Marvel's Film Look PP and shutter speeds

[Charles Penn]

I shot some video yesterday using Marvel's film look picture profile below. I like the look and I've used it several times. But one thing I noticed from yesterday's shoot is I got some funky looking 'strobing' effect from a simple pan of the camera. I shot it using a 1/60 shutter speed. I'm new to this camera and would appreciate some feedback on this. It seems to me that simple pans of people walking in normal speeds should not be problematic. It's not like I was shooting a basketball game or car racing! Did the shutter speed have anything to do with the PP settings or was it a function of the shutter speed setting. Please advise. Thanks.

Chuck

MARVELS FILM PICTURE PROFILE:

Matrix: On, High-Sat, Level 0, Phase -5, R-G 75, R-B 0, G-R -18, G-B -23, B-R -27, B-G 13. This gives a beautifully balanced color matrix.
White: on, Offset A +2, Offset B +2, Offset ATW +2. This will give you a beautiful warm picture, by elevating the reds a little bit
Detail: On, Level 0, Frequency +65, Crispening 0, Black limiter +75, White limiter +75. This gives a very nice definition without the artificial sharpening artifiacts. Ideal for DOF adapter shooting.
Gamma: Cine-1 for rich-contrast situations, Cine-3 for low-contrast situations. Make cine-1 your standard and avoid cine-4 (too noisy in the shadows). Use Joe’s Levels plugin for FCP to enhance contrast in post.
Black: -3 or -4 (use the Adobe OnLocation waveform monitor or another soft- or hardware level monitor, then cap the lens, set camera to Gain-0 and you’ll see that only -3 produces the correct black level – lower will crush the blacks. It’s better to control the blacklevel per-scene in post. -4 will give you zero pedestal; giving you a tiny bit more headroom. June 6 2009 update: i nowadays set black level to 0 (zero) and adjust the black level in post with FCP using Joe’s levels plugin. This further helps reducing noise in dark parts of the image!
Black gamma: -2. Will help to reduce noise in the blacks.

[Nathan Swinn]

I've been using a slightly tweaked version of this PP for indoors and outdoors with good results. I haven't noticed any strobing but I haven't been doing a lot of pans lately.

This PP has become my default for in and out, when I just want to flip on the camera and go. Very flexible with a great natural look for outdoor.

So thanks for posting this PP, Charles.

[Charles Newcomb]

Since Picture Profiles don't work cross model, is there any chance we can get you two to tell us what camera you're talking about? Thanks.

[Garrett Low]

Charles,

I thought that the actual settings for the EX1 and EX3 were compatible. It is just that you cannot swap SUF files between the two cams. I've used the same settings from EX1's with my EX3 on multicam shoots and they matched fine.

Nathan,

What are your tweaks for indoor and outdoor?

Garrett

[Nathan Swinn]

Certainly. EX1R here.

YouTube - CallanHDtest4.mov

[Charles Newcomb]

Okay, now I'm confused. Doug Jensen has repeatedly said EX1 and EX3 pictures profiles are different.

[Nathan Swinn]

Garrett, cross posted with you.

I run the same profile, in and out. I'll dig out the settings and get them posted when I get the chance. In no way should my tweaking be considered scientific, haha. I somewhat randomly changed some of the Marvel settings.

That youtube vid is straight out of Avid, from early April, and was an early export test so it could probably look better.

[Clark Peters]

I can't be sure what the OP meant by strobing, so I'm taking a shot in the dark here.

I don't use Detail On anymore because my EX1 had problems with the sharpening of fine detail popping in and out as the camera panned. This was especially bad when the scene included a lot of fine detail, such as bare tree branches.

My guess is that the onboard processing couldn't keep up. Even though the PP shows Detail set at 0, that still includes some sharpening. Others have posted here that you have to go to -20 or -30 to get no sharpening of detail.

Pete

[Arbel Rom]

Well, I shot an interview today, and decided to try this PP and see how it goes.
I think it looks decent, but there is room for improvement.
I used tungsten lights, and WB was set to 3200K.
Only the backlight was gelled with CTB.
I think the resulting image is still somewhat reddish.

I am attaching two frame grabs from the interview, and a 30 sec. clip.
Tell me what you think...

Thanks.

[Alister Chapman]

On any camera detail correction will drop off whenever the image moves or there is motion in the scene. This is because the detail circuits use contrast between adjacent pixels to determine where to apply detail. If the image is static then pixel to pixel contrast changes are easily determined, but if the image is moving you don't get the same difference between pixels and the detail enhancement level drops off as a result.
A camera with excessive detail correction or very high frequency correction will exhibit a noticeable softening of the image as a pan starts.

More advanced cameras such as the PMW-350 and PDW-700 have an additional sharpening circuit called "aperture correction" that works differently to detail and is not affected by motion in the same way.

With regard to the strobing, one thing to check is that you have "Flicker Reduce" in the camera menu set to "Off". It's known to cause issues when using the shutter. Also what are you monitoring with? Computer monitors are notorious for introducing artifacts that are not really there.