A1 Preset for shooting weddings
 

Just curious what you guys are using for presets for shooting weddings. Just picked up an A1 for weddings, figured I'd poke around and see what's working for you guys,

Really like "Reality" and "Panalook" lately. The latest versions are available somewhere around here...

I use PFVISION, look in the XH-A1 sample clip forum for it. Works great in low light.

Josh,

I used Disjectas Panalook on my H1 for about everything for a long time and loved it. We all used to gripe about the flat colors 'out of the box'. When I need to edit quick I'll use it or another similar version. However, lately I've been shooting flat (factory presets) and color-grading in post. Sometimes with weddings especially, stuff happens, and presets can be restricting - most of mine seem to always cost me a half a stop or more of light as well. I tend to use presets for exteriors, but rarely anymore would I use one for interiors. The variability of lighting situations is too great to be predictable. And once you've shot with a preset - your stuck with it - it gets pretty mucky trying to cc a preset in post.

I also shoot flat factory settings for the same reason Ken mentioned. Magic Bullet Looks does a better job at grading in my opinion.

no preset useage here either... not to say i've got anything against presets, it's just a personal preference to always colour grade from raw

Have you used the Wolfgang settings? If so how does this compare?

An advantage to using presets is you are adjusting your camera on the day. So if you later on adjust brightness or colour curves as most do then your exposure you shot with on the day may not be quite right.

But if you do those adjustments as you shoot then you are adjusting your settings and getting it right.

We use the FX1 and enable Cinetone which compresses the gamma curve. If we shoot raw and adjust later the exposure never is quite right. But do it in camera and you get it right.

Colour grading in post
 

Hey Ken....
I've noticed many people colour grading in post, rather than going with presets..
That's quite understandable...

I'm just curious, are most of you guys grading in FCP, Cineform PPro, or AE??


It might be a good poll question, don't you think??

I've used his settings. Nothing against them, but I like PFVISION better. I created/mixed the settings of other presets together that I liked and that was how I came up with PFVISION. The color looks better in lowlight and no ghosting in my opinion compared to some of the other lowlight presets I've tried.. I've had comments from a user that it gets close to the low light ability of the vx2100.

Is that true? I'm not sure as I've never owned a vx2100. There's a few clips on vimeo, just search pfvision.

I used to love panalook, but after losing f stops on low light due to presets, I stick with factory setting nowadays. MB does better on color grading as mentioned several time above.

JJ

Peter, I was cc'ing in Vegas, which is not very efficient. So presets were more attractive. I'm now using Magic Bullet Looks and it's pretty damn great I must say. I just bought the Quick Looks to try it out- which is kind of restricting- and you would probably tire of it quickly. I'll be upgrading to the full version soon. The Quick Looks is $99, and the full version is $399. It does slow down the render time but that's to be expected.

PFVISION in low light
 

I tried it in low light shooting a news story the other night it didn't look so good the flashing red and blue lights from the fire trucks made the video not so hot I think I will try and tone down the 3 colors red, blue, and green gain by 10 each, and see if that helps unless someone has any ideas

I don't have very much strong flashing lights at weddings (except dj lights and camera flashes) so I haven't run into that type of situation.

Mind posting up a screen shot of the footage? What made the footage look "not so hot"?

I've never taken the preset to shoot other things outside of weddings (which I use it primarily for and on topic with the thread) and sometimes event speakers so don't have much experience outside of those genres to comment on. For news coverage, don't they usually have an on camera light during low light/night shooting?

-Randy