Best "raw" settings indoor..?
 

I wonder what would be the best settings for capturing raw footage, and then do all tweaks in post -- e.g., should I shoot in AV, TV, Manual, or Spotlight... work the gain, etc..? Most of it will be shot indoor with Bescor on-camera lights.

I may add, when I record sound (which I know a bit more about), I always try getting as clean & linear signal as possible, and then do everything in post. Hence, I was thinking it might be a way to do the same with the XL2 -- i.e., find a setting that will capture linear/raw footage.

Any help/suggestions appreciated.

-- peer

It is better to adjust the camera setting right at first end minimise the amount of work in post. If you can have a good monitor which shows correctly the color, the sharpness better it will be.

You will have to adjust base on the lighting the bescor camera light gives you. For sure you want to make sure there are no over exposure. As per the AV, TV, Manual, Spotlight it alls depends on the situation and the result you want to get. You may also want to think about 24p, 30p, 60i...

Will you be panning, zooming in/out constantly this is to consider when choosing the capture mode you want to get.

As per RAW footage, cameras like the RED and the Scarlet (new) do but not the XL2. Someone may want to correct me here.

Daniel, thanks for replying.

Since all the footage I'm about to shoot is a one time unique event -- hence, I was hoping to find a "raw" setting that would be as close to linear as possible, and then use my time in post production for adjustments.

I didn't find a monitor in time that I KNEW would work (see my other thread).

I was planning to shoot in 24p & 16:9, and then maybe turn it into b/w. I still wonder what would be the best in a semi-dark indoor billiards-hall environment; AV, TV, Manual, or Spotlight.

No zooming, but I'll be doing quite a bit of close hand-panning with a wide lens.

Note that I used quotes around "raw" -- I know the XL2 won't shoot uncompressed linear, but I used this term trying to explain that I'm after a setting that makes the footage look as normalized as possible before going to post.

-- peer

I use Premiere pro cs3 for my post work and I've had the best luck shooting "neutral" by keeping the settings mostly at default, with the following changes:

color gain: +3 (a lot easier to de-saturate in post than it is to saturate)
black: stretch (will keep as much info as possible in the darks, which you can decide to lose in post if you want a more contrasted image)

As to the color matrix and gamma curve settings i would go ahead and set them to "cine" if you know for a fact that you want your footage to be more filmlike...otherwise keep them at normal.

Make sure gain is set to 0

And always always always white balance manually, the two automatic settings are pretty good, but I've always felt that they lean toward slightly blue or slightly yellow.