These past few weeks I've been reading a lot about Presets. Since then I've downloaded the preset manager and a handful of presets. Ash seems to have a good grip on this stuff and loved his B&W setting. I'm shooting part2 of my Documentary Choppertown but this time with the XL2. It's about a motorcycle/car club who are modern day greasers so I need a look that leans towards a vintage style....grainy, film like etc. I want to plug in 3 settings one even being a bit sepia in tone. I came up with the preset below for sort of the general look. I guess I can play with the gain to give it more grain, but would love to hear some feedback on this and would love if others have some preset ideas.

Shooting 24p, 1/48, 16:9, M mode


Gamma = Cine
Knee = Low
Black = Middle

NR = Off
VDetail = Normal
Color Matrix = Cine

Color Gain = +2
Color Phase = 0

Red = 0
Green = 0
Blue = 0

Sharpness = -5
Coring = -3

SetupLevel = -6
MasterPed = -6

I liked the trailer. Glad to see you are shooting the 2nd part in widescreen though.

For more grain, turn the coring all the way down... and you want to use the GAIN at +6db or +12db. You might want to bump the color saturation up another notch and take your blacks to press. On thing you may consider for a "look" is a shutter of 1/24th, this will give more motion blur and also let you shoot in less light. To get a sepia look you will want to turn the color gain down, the color phase toward red, the green all the way down and the red all the way up... a lot will depend on your white balance as well.


ash =o)

thanks for the feedback guys. Ash, in regards to white balance are you suggesting to white balance on a different color card? In the past I've only used white, but have been reading a lot on how different color white balances will help the mood of the shot. Also, if I turn the sharpness way down I know it softens the look but when blown up will it look like it's out of focus?

No, the XL2 will never look soft if the focus is sharp. I personally like balancing to light blue, it give a warm retro tone to everything.



ash =o)

Ash would have a frame grab which can post of a shot/shots white balanced to light blue? I'm just curious how it would look.

Very warm, even outsidem whites become a little yellow... I like warm cards and use them often, there are some grabs here:

http://www.studio1productions.com/warmcards.htm



ash =o)

These cards are great, can really change the feel of the shot. If you find the price a bit steep, you can sample the colours from the website using an eyedropper and print your own onto stiff paper or white card. It's probably not an exact match but close enough, and I don't think the colours themselves can be copyright.

There's a free eyedropper download at

http://www.gold-software.com/WebmastersToolkit-file10105.html

You can use Photoshop or Gimp (or other paint program) to do the printing, just set the foreground colour to the RGB values from the eyedropper program, and fill the whole page with this colour. (Homemade cards won't be as durable as the commercial product, but you can always print replacements when they wear out.)

It's easy to make new cards based on other colours too. You can also try to WB on a blue sky or a coloured wall. These are not going to give such natural looking results, but the effect can be very nice.

Richard

It looks like I need to update the XL2 preset download files, doesn't it?

Ash thanks a bunch this helps a lot and it is the look I am shooting for.

Richard thanks for the tip.

No prob... post a grab if you get a chance so others can see...



ash =o)

Sure will. In a week or two I will do a few test shots with these settings. I will post after that. Where did you buy your cards? They aren't cheap.

In the past I have used paint sample cards in various shades of light blue/beiges to set warm or cool balance on my DSLR. These are readilly available at your local home repair superstore. Just pick up a few and experiment. All you need to do is zoom in on the cards to set the WB in the light you will be shooting in. When the start to get grubby or creased go grab some more.
Matt finish paints are the best to use.

Colin