GH4 Zebras

[stoneinapond]

No, not the animals….

I've never used the zebra function, but after editing a ton of footage, and with the possibility of an imminent V-Log release, I want to start exploring it.

Can someone shed some light as to why there are two settings on the GH4 that appear to be almost identical?

Second, what are the preferred settings for either or both?

And a happy 4th to all who celebrate it. :beer:

 

[Bern Caughey]

The Zebras can be set to different values, but only one can be displayed at a time.

I set the first Zebra to 65% (sometimes 70%) which is good for Caucasian skin tone when recording Rec 709. If there isn't Caucasian skin in the frame anyone can meter off the palm of their hands as regardless of ethnicity they are all similar tone & density. This is usually good for establishing a base exposure.

The second Zebra gets set for highlight clipping. If the GH4's Luminance Level is set for 0-255 the Zebra can go as high as 105%, but with 16-235 (my default) the Zebras only go as high as 95%.

The values will change significantly with V-Log L & if Panasonic doesn't allow much lower values for the Zebras we'll likely just set a single one that reflects the luminance level for a calibrated (90%) White Card.

Art Adams has an in-depth article on exposing SLog3 (on the FS7) that better explains the methodology, though the values may be quite different for V-Log L (most likely even V-Log values will be different that V-Log L).

http://www.provideocoalition.com/the-sensation-of-white

A large Waveform makes exposing Log much easier but my preferred tool is False Color. It's more intuitive, & quicker, to see where all the values fall then even the best Waveform. Much to their credit Blackmagic will provide False Color in their upcoming EVF.

 

[stoneinapond]

The Zebras can be set to different values, but only one can be displayed at a time.

Thanks for the information and the link. Although much of it is over my head, I do recognize certain things such as the scopes when I'm color correcting. They make a little more sense.

Just so I'm clear, do you use the two zebra settings depending on what you are focusing on - namely zebra 1 only when there are skin tones involved, and zebra 2 only for when the shot is a general scene? Or is there a way to combine both results in the first instance?

Hope that makes sense.