What is the best picture profile for a low light party?

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Last weekend I was filming an 'aftermovie' for an EDM event. This was the first time that I used my FS100 for this.

Before I started I found some picture profile settings online, but this what's happened (it's a LED spot in the background):

preview.jpg

I must say there was also a lot of smoke inside the location. But when I compare my results with another FS100 videos, I think it's really bad. The lens that I used was a Tokina 11-16mm (F2.8/ISO3200).

Who has experience in low light situations like this and can give me some tips to create a good picture profile?
 
Yes thats bad. I think you will have to turn down the reds or magenta's for this one. And a lower saturation will help I guess. But I don't think you can prevent this, the fs100 is weak in red and magenta light.
What you could have done, and I do, in this kind of situations is to underexpose and expose for the highlights.
 
There simply no "best" picture profile out there.

The FS100 needs to be tweaked to handle each situation best.

Your profile shows casts everywhere, but that might also come from direct coloured light into the lens.
Your black level also seems to be way over.
To find your picture profile you need to perform some testing first. It can be a science if you want to go deep into understanding gammas and knee.

This might help for your beginning:

http://wearenirv.tumblr.com/post/41698867543/nirvs-everyday-picture-profile

This is some kind of everyday profile. Whites will go up to 255 and blacks down to 0.
This means that your footage need to be colour corrected in post (to bring levels into legal 709 colour space: 16-235 RGB value), but it uses all the dynamic range, that the FS100 is capable of.


http://frankglencairn.wordpress.com...imate-1-0-picture-profile-for-the-sony-fs100/

This is Frank Glencairns famous pp for everyone out there who doesn't know to much about colour spaces and legal values.
It's nice out of the box in most cases and only needs little tweaking on post. But you loose some of the dynamic range in
the FS100s 8bit footage.

Don't judge your footage with the display only. Use the histogram of the FS100 or better the parade of external displays, if you have one.
Best would be to try some footage with diiferent settings, watch them in you NLE and decide whats best for you...
 
Joost said:
Yes thats bad. I think you will have to turn down the reds or magenta's for this one. And a lower saturation will help I guess. But I don't think you can prevent this, the fs100 is weak in red and magenta light.
What you could have done, and I do, in this kind of situations is to underexpose and expose for the highlights.
Click to expand...
I must say this is one of the worst shots from the 1,5 hours footage that I have shot. You are right that this especially happened with red and purple lights.
Unfortunately I don't know anyone who's filming with a FS100 at events like this. Most people are using a 5D MKII/MKIII or RED camera.

So actually I have to go to a party just for experimenting with different setting to find the best that fits for me.
 
Last edited:
Erik Wittbusch said:
There simply no "best" picture profile out there.

The FS100 needs to be tweaked to handle each situation best.

Your profile shows casts everywhere, but that might also come from direct coloured light into the lens.
Your black level also seems to be way over.
To find your picture profile you need to perform some testing first. It can be a science if you want to go deep into understanding gammas and knee.

This might help for your beginning:

http://wearenirv.tumblr.com/post/41698867543/nirvs-everyday-picture-profile

This is some kind of everyday profile. Whites will go up to 255 and blacks down to 0.
This means that your footage need to be colour corrected in post (to bring levels into legal 709 colour space: 16-235 RGB value), but it uses all the dynamic range, that the FS100 is capable of.


http://frankglencairn.wordpress.com...imate-1-0-picture-profile-for-the-sony-fs100/

This is Frank Glencairns famous pp for everyone out there who doesn't know to much about colour spaces and legal values.
It's nice out of the box in most cases and only needs little tweaking on post. But you loose some of the dynamic range in
the FS100s 8bit footage.

Don't judge your footage with the display only. Use the histogram of the FS100 or better the parade of external displays, if you have one.
Best would be to try some footage with diiferent settings, watch them in you NLE and decide whats best for you...
Click to expand...
I see now that I was using the 'Abelcine 5DM2_STD' profile, but I think that was not a good idea because the website says: 'The resulting image is very saturated and the blacks are fairly crushed, so use at your own caution'. I tested it 2 days before (but then with enough light) and it looks indeed like the 5D, so I was thinking 'this profile is ok for me'.

I have this camera just for a few months, so I still have to learn a lot. Also I don't have experience with color correction so for now it's the best to use a profile that doesn't need big adjustments. But I understand that you always loose some dynamic range than.

Thanks for your links! I will definitely try them. But I think I also need to learn some things about the histogram/color levels to get the best out of my camera in the future :)
 
Without any knowledge in colour correction Frank's profile can't be wrong. He is giving some advices how to tweak the profile according to your needs.
As I am experimenting with the settings too, any experience is appreciated.
 
I use that 5d profile all the time & love it. Your situation is very specific.....with all those led lights, smoke & darkness I'm sure it's a hot mess and a recipe for disaster.

Is the master footage really that bad though? Hard to tell based on a cell phone screen here. Live & learn and best of luck with correcting the image.
 
Erik Wittbusch said:
Without any knowledge in colour correction Frank's profile can't be wrong. He is giving some advices how to tweak the profile according to your needs.
As I am experimenting with the settings too, any experience is appreciated.
Click to expand...
It's on my to do list for next week! :) This week I have to edit the aftermovie first.

I'm going to create a (simple) similar setting in my livingroom with 2 LED lights. I will put the camera on my stand and will film myself to compare skin tones and suchlike. I'm just started with videoproductions and all my contacts are in the EDM scene at the moment, so that's why it's very important for me to get the best result out of the camera in this situations. I will definitely try all recommendations that I get here.
 
Erwin Vanderhoydonks said:
I used no pp on a dance show last year (http://vimeo.com/59351651). On all the other pp the blue LED spots had a purple or black cone in the middle.
On the last kids party (http://vimeo.com/61841135) I used the Miller pp and graded it later.
But you will always have problem with LED spots.
Click to expand...
Thank you for your videos! It are similar situations but than with dancers instead of DJ's. Your result is way better than mine, but I see indeed that LED lights are very strong and give also in your videos a bit the same effect.

Grading is for me not a good option because the very short shots that I use in my edits. Mostly 3 or 4 seconds.
I think grading takes me weeks than. With my Canon DSLR I edited only the different videos and I hoped that this was also possible with the FS100.
 
Scott F said:
I use that 5d profile all the time & love it. Your situation is very specific.....with all those led lights, smoke & darkness I'm sure it's a hot mess and a recipe for disaster.

Is the master footage really that bad though? Hard to tell based on a cell phone screen here. Live & learn and best of luck with correcting the image.
Click to expand...
I used this profile for an interview in a sportshall last week and that looks also very good for me. I did also some quick test shots outside in the park and they were also good. But for low light it's unfortunately way different I've noticed.

You are right that it is not an easy situation, but I expected more from the FS100 after filming with a Canon DSLR at previous parties. But so much smoke I had never before. I have also some shots without smoke in another area and they look way better (but also crushed blacks).

I think it's a bad combination of much smoke and wrong picture profile for low light.

And yes, the footage is really that bad, even on my MacBook screen. A part is unusable, the rest is not perfect but acceptabel for a party like this. I have to make the best of it for now and next time better :) The next time will be with Christmas so I have luckily still a few weeks to search the most optimal settings.
 
I did finally some tests with my Livingcolors LED lamp and for me AB_RANGE2 looks the best with the most colors.

It will need some grading but it's better than a crushed image. With Christmas I have another party with a lot of lights so I hope this one goes better! :)
 
Good that you found your personal favorite.

But be aware that the range profile really squeezes your 8bit information together quite strong.
Personally, I changed my profiles after short colour correction in post again. It just doesn't make
much sense for me to stretch the limited data even more in post. Faces can look ugly that way.

Most important: expose as perfect as you can, use your histogram and spot meter!
 
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