Z1 Picture Profiles-- my settings

[Jose Noriega]

I used your "punchy" settings with 30 frame for a videoclip WOW it looked great and my customer loved it thanks for sharing
Jose Noriega
www.video.com.mx

[Nick Tsamandanis]

Which setting changes the actual "warmth" of the picture.

[Matt Davis]

I did a side by side road test of a Z1 (which I rent quite a bit now) and an HD100 last weekend. I think I've hit a Z1 sweet spot by stealing a tip from Tim Dashwood's HD100 settings, but it runs counter to what I was originally setting out to do.

Like most folks, I was looking for a Film Look - not progressive or temporal effects, but the gentle roll-off of highlights, and shadows with detail even in the deep bits.

I found the trick was to keep the camera neutral, but enable black stretch and set to under-expose by a stop. The pictures look dull, flat and uninteresting, but once in FCP, just dip the mids down a little bit, and wow - out of nowhere come these rich vibrant colours, exciting tonality and no blown-out highlights. It's kind of what CineTone is doing, but with more control.

This isn't new - apparently the BBC standards are to shoot really flat to give the graders and colourists as much as they can to work from.

Now, when it comes to sharpness, this is an interesting area. I was brought up to never use camera sharpening, as this would be dealt with by $0.25 million bucks worth of S&W Alchemist ARC. For the PD150 era, that was probably correct.

When the Z1 first came out, I was given some 4:3 DVCAM footage shot on a Z1 that had so much edge enhancement, it was ugly. Well, to my eyes at least. So when I got my mitts on a Z1 to shoot an event in HDV, I wound the sharpness to the mid setting - 8. The edited HDV master was downconverted to progressive DVCPRO-50 and it still looked a little soft. Don't get me wrong - audience feedback said it looked like a BBC2 documentary, but I think it could have been slightly sharper.

I've also thought the Z1 lens a little soft, and a little bell went 'ping' reading this thread - I assumed that sharpness is something you add to a picture, so either 0 is the raw lens, or 7/8. Having tested all the sharpness settings, 0 - 4 cannot be raw lens - I've seen better results from a pin-hole camera. 8 may be the raw lens, but it needs help.

So I'm left thinking, perhaps sharpness at 12 for HDV is actually okay. 13 is a little zingy, 14 and I can see the edges on the LCD. 15? Cue Spinal Tap quote: "It goes to eleven". But for SD, it needs 9-11 but no more.


PS: Has anyone found problems with white-set in strong/harsh light? I'm chuffed to bits with the Z1 results I get in the studio, but in Summer daylight I was getting images that were too pink. I've heard that the Z1 white-set doesn't like over-exposed whites, but I tried an auto-iris and got the same pinkish cast last weekend. Studio, Overcast, Interiors, no problem. Strong sunlight, pinkish. Anyone else?

[George Griswold]

It is called WB (white Balance) shift... it adjusts pretty fast-- take it easy before you crank it up or down. I have stayed with my initial +3 numbers, but sometimes you want that pure look of less or no shift.

At the end of the day you really need a good monitor in a darkened viewing area and enough time to dial everything in. Take PP 5 and PP6 for these situations--- copy an existing profile (closest to what you want) to one of these PP and then make changes... this saves you the hassle of starting from scratch.

[Augusto Manuel]

14 and you can see the edges on the LCD? ?????

What happen to the good old production values??? You can't make any judgements by looking at a little LCD screen. Even if it is big. You need a good critical industrial monitor like a Sony PVM 8045, at the very least, to have an idea how your picture will really look like. And it better be an adjusted and well calibrated monitor. The LCD screen? well ... it is just a vague reference.

Originally Posted by Matt Daviss

13 is a little zingy, 14 and I can see the edges on the LCD. 15? Cue Spinal Tap quote: "It goes to eleven". But for SD, it needs 9-11 but no more.

[Matt Davis]

Originally Posted by Augusto Manuel

You can't make any judgements by looking at a little LCD screen.

Maybe you missed the irony in my message. "At 14 I can even see the effect on the LCD screen" - this is not advocating using the viewfinder for anything other than "finding the view". And to my eyes, on a good monitor, 9-11 sharpness is about right as the lens could do with some help.

[Augusto Manuel]

Could you please tell me what kind of monitor you are using and the way you have it adjusted?

At level 12, it looks fine to me even in SD mode. In a well calibrated industrial critical monitor, anything below 11 looks way too soft for me, either in SD or HDV.

Remember, just because 8 is in the middle in the detail scale of this camera, it does not mean this is the default level. They made these settings on the Z1 quite different than in other cameras such as for instance the PD150 or PD170s.

And remember, this is not to the particular likings of you or me. The image has to look natural on a critical monitor without being contourish or soft. There are standards for this.

Originally Posted by Matt Daviss

Maybe you missed the irony in my message. "At 14 I can even see the effect on the LCD screen" - this is not advocating using the viewfinder for anything other than "finding the view". And to my eyes, on a good monitor, 9-11 sharpness is about right as the lens could do with some help.

[Matt Davis]

Originally Posted by Augusto Manuel

Could you please tell me what kind of monitor you are using and the way you have it adjusted?

My SD monitor is a JVC 19" fed from an AJA, set up the usual way for brightness and saturation, no 'enhancement' of edges allowed. ;)

My HD work is displayed via high end projectors or on Plasma and LCD screens, which makes the use of a CRT difficult (projector's greens especially). For that, I use a 23" Apple Cinema Display. It's not exactly accurate, but as I see what I edited on the big screen, I am getting better at reading how my HD outputs get displayed.

However, the objections I have to Sharpness settings of 12 and above can be seen by all and sundry as a border of bright and dark lines around areas of high contrast due to truculent edge enhancement. As my footage tends to include lots of specular reflection, high contrast lighting, intricate architecture and so on, the footage is basically edge heaven.

I was taught (pre-HDV and even pre-DV) to shoot without edge enhancement and do sharpening - if required - in post where it's more controllable. I've been given ugly ugly footage to edit from Z1s with the sharpness wound up too high when they first came out. And once that stuff is on tape, you can't get rid of it.

The lens IS a bit soft compared to high-end glass (see tests comparing it to the somewhat flawed Fujinon on the HD100) and I reiterate it could use some help, but I find the Z1's default settings too much (12) and prefer my footage without tell-tale traces of edge enhancement.

Even at 10 & 11 it's still there, it bugs me, but until I can test a Canon or Panasonic, I'm struggling on to get 'sharper' rather than 'sharpness' with the Z1. :-)

[Augusto Manuel]

I would say that your problem is in your equipment and the extra enhancement look is not generated by the Z1. You need to use proper industrial equipment to tell about picture quality. I see no problems whatsoever with detail at 12.

Originally Posted by Matt Daviss

My SD monitor is a JVC 19" fed from an AJA, set up the usual way for brightness and saturation, no 'enhancement' of edges allowed. ;)

My HD work is displayed via high end projectors or on Plasma and LCD screens, which makes the use of a CRT difficult (projector's greens especially). For that, I use a 23" Apple Cinema Display. It's not exactly accurate, but as I see what I edited on the big screen, I am getting better at reading how my HD outputs get displayed.

However, the objections I have to Sharpness settings of 12 and above can be seen by all and sundry as a border of bright and dark lines around areas of high contrast due to truculent edge enhancement. As my footage tends to include lots of specular reflection, high contrast lighting, intricate architecture and so on, the footage is basically edge heaven.

I was taught (pre-HDV and even pre-DV) to shoot without edge enhancement and do sharpening - if required - in post where it's more controllable. I've been given ugly ugly footage to edit from Z1s with the sharpness wound up too high when they first came out. And once that stuff is on tape, you can't get rid of it.

The lens IS a bit soft compared to high-end glass (see tests comparing it to the somewhat flawed Fujinon on the HD100) and I reiterate it could use some help, but I find the Z1's default settings too much (12) and prefer my footage without tell-tale traces of edge enhancement.

Even at 10 & 11 it's still there, it bugs me, but until I can test a Canon or Panasonic, I'm struggling on to get 'sharper' rather than 'sharpness' with the Z1. :-)

[Bruce S. Yarock]

can anybody help me match up my Canon xl2 with an fx1, both shooting in SD? It would be great if there were someone out there using both cameras in a 2 cam shoot.
thanks
Bruce Yarock

[Stick Tully]

I had a play around with my picture profile settings (on my fx1) last weekend, some really nice images.

however, once loaded onto the computer i had a play with grading, the shots i had with the colour levels up on the camera didnt need much done to them but it also seemed as if it would be difficult to correct them.

would it be better to shoot everything regular and try to achieve similar effects in post?

ill have another play tomorrow and hopefully some subtle half way point will be perfect

[Zach Stewart]

Could the image sharpness settings in my Z1u be producing the stair stepping effect in high contrast footage??? I currently do not use any picture profiles, but have a difficult time with the edges of bright colors (reds, blues, etc...) the footage even looks interlaced and i try all the deinterlacing tricks i know but then it just becomes soft footage. I'll try some test here soon and possibly throw up some pics of the results.

[George Duncan]

I just wondered if anyone had a good setting for shooting weddings. I realise every occasion will be slightly different but just somewhere to start would be great.
Thanks.
George.

[Steven Gotz]

I can't remember what it is called exactly without turning on my camera, but pay attention to the skin tone settings. SOften the skin tones and the women will love your work.

I shot some interviews with a 42" HDTV behind me so they could see what they looked like before I started. I turned the skin tone setting on and off to show them the difference. They all were much enamored of the setting. Then I turned off the monitor so it would not distract them.

[Brian Henderson]

Are these the factory settings or ones you've tweaked? I've rented a Z-1 for the day and I want to make sure I'm using origional the Cinema setting. If I reset and use PP3, is that the right one?

Originally Posted by Dylan Pank

Maybe this makes things easier to read.

		Picture Profiles for Sony HVR-Z1U
	
 		1	2	3	4	5	6

C Level		+3	+6	+5	+5	+5	+3
C Phase		 0	 0	 0	 0	 0	 0
Sharpness	11	11	10	11	10	11
Skin Detail	OFF	OFF	OFF	OFF	OFF	OFF
Skin LVL	 M	 M	 M	 M	 M	 M
AE Shift	-1	-2	-1	-2	-2	-2
AGC Limit	12	 6	 0	 0	 6	 6
AT Iris		f11	f11	f6.8	f4	f11	f4
WB Shift	+3	+4	+4	+4	+4	+4
ATW SENS	 M	 M	 L	 L	 L	 M
Stretch		OFF	OFF	OFF	OFF	ON	OFF
Tone		OFF	OFF	T1	T2	OFF	OFF
CineFrame	OFF	OFF	CF30	CF30	OFF	CF30

 	 1- Basic Look
	"2- Hi-Saturation Color- ""punchy"""
	 3- Film 
	 4- Film Dark
	 5- High Contrast Subject
	 6- Hi-Sat Cineframe 30