Individual Color Gain
 

So, I'm noticing that if I amp all three individual color gains up (R, G, B) I get a brighter picture in the LCD. Do you think this adds noise just like turning up the gain in the camera? It doesn't seem to make it oversaturated, but I haven't had time to fully test it, yet.

Well, I don't know about gain, but it seems to nastily enhance all Chromic Abberation. Yuck.

Well, it seems it was the CineGamma 2 setting bringing out the CA on the object, not the individual color gains. Hm... Overall, upping the individual gains is nice (I have it at R 42, B 50, G 50) with CineGamma 2 because it keeps the exposure the same as the factory setting (the zebra levels don't change much). It's not darker than video, just softer. The CA is an issue, though. I wonder how it'll look with this setting when I get my Letus Extreme.

Anybody else want to play with amping up the individual color gains and post your thoughts? I'll try to put up some pictures in a bit.

My current settings are:

Gamma 2
Blacks Stretched
R 42
G 50
B 50
Color Gain 15

Okay, here's some stills. I ended up turning the overall color gain down, as it was just too much, making me think that individual color gain does in fact control saturation as well (duh). Three different scenarios, all low light with gain at 6db. First I show factory settings, then my cinema mode with color gain. Also, on the cinema mode, sharpening is turned down to -4.

What I'm trying to see is if actual noise is increased, or if I can actually squeeze a bit more juice out of the exposure (again, equalizing it between normal and Cine2 modes so as to be able to shoot in CineGamma and not have the image dark, thereby having to gain up anyway). Thoughts?

EDIT: Out of a hunch, I took two presets, made them both like my cinema preset except had one with R -8 G 0 B0 and the other with R 42 G 50 B 50, then turned overall color gain on both to 0. Even at B&W, when the individual color gains are amped they raise the exposure. So, is this simply meaning that the gain is getting bumped?

Well, adding colour gain does increase brightness, but not only does it introduce noise and CA, but also pushes the the colour sampling within the already weak codec.

Check out some of the existing threads pertaining to Custom Presets for some good ideas on how to get the most colour from your camera.

I've done a lot of searching, but it seems that not many people have thought to max out the RGB independent color gains (or bottom them out to see what happens), thus there's not much discussion/pictures on it (from what I can find).

From what I can see, it doesn't seem to be introducing more noise -- but more testing is needed. First and foremost, I need to temporarily turn up the sharpening in my Cinema preset to match the factory standard -- that might be hiding some noise.

As a side note, I was playing with saturation, turning it down to about -15 and -30, and with everything else where it's at (gamma2, black stretched, color gains amped), it has a real nice look to it, like a more subtle film stock. Kinda cool.