fact images look so flat that at first might look "bad" in a way. But after grading they look fantastic. It was something I had to get used to seeing first and I guarantee that anyone on this site who saw this footage would not like it and immediately start turning up contrast in camera, sharpness ect. But after being trained by other online editors they told me how IMPORTANT it is to get this very flat image to work with. It takes a different eye to get used to this at first. We work with RED, Alexa footage, ect.

Problem though. This camera DSLR's don't shoot with a format of a codec meant for grading (H264). So I understand there needs to be a balance.

I just believe many people go overboard with their lack of faith in the color grading process or lack of knowledge.

I have found though that the technicolor profile is very very noisy in lower light, shadowy information, but performs great in daylight situations, even with shadows. I think this is just the H264 codec problem in general. This noise is there even without the technicolor profile but is less pronounced.

In big budget movies they actually use different film stocks for outdoor and indoor shoots on the same film. Maybe people need to shoot with an indoor and outdoor picture profile to emulate this workflow. There is a reason why they do this on filmshoots so why not do the same for digital shoots. In theory your picture profile is your film stock.

LAST POINT: working in online increasing saturation increases edge contrast. So if you do something like turn your sharpness +1 on your flat technicolor profile, and need to boost saturation in post you will increase artifacting because you have already maxed out your edges with your +1 in the first place. Something like that could happen. See that's something people don't think about.

Technicolor created that profile for post houses to adjust everything in relation to each other in the most efficient profile they could find creating taking these other factors in mind in relation to each other.
 
One thing I've never understood is the comment that using Cinestyle or other flat profile increases noise. Isn't it more accurate to say that when using a flat profile you may increase 'apparent' noise level because you need to dial up contrast in post?

In any event along the same subject lines, I ALWAYS leave HTP off by default though many recommend leaving it on.

Only time I turn it ON is in low iso high contrast situations.
 
Here is a frame grab of CineStyle 0,-2,+2, 0 out of the camera and with a curve.
The skin tones look pretty natural with no chroma adjustments.
Probably can go back to Contrast -4 for more detail
Canon 60D, Canon EFs 55-250 IS @ 250mm. I want to upgrade this lens to a 70-200L but for now the cheap lens does ok.
 

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Here is a frame grab of CineStyle 0,-2,+2, 0 out of the camera and with a curve.
The skin tones look pretty natural with no chroma adjustments.
Probably can go back to Contrast -4 for more detail
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I don't get what you are trying to show or what point you are trying to make? (seriously I am not trying sound rude at all. I just want to know what point you are making?)
 
draven4 said:
I don't get what you are trying to show or what point you are trying to make? (seriously I am not trying sound rude at all. I just want to know what point you are making?)
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+2 saturation as apposed to -2 to get closer to what I want out of the camera while retaining the DR from Cinestyle. Removing chroma and adding it in post has introduced some additional noise issues. We are examining all the different choices. Many here have gone back to Neutral 0,-4,-2, 0 (or softer) to get a close starting point in general, and use CineStyle in extreme contrast situations. This shot was late day in very flat light and the CineStyle 0,-2,+2, 0 has a more natural look, doesn't turn the skin tones to clay, and a better option in my opinion than Neutral
Just trying to share my shooting experiences with people looking for answers.
Lighten up Draven.
 
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Why tell me to lighten up??? I just made the point clearly "not trying to sound rude at all." Did you not read that? I made that point clearly so you wouldn't answer like you did.
 
Your image lacks saturation to begin with. It's overcast or appears that way and not that much sat to begin with. Not the most dynamic image to give an example but the skin tones are on. Ha! Just kidding, it ends up fine after grading!
 
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Determining exactly when to apply the LUT was a matter of trial-and-error. “It took time to find the proper path,” says Richardson. “Should it be prior to timing or after? At what level do you do the timing? Do you place the desaturation process first and then add on top?” The team initially baked in the LUT early in the process, and although “that worked well for the overall feeling of dailies, when it came to the final rendering,
we found there were aberrations both in the highlights and in the skin tones,” says Richardson. “The desaturated/ENR LUT influenced the Kodachrome LUT. On a 50-inch screen, the effect wasn’t noticeable, but on a 30-foot screen, the issues were magnified.”
Legato and EFilm colorist Yvan Lucas, who graded the HD dailies as well as the final picture, diagnosed an additional problem when they noticed how the LUTs amplified any bias inherent in the Kodak film stocks, Vision3 500T 5219 and Vision2 200T 5217 and 100T 5212. If the uncorrected footage was overly warm or cool, that trait would be exaggerated in unpredictable ways, and to a degree that could be difficult to remedy downstream. Legato realized that before any LUT could be applied, the film had to be perfectly white-balanced. “That way, when we amplified each color, it wouldn’t bias in one direction or another, and the result was predictable,” he says. He also determined that the LUT should not be baked in until after HD dailies were generated. Lucas therefore saw a LUT’s effect in view-only mode. “That added an extra step,” says Legato, “but it also gave us full control.
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http://www.theasc.com/ac_magazine/March2010/ShutterIsland/page1.php
 
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