Yes, now I can confirm that. And I'd like to stress it: this is exactly the opposite to what standard vs cine settings do on other prosumer Sony cams, like the V1.

With the V1 - in order to fight for every bit of available light, as it certainly is not a low-light champion - I had to base all my indoor/low-light settings around standard gamma / matrix. The Cinegamma 1 (not to mention Cinegamma2) is stealing to much light in the mids and highlights.

With the EX1, which is so much more light-sensitive, the choice between cine and standard profiles may be based on other considerations.

An interesting, and quite a mind-blowing statement. My next shoot will put this to the test, and finding I need bring the CINE gammas way down in post anyway this may well be right. BUT........ if this is right not many people know it. Take the great Phil Bloom for example. He says he used the CINEs only and we are talking to quality outside natural light docs.

Anybody who can add to this will be much appreciated as I believe Bill's statement might be true and if so is a mind blower as so many pros and teachers have said the STD gammas are for the idiots.

I don't see any conflict there, Michael - Phil's pieces of art are truly cinematic, and NOT at all designed to be as bright and punchy as possible (and this is how "good" video can often be understood by us, regular users).

As I stated elsewhere: the true film look (which we see in the cinema theaters) is NOT superwhites and superblacks at all!

Guys...

Take a look at this, if you haven't already seen it...
http://bssc.sel.sony.com/Broadcastan...Final_1-08.pdf
On page 8, there are plots of the cine gamma curves. There's no scales, so everything is really only relative. It's a shame they don't also show the STD curves becaue they do so for the XDCAM HD. Wish I could find the URL, but, I can't. (edit, I found it....here, page 9...
http://bssc.sel.sony.com/Broadcastan...mhd_family.pdf

The XDCAM HD curves show is the std gamma in comparison. What you see is a curve that rises steeply all the way up, without curving over like the cine gamma curves do. In fact, the top of the STD curve(the hilites) ends about twice as far up the ordinate scale as the cine gamma curves. OK, that's the XDCAM HD.

When I look at the luma values of the EX1 on a scope, I see evidence of the same thing. The STD curves have about twice the overall range(is that latitude) as the cine gamma curves. So, what it appears to me is that Sony has really compressed 100% IRE in the cine curves, in order to open up the shadows.

Not saying that I KNOW this is why you're blowing out hilites, but, it seems like a reasonable assumption on my part.

I went to see There Will Be Blood last night and there were scenes inside a goldmine where the darkest areas were left gray instead of black. As if the whole image was exposed too much. It looked really good and gave it air. Often you see everything just crushed to black and somehow its more difficult to "see" whats happening in the picture.

The cine gammas are downright strange and they are different from one another. All seem to have an extreme amount of knee compression that sets in very early, so if you were just looking at 100% zebras ( at least with some of them they might not show you much until a good part of your image was in the compressed knee.
Be careful with them. BTW it seems if you decide to alter the gammas even a little bit the curves start altering radically in the knee area.
They are particularly dangerous around flesh tones ( esp cine 3 ) and can easily give you compressed areas in faces.

Cine curves goes a little above the 100IRE, but in a controlled way.
Standard gamma curves do not controle that and rely on the knee function to handle high IRE, leading to color aberation around highlights.

Cine curves are spreading the sensibility of the CMOS where it is needed, sometines more in the blacks, the middle or the brights.

I don't understand what you mean when talking of "usual bright picture" opposed to film look.
Use STD gamma for a video look (high saturated color, crushed blacks and burnt hightlight).
Use the CINE gamma to get the whole sensibility, without blowing out the hightlights and beeing able to edit in post.

I haven't seen the curve of the EX1 STD gamma, but I bet it is like the one on the XDCAM-HD, which is almost the same as other Cine-alta from sony (like F900).

So why is Bill saying the STD gamma has more latitude, and I think he said they might even be better for taking into post. I'm still experimenting - I have not even shot a standard yet.

Michael...

I'm not gonna retract what I'm suggesting, however, I will add the same thing that Leonard Levy said. The knee function is strange. It's understandable that you're dubious. I'm basing my opinion on the waveform displays in HDRack, which kinda knocked me out of my chair when I saw them.

In shooting tests, I'm finding that CINE gamma is a lot more forgiving than the STD curves, Mike. There are situations where that isn't true, tho'. The STD curve images are real "punchy", not terribly pleasant without some CCing...;o)

Ultimately I wish someone would shoot some test charts and scopes and post the video or shots online because I think the terminology and explanations are confusing some.

Yep ! .....

Here's some outdoor shots with my TC2 at 4 gamma preset settings, for comparison. I'll try to get some screenshots of the wfm for a DSC testchart, later, when I have some time.
TC2S1=STD1, TC2C1=Cine1, TC2C3=Cine3, TC2C4=C4

Hi Bill,
You know way more about this than I, so I hesitate to comment, but this seems counter indicated by your examples above. You are very close to blowing both blacks and whites on your STD example, but have a bunch of headroom on your Cine examples. Did you reverse your initial comment? If not, I am lost, so set me straight.

Also, it seems like in your Cine Examples, a little push to the right might nail the whites and set the darks in great position for a little level/curves tweak in post without introducing a lick of noise.

Randy..

Can't argue with you. And...not so sure I know more than you. You're quite right.

You say I'm very close to blowing whites on STD...yes, but they're not, are they? I expose so 100% zebra is just beginning to show...as you just confirmed.And it recovers quite nicely with a little levels adjust with the Color Curves FX. The cine curves need that push to the right, indeed! The histogram showed that STD1 fills the scale, while the CINE presets pushed the histogram to the left. In my mind, that's wasted bandwidth. Playing with color grading in post reveals that STD1 can be tweaked with more detail than the CINE curves. And that "punchy" look in STD can be moderated, again, with a little reverse-"s" curve adjustment.Try it.

By the way....the auto expose selected by the EX1 was really effected by where I took the exposure...sky or foreground. It seems to work just like a spot meter rather than an averaging meter. Either way, I didn't like the camera selected autoexposure. I used zebra, as I explained.

Bill, when I come to your lovely home town of Santa Fe on Saturday I would love you to give me some complete PP settings for shooting outside.

Cheers!

Phil

Seems like a consensus is being reached on this between you and me, Bill :)

Piotr...

good. ;o)

Phil...

would love to. write me offline.

I agree with Randy that maybe the CINEs could be pushed more, but to my eye I see more highlight detail to work with in the STD. Of course, there may be detail in the CINEs that might come out in post not obvious here. Would be interesting Bill if you took those four shots and gave them some post to get each one the best you could and then post those four.

Typical New Mexico that. I lived in Taos once.

Mike

Yes, you nailed the exposure on the STD shot. In a relatively static shot that may be the way to go indeed because you get that nicely filled histogram right out of the cam.

What had me confused was the part about being more likey to blow something with Cine than STD. I have been considering Cine as "safety settings" for high contrast or variable contrast scenes. In surf shots, I am dealing with random occasional whitewater exposions on relatively dark water. I am just not ggod enough to be that accurate in selecting the perfect setting and need to "compress the histogram" (whites in particular) a bit.

I have been using your PP's (dig them) with Cine's pushed to the 100 zebra setting (waiting to judge based on the worst whitewater explosion) and then backed off a bit. Leaves a bit of room under the darks, but a curves/levels adjust fills the histogram back out.

Definitely some waste as you stated, but less missed shots due to blocked up whites as well.

Learning...learning

Very good point, Bill - the auto iris on my old, good V1E has been a marvel tool compared to how it works on the EX1 (both hardware implementation of it, and the measurement logic behind it).

Michael...

If I have time, I'll do as you asked. Really, post-processing is SO much in the eye of the beholder, yes?

Randy...
Sorry I almost misled you.

Here's some shots with a matrix setting I'm experimenting with. It uses CINEMA instead of HISAT. I really wish I could find a camera setting that required NO grading. Even small CCing takes a lot longer to render out ;o(

Hi Michael,

What you are seeing may be due to the nature of the test. Correct me if I'm wrong (I am used to it) but it looks like for STD the exposure was set (perfectly) which left the whites at the far right and black at the left edge. It looks like that same exposure was used for the Cines, which left the whitest white at under 200 for the Cine 1 example. It would follow that the open whites of STD would still be more open even if the exposure had been set to neutral or more right, but the gap may be narrowed significantly.

In any event, I am stoked to see Bill's new PP's. Like I said before, I hesitated to comment because I am entirely incapable of producing any workable PP's and am just trying to best maneuver with the one's that more capable users have been kind enough to offer up here.

Randy...
Seems like you know better than you think you know ;o)

Quote: Originally Posted by Michael H. Stevens
"I agree with Randy that maybe the CINEs could be pushed more"

Which brings me to the point I was making earlier, altho' I guess I said it rather poorly because everyone misunderstood me...

Using the CINEGAMMA setings, if I open the iris more, to balance the histogram more to the right, I end up overexposing the whole scene, washing it out and blowing the hi-lites very easily. The cinegamma settings really balance the whole image luma range to the left and it takes a LOT of "S" curve to bring it out. So much that the entire image suffers from banding and more noise.

double post

Here's what Michael asked for.
Post-processed images for TC2S1 and TC2C1. Not as dramatic as I wished but, nevertheless..

Note that :
1-TC2C1 needed more highlite correction, histogram is slightly more combed. More sky, less foreground detail

2-TC2S1 needs less endpoint correction, esp. on the hilights but an inverted "s" gamma correction to get it looking good to my eye. More foreground detail, less sky.

This is all making my head spin too. When I went out and shot snowy footage on REALLY BRIGHT day (http://www.vimeo.com/723938), I used Bill's settings with Cine1, and it seemed to work out well, although I made a point to underexpose the snow, which when I watched the footage I realized I had underexposed too much. It was so bright that it was hard enough just to see everything in the viewfinder. Bill are you saying that Standard1 would be a better gamma on a day like that (specifically the shots with the x-country and downhill skiers)? A few shots I had to bring up more in post.

This camera is forcing us all to become engineers I think. Not bad, just different! But we all appreciate those (like Bill) who are doing the grunt work for us. Thanks.

BE

Ben...

Yes, that's what I'm saying...but, you'll need to do some post CCing.

I wouldn't go that far...

Reset the camera to factory specs then run out and shoot anything. Now compare that to what you were shooting with before. (Before the EX1 I mean)

For most of us shooting with older and cheaper cameras the results will be far better than what we could achieve previously. Even if you were shooting with a well tweaked competitively priced camera like the HVX200 or the XH cams the out of the box experience with the EX1 is "wow."

If you were shooting with an F900 fully tweaked out you may be disappointed by the factory set up on the EX1.

Thing is, all of this "engineering" we are on about offers us the ability to get fully tweaked out and provide a very satisfactory B-Roll for an F900. In some applications we can even forgo an F900 rental entirely with the EX1 in hand.

In my mind its all about the practice of cinematography. Older cameras made all the decisions for us- we just set exposure and hoped that the engineers at Canon. Sony, Panasonic et al. thought about the situation we were about to photograph- if we even thought that much about it.

This camera gives us back some of those decisions... and with them the power to make absolutely stunning images. It also allows us to make a really bad image. C'est la vie.

It was sort of a joke.

Before I went freelance and was a staff shooter, I didn't spend much time on camera forums, where I found out about all the "measureabating" that was going on, and yes, some of the previous cameras I used were less tweakable. I guess I was just blissfully ignorant, but now, I am reading and comparing more, for better or for worse.

The camera gives us back some of those tweaking, yes, but it still needs MORE POST than I was expecting or want. I'm hoping that as I get better at using the EX1 I may be doing less, however Bill seems to be confirming (and I know Phil Bloom did too) that while the image is much better, we will need just as much tweaking as with HDV.

Ooooh! I am so good at missing those!

Wait... what? What do you mean, "that's not a good thing?"

I wouldn't say you need to work the image more in post... I mean that's one way to do the job, but its wrongheaded.

The problem I see is that too many aren't lighting a scene. They are pushing past the boundaries of the cameras sensors and then expecting technology to save them.

That was very easy on even the best HDV units. Its harder on the EX1. Its even harder on RED. It remains pretty darn easy compared to shooting 5219.

Regardless of your sensor's capability its still the exact same problem though.

So... the question I often ask photographers who have a hard time getting the results they want shooting HD is, "Where is your light meter?" The answer should never be "My camera is my light meter."

The next thing I try to find out is if they are actually lighting, or if they are just illuminating. Then of course I wonder if they are placing shadows.

The number of people who can't answer these questions in the affirmative disturbed me.

This job is easier if you photograph well from fundamentals.

Then the picture profiles these cameras offer and DI can be used for artistic effect... not to obtain exposure.

Alex: Great if you are in a studio, but me and a lot of the Ex1 crew, because it is a light camera, are in the field with natural light and nothing else.

Yup. Yesterday I was shooting surf in sunny conditions with quickly moving patches of overhead clouds that were changing the exposure by many stops in a scene that (even if static) was already pushing the dynamic range of any camera. ND 2...ND1...oh crap, where's my surfer...Just keeping up.

We are all doing different things with this little beauty, which is why the flexibility of PP's is so cool. I feel like Bill and the likes are offering us a new film stock each time they work up a PP. Props!

A CLARIFICATION AFTER TESTING

What I have said is not strictly true when addressed to our hyper-gammas. My tests have shown me that while I stand by saying a little underexposing gives more headroom (detail in highlights) I now believe the hyper-gammas already do this. By this I mean if you expose not to the max of the histogram but to the 100% zebra you are about a stop under what a light meter would give. So I do now say I believe exposing to the 100% zebra gives a better result that going below or over that.
Mike

Well this is a bit late, sorry about that.

Its the nothing else I object to.

The EX-1 is a light unit well suited to run'n'gun work.

That doesn't mean graduated ND filters shouldn't be in your field kit. In fact you should be carrying a set of filters. UV, graduated NDs, a polarizer and a softening filter (like a pro mist).

It doesn't mean you should forgo a light meter. I like to carry a combination incident and spot meter. I am upgrading to a Sekonics L-758 Cine.

That stuff goes pretty much anywhere I take the camera. Just like the extra batteries and blank tape or memory cards.

It doesn't mean you should carry no lighting at all. A little something- battery powered even - but something. This stays in the car/truck mostly... but I have it at hand.

It doesn't mean you shouldn't have a photoflex 5-n-1 reflector, or the like, on hand. And yeah... you should probably carry some diffusion & negative fill too. Some C-47s and a backdrop kit too. And yeah mostly that stays in the car too.

The thing is just because you are shooting run'n'gun doesn't mean you have to forgo all the tools and techniques of quality photography. None of this stuff will overburden you, and it will all still work just as effectively in X-teen years when you have a terapixel zillion frame per second camera shooting an uncompressed CIE 1931 colorspace codec in 5-D.

To restate: You should be carrying some or all of this sort of light duty photography gear everywhere you are shooting.