what's better for post low chroma or high?

[Perrone Ford]

Ok, another reworked DPX file from a Viper

Same deal...

1. Original
2. White balance with contrast correction
3. 3-wheel color + computer RGB translation

[Leonard Levy]

Well that's poppin' more.

I need to do some tests myself though to really see when you start reach the limits on either side of the too high or too low equation.

I've been emailing a colorist friend who said with lower bit rate stuff like an EX-1 he suggests getting as close as possible to the final look in shooting.


BTW - Yes I did understand that they were probably a half mile up

Thanks Perrone you are doing alot of work to post all this and I appreciate it.

[Brian Luce]

What on earth is that thing in London? Looks amazing.

On my crummy LCD, the uncorrected youtube video actually looks better. The blue is bluer, the back more black, and the water looks more refreshing. In the corrected version, the bg looks orangey. Just one man's puter.

Thanks for the the posts Perron.

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Brian Luce

What on earth is that thing in London? Looks amazing.

The London Eye's official website for the best online ticket prices, guaranteed

Originally Posted by Brian Luce

On my crummy LCD, the uncorrected youtube video actually looks better. The blue is bluer, the back more black, and the water looks more refreshing. In the corrected version, the bg looks orangey. Just one man's puter.

Man, calibrate that monitor! But yes, the "graded" version was done as an example to show some things, not as a "look how great this is" piece. I've just left it there as a demo.

[Marty Welk]

ha ha, anybody shooting an original like that pic 1of4
http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/attachme...doneye_raw.png

doesnt need grading, they got an F, and should go get a real job :-)
what was someone thinking to shoot out of thier camera like that? did they have a color viewer anywhere on the premisis, do they know what the letters WB stand for?

although i admit it makes a perfect Alien Landscape, with the cool contraptions in the pic and all.
Here we are on the planet Krendar the green haze caused by the methonol chloride gasses the locals breathe :-) as we overlook the city in our cloaked observation booth, we pray that the seals hold out the deadly green toxic gasses. Our research has shown that the krendar Retina compensates for the gastly hues on thier planet, so as we observe, we realise that a real Krendarian would be seeing a normal picture, properly exposed with the colors correct.

[Perrone Ford]

Well Marty,

That image was shot with the Thompson Grass Valley Viper. You can read all about it here:

Viper FilmStream Camera (LDK 7500) | Grass Valley

It's the same camera that was used to shoot "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button". Maybe you've heard of it.

The unique nature of the RAW capture of the Viper leads to the green hue that you see. This is normal and expected. And it happens in nearly all cameras because they tend to sample the green channel twice as often as red or blue. So if you are able to capture the image with ZERO processing, the images will always have a green hue.

Additionally, since the image the viper puts out is 10bit logarithmic, the images tend to look quite flat and low contrast. This is to be expected. And it takes some special processing to get that back to what you might consider normal or linear mode.

Most consumer cameras (and many pro cameras) shoot an 8 bit linear signal. Some of the more expensive cameras can get a 10bit linear signal. The camreras that do more than 10bit linear (10bit log or 14 bit linear) are usually well above $100k. The Viper is one of few that can shoot in that mode.

Most cameras shoot with what is known as 4:2:0 color. Or rather that is what their codecs can capture. Professional cameras are usually able to capture 4:2:2, which offers twice the color information. The most expensive cameras can capture 4:4:4 color but usually need external recording devices to do so. I believe the cheapest of those 4:4:4 recorders is about $60k. The actual media is extra. I believe Sony's HDCamSR recorder retails somewhere north of $80k, and the HDCamSR tapes are $120 per hour last I checked.

So I offer all that to say this:

Before you criticize the work of another, especially someone shooting with one of the most advanced digital cameras on Earth, and one that when set up to record costs more than most houses, you might want to get your facts in order.

-P

Originally Posted by Marty Welk

ha ha, anybody shooting an original like that pic 1of4
http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/attachme...doneye_raw.png

doesnt need grading, they got an F, and should go get a real job :-)
what was someone thinking to shoot out of thier camera like that? did they have a color viewer anywhere on the premisis, do they know what the letters WB stand for?

although i admit it makes a perfect Alien Landscape, with the cool contraptions in the pic and all.
Here we are on the planet Krendar the green haze caused by the methonol chloride gasses the locals breathe :-) as we overlook the city in our cloaked observation booth, we pray that the seals hold out the deadly green toxic gasses. Our research has shown that the krendar Retina compensates for the gastly hues on thier planet, so as we observe, we realise that a real Krendarian would be seeing a normal picture, properly exposed with the colors correct.

[Marty Welk]

wow that camera is in a whole nother leauge.

i wasnt proposing any facts, i can (like you) understand that the imagers on this stuff probably look worse than that even, when they are raw, back behind the tricks they do to give us a picture.

i would just freak out if my camera worked that way , AT the scale of work that i do, and i would Not think it would be totally repairable.

your final repair of it still on my monitor doesnt make the city look like i would suppose it could look like with my eyes. WHICH only reminded me of times when stuff was shot here way out of wack and it was not fixable at all without laborously selecting part of the picture to process. even after the fix colors that far off still lived long after beating them down.

i mention it because after the MINOR work that we do here, i see that picture as totally destroyed. You fixed it good though, for how bad the original looks.

here in the EX forum, if you told me that an EX cam would work like that at any time i would PROPERLY use it, then i should avoid the EX cam as an option. i would not have a picture like that comming out of any camera at the level of work we do here, it is completly unacceptable.

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Marty Welk

wow that camera is in a whole nother leauge.

i wasnt proposing any facts, i can (like you) understand that the imagers on this stuff probably look worse than that even, when they are raw, back behind the tricks they do to give us a picture.

That's just it. There ARE no tricks on this camera in this mode. Zero. No processing is done to the image at all. In this mode, all you get to adjust is focus, shutter speed, and framing.

Originally Posted by Marty Welk

i would just freak out if my camera worked that way , AT the scale of work that i do, and i would Not think it would be totally repairable.

Right. But the people shooting with this camera, in that mode, are prepared for a very expenisive and often lengthy post-production workflow.

Originally Posted by Marty Welk

your final repair of it still on my monitor doesnt make the city look like i would suppose it could look like with my eyes. WHICH only reminded me of times when stuff was shot here way out of wack and it was not fixable at all without laborously selecting part of the picture to process. even after the fix colors that far off still lived long after beating them down.

My final repair was something I tossed together in 5 minutes on my laptop. I don't have the software to do a proper 10bit log -> 14 bit color translation, as that software costs more than my yearly salary.

The difference between working with what you are used to, and RAW images, is that ALL the information is there. Look at it this way. Uncompresed HD is about 1.5Gbps. Your EX1 records 35Mbps. You've thrown away over 95% of the signal before it hits your SxS card. (Yes I know that's exaggerated, but it's representative.) The Viper is actually recording two full streams of uncompressed HD so, 3Gbps. It has so much more data to work with than we do, it's not even worth comparing.

Originally Posted by Marty Welk

i mention it because after the MINOR work that we do here, i see that picture as totally destroyed. You fixed it good though, for how bad the original looks.

To me, that original is gorgeous. No clipping, no crushed blacks, full spectrum video. Gorgeous! On set, the folks who need to see an example of what it SHOULD look like when corrected, have a monitor with special software that does the correction on the fly. Alternately, the shooter could put a special magenta filter on the front of the lens that would bring things back to about normal. I created a software based version of that filter (and others) for quick correction of Viper images. It takes off the green cast rather accurately. Mine isn't perfect, but its close enough for me to drop it on, and get a very good approximation of where the image SHOULD be.

Originally Posted by Marty Welk

here in the EX forum, if you told me that an EX cam would work like that at any time i would PROPERLY use it, then i should avoid the EX cam as an option. i would not have a picture like that comming out of any camera at the level of work we do here, it is completly unacceptable.

LOL! Then put a $100 Tiffen magenta on it, and it will look normal color. But it will still be low contrast. You don't HAVE to shoot the viper in that mode. You can use it as a normal video camera that produces STUNNING images without that green, low-contrast look. But at that point, you've thrown away 90% of it's quality. So people who rent it, live with it being green and get all that data they would otherwise lose...

Hey, when you're paying $15-25k a week for a camera, you want all it can give you! You can fix that green stuff later...

[Marty Welk]

and just to be sure, beings my monitor isnt "grading" quality, i popped the pic into the photo program and even according to the leetel numbers for color that it shows me, the front of the buildings is a green color still.
buildings which i assume are not green originally.
so it doesnt seem to be my wakey monitor that is off.

a fuzzy select of the colors also shows that the tree colors are in extreeme similarity to the building colors , which is what i thought when i saw that. only a real master like yourself mabey would want to get handed that and told to fix it :-)
and in that case they are underpaying you and overpaying for that camera :-)

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Marty Welk

and just to be sure, beings my monitor isnt "grading" quality, i popped the pic into the photo program and even according to the leetel numbers for color that it shows me, the front of the buildings is a green color still.
buildings which i assume are not green originally.
so it doesnt seem to be my wakey monitor that is off.

a fuzzy select of the colors also shows that the tree colors are in extreeme similarity to the building colors , which is what i thought when i saw that. only a real master like yourself mabey would want to get handed that and told to fix it :-)
and in that case they are underpaying you and overpaying for that camera :-)

Like I said.. it's not my work. And if I had actually taken more than a couple minutes with it, I would have corrected it fully. Did you like the Chinatown finished product more? I spent a bit more time with it.

[Marty Welk]

yes the 3rd chinatown picture looks great.
was that an EX camera?

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Marty Welk

yes the 3rd chinatown picture looks great.
was that an EX camera?

Nope, that was a Viper also.

[Matt Davis]

Originally Posted by Marty Welk

a fuzzy select of the colors also shows that the tree colors are in extreeme similarity to the building colors , which is what i thought when i saw that. only a real master like yourself mabey would want to get handed that and told to fix it :-)

Hey Marty, you a film person?

The images you're looking at from the Viper, and what you'll get from a RED and that ilk are negatives. Few people can look at a negative and see in it an emotional and deep print - and if you do, look at the shots again and see them as a contact print at best.

In this line of cameras (and with the EX line if you're really careful), you shoot for the perfect negative, so you can do pretty amazing things when you print to positive, so to speak. The 'one light' or 'machine' prints you see in the examples are just that - a quick print to ensure the shot works, without care of 'grading', 'timing' and so on.

Yes, those terms are applied still in the world of Digital Cinematography.

Shoot flat, shoot neutral, get as much info recorded.

That's how (in one example that springs to mind) in the first Narnia film, a couple of scenes were transposed Day For Night... in POST. The digital 'negatives' (Digital Intermediate or DI) hold enough information to not only pull the shot into a particular look, but also play with virtual lighting.

The benefit is quality that survives being hammered through effects shots, compositing, grading, format conversion, compression and presentation, and the sort of flexibility that enables very complex colaborative workflows - the downside is mindboggling steps of working with digital intermediates: not just long render times, but all the brain ache about colour spaces, frame rates, storage, time code, 2K, 4K, and... I think I need a little lie-down just thinking about it.

I'd also suggest reading up about RED's workflow, and how to shoot and edit with it. At least it will put the EX in some sort of perspective.

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Matt Daviss

I'd also suggest reading up about RED's workflow, and how to shoot and edit with it. At least it will put the EX in some sort of perspective.

First time I tried to grade an .r3d, I thought I was going to cry. Had an early beta of the PC software and it crashed about every other time I pressed a button! How far we've come in only a few years.

And yea, I wasn't going to go into a conversation about LUTs and color management (manglement) and all that other stuff.

I've been burned enough times with the EX1's color, that I now just shoot everything flat and tend to push a bit in post. Seems a MUCH easier way to get the color and look that I want, for not a lot of effort. I'd have to render it out anyway, so adding back a bit of saturation, and moving the luma around doesn't really cost me much time.

[Marty Welk]

Originally Posted by Matt Daviss

Hey Marty, you a film person?

.

Shoot flat, shoot neutral, get as much info recorded.

.

no not a film person (other than watching them) at all, strictally video, the only reason i am even going to the EX level is because of a few needs:
1) must handle much and much motion and full frame changes on the pic (due to crasy theatre lighting), so excessive compression like HDV will will ruin the HD.
2) must live long and proper, so having half res psudo resolution isnt good enough
3) must do very low light for stuff like funerals for example, and church stuff where they dont allow added lighting, and party stuff where the DJ insists on turning off all the lights so his light show works.

4) must have SDI out for going to switcher , and cant be HDMI because it doesnt go 100+ feet as easily
5) is shot Live
6) is displayed live while shooting in many cases
7) is displayed recorded within a few minutes of shooting
8) then finnaly is post productioned, but generally Post production is (supposed to be) limited.

9) all and or none of the above depending on the situation the job , the price, the needs of customer, and what i want to do. Meaning not all that applies for everything, but it all needs to be done with the same equiptment.

with 2-3 cams both being operated correctally 99% of the time,and a switcher that doesnt miss 1% of the time, there is little that Requires post.

There is pause and you can rollback to delete in some way in all cameras, properly used i have shot many finished products in the cam 99% correctally.

i started shooting before spending 60 hours editing afterwards even existed, so i need a camera that does stuff corectally 99% of the time, the first time. This also being Dreaming, now that everything has to go through the computer anyways.

with the pro-sumer the color had to be torqued back DOWN, which worked out pretty good.

If were not recording uncompressed fully editable full signal, then the ONLY place that full "bits" signal processing CAN occur is before it gets obliviated for these low compression rates. which is in the camera after the chips and before the compressed storage

after compression stuff is tossed out left and right. so i think for what i do, post or not , i am better off with compressing something that is already in range when the bits are still there, because after compression i cant get all the bits back it had , when it processed it in the camera.

On The Other Hand:
if the color is low and the signal is low, then THAT can BE compressed much easier, they can use thier few bits they have for the less stuff that is even there. just recovering back to all the bits that the cameras processor had wont happen unlessi fix the compression.

so i donno, i already have issues i have seen from 5-1 compression, if i was going to be doing 4X the resolution of DV then i want 4x the data. like say the nano, but i can barely afford the cameras/switching themselves. . . the price of doing full pro-sumer in HD is about double what DV was, and its compressed 4times more TOO.

loads of stuff on tv is still done in almost real time, they are not going to take 6 extra hours to fix everything afterwards in slow time, we TRY and do the same basic thing.