Ed_David

This is great news if it's true. The beautiful Nikon color science combined with incredible video recording abilities and a fast processor and hopefully a sensor with more dynamic range or smoother highlight roll off and you have an amazing camera. Hell yea, it's a win-win for both companies.

I’ve been struggling this year to understand color. I come from a strictly digital-upbringing. I have shot some film, but I never understood color timing or even learned how to look critically at color – at skintones, at greens, blues, and red. And I wondered why I would spend so much time trying to understand it, when I could be spending time practicing lighting and finding angles and watching inspiring films. But now I kind of get it – since the 90’s – one shoots film, then one digitizes it in (Digital Intermediate) then you would color it in CINEON colorspace (which is flat like log, very similar to the flatness of Arri log-C) and then send it off to film print. Right now it’s Kodak 5283 or 5293 which respond to blacks, dynamic range, all that differently. So you would choose a stock to shoot on, digitize it, color it, then send off to a film print. So colorists have been involved digitally since the 90’s on all major motion pictures shot on film. They would have LUTs – or look up tables – to emulate the film prints, so they could see what it will look like before they print it. And also, to keep it consistent when it would go off to DVD or VOD or Blu Ray – so the film looks the same everywhere, with tweaking. So I started to use Filmconvert to grade my footage that I would shoot as flat as I can with my cameras. First, it was the Sony F3 and now mostly the Sony F35 and Red One and sometimes the Alexa. Filmconvert keeps it in REC 709 colorspace, which is the standard for TVs and online. Filmconvert was great, but the curves were aggresive and I found using Alexa dci-p3 worked best with slog1, not just slog2. Anyway, I found out later to lessen the film curve, raise highlights, etc. Then Visioncolor came along with their luts that got highly popular – especially the M.31 lut. I liked it, but it was a little too stylized. This is when I started to learn resolve. Before I just used Final Cut Pro 7 and the three-way color corrector. Resolve I didn’t get for a long time, but read a tutorial by Hunter Hampton and started to understand it. I also started to mess with DSLRs more fully and learned how to play in RAW there. All helping out with shooting on Red and understanding its own RAW and why to use Redlog over their Redgammas, to have the most info to play with, out the bat. And I learned that Red Cine-X was just a simple program that existed before Resolve was made free, and it was good, but Resolve is a lot more customizable. Then Visioncolor Impulz Luts came out. And Hunter said it was as close to film as you could get. I messed with it, didn’t understand it. But now I do. You take your footage, and if you are working quick, add a FC (film contrast lut) or a VS (visionspace) lut that has less contrast or can mess with a FPE (film print emulation) lut – that I think brings down the highlights too much. I would learn to go slog to cineon, then start coloring with the filmstock I like (I like 250d and 200t and 500t a lot – 50d is a little too wild in the blues) – and then once that is good, go off to a Film Print – 2383, 2393, or their custom Film Contrast 1 or Visioncolor or even Fuji print. And that gets you a good look. Anyway why is this important? Because now I can shoot on a log or raw camera, and build a lut, and make sure that the lut looks good and that the final image is going to look good. No more guessing with shooting flat and finding out later there is too much noise in the shadows or the skintone, how it reacts to light and color looks odd and off. In essence, it’s What you see, what you get, which is in some ways an improvement over film. You know for sure, pretty much, if the image is good or not. With film, the mystery and magic of course is there and it looks the best – how it handles skin and highlights and light, and those dancing frames and how unpredictable, but hey, I can’t afford to shoot film. No matter what people say, shooting digital is cheaper and you have less chance of screwing it up. Especially if you own the gear already and shoot pro res 4444 vs some insanely uncompressed codec. The world of digital doesn’t look as nice as film, usually. But sometimes, if you have the right colorist, it can. Watching the trailer for San Andreas, I thought it was shot on film. Same with the Age of Adeline. Adding power windows, using lenses that have pop and circular rendering of faces. Using cameras that have nice motion. It gets you there, kind of close. It’s not always perfect, but I still think the DP and the Colorist can make a film shot digitally look better than a film shot and colored poorly on film. I still wish for more and more advances in digital camera technology that can have the randomness of film – the highlight smooth-roll-off – the sharpness and how it renders faces – I don’t want companies to give up and call it a day. But, hey I’m not an engineer. I’m just a guy trying to figure things out. Here’s a clip of how they digitally graded “Oh Brother Where are Thou” – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pla_pd1uatg

Most of my sample images were to impulz luts. The FC is just a version of their lut called (film contrast). There is also a lower-contrast one call VS (visionspace) Flimconvert is I think is interesting, but I still go towards visioncolor. Mixing the two for the outdoor street test was interesting. Also redid and also did a pass going to CINEON then the release print (2383) and Fuji print - and that's very interesting too. I wish they did vintage film stocks as well - that would be pretty cool. here's the technique of the DI they used in "oh brother" where are thou

I redid the test! Combining Visioncolor Osiris and Filmconvert - 2 luts combined - and that looks the best. Took me only about 15 minutes to create this look. Together they looked better. As Captain Planet told us - "with our powers combined"

here's the answer from another thread https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1005361 I need to put in a color chart again to see what captures color the most accurately. I think playing with both, FC and Visioncolor and seeing what works for what you need is a good idea. I go back and forth a lot.

reshuffling the deck. Nice. Sad to see the 1dc go though. Those are some beautiful skintones.

I love those looks - I need to play with those luts again! Just really isolate skintones and mess with them, and play with power windows, defocus edges, play with sharpness, endless endless playing around. here's some screengrabs of tests.

export using pro res lt. I think if you export with h.264, then vimeo does a h.264 conversion of your h.264 - so it double compresses it.

I did a bunch of grading - checking out Impulz vs Filmconvert Overall filmconvert feels more forced, retains less detail. Impulz luts gives a better starting point - more image detail retained in ut - to play with - to shape it and move. I also just did a rec 709 conversion and graded - and it's a lot harder to work with to get to where I want to go. So if you don't like luts, good for you. For me, it gets me there faster. And then I tweak and tweak and tweak. The overall image, then skin, then lips, everything. Also now being able to shoot pro res 444 12-bit from the sony f35 to the odyssey 7q is really, really nice. Mixed lighting test - sony f35 to convergent design pro res 4444 - with overhead crappy 4000k fluorescents - shooting s-gamut then with p3-dci gamut the lighting is all over the place - crappy overhead flourescents - 4000k mixed with more crappy flourescents and in some scenes led glow from macbook the p3-dci definitely falls apart faster. s-gamut - with pro res 4444 - very clean secondary color correcting and stress to push pro res as far as it needs to go. shot underexposed 1 stop. amazing how clean can make - used neatvideo on impulz footage

I think Juan Melera has an export lut - which is the answer print - 2393 - and then he sees the final output and in essence is tweaking the image before it gets to the final print. He does a primary grade to neutralize white balance, get things where they want. I usually shoot slog - and I convert it to cineon color space which is basically arri log-c color space. After that I start to tweak overall look. Then onto secondary corrections - isolating the skin tone, getting that where you want it. Also you can do highlight offsets on the skin and make the lips the correct feeling saturation. And then power windows, on the face, on the windows, background, etc etc. But yes, I think just like there are a million ways to light a scene and shot them, there are basic ideas and it's really a free-for-all at this point. Just as it is with editing. When I started I was on a path to editing. But now I see people much younger than me crushing it - doing so well, already editing - editing fast and just cranking out beautiful stuff and they just jumped into it, they didn't know what they were doing, they just started. Balls to the wall. And why not do that with coloring? So we don't think there is only one way to do it. I agree with many, the filmconvert look is start to get a little overused like magic bullet back in the day. but shit, to each their own on how they want to grade.

Wally Pfister did, who shot the Batman triology and Memento for Chris Nolan. I think Clog originally was rough on the c300 - well dynamic range compromise. Overall it's never just clear and simple - c300 also was top heavy. I'm excited to test out the c300markii. but dynamic range, sensor photosites, compression, type of log - all tons of factor that influence a camera. Is it good to get a camera that out of the bat looks nice - sure - but if you are coloring it or going to a colorist, then you may have other priorities with the camera you use. native ASA. how it handles tungsten/daylight/mixed lighting. motion. etc etc

No matter the camera one shoots on, slog1, 2, 3, clog, BMCfilm, log-c - you need to get it to a point that is a good starting point. So having a LUT takes out a ton of guess work. From there you can really start to tweak. Having a final LUT - a la film print out - is what Juan Melera does - and I think that's a great strategy . But like all things in art, there is no one way to do it. Some people don't use LUTS, some do. And none of it is wrong. People who make fun of people who use LUTS - well, whoopee do. I know of a film editor who just started editing randomly and now he edits giant Hollywood movies. He learned on his own. No film school. He was training to be a chef. There is no right path to get anywhere. Just takes an open mind and a lot of patience and practice. 10,000 hour rule. On that note I know a very prominent Hollywood DP who got his start shooting soft-core videos for Playboy. Do you know who this is?

I really liked this post, Andrew. I think at a certain point, what I like in this film I just saw shot on super 16mm kodak vision3 (I think) - Carol, are the rich reds and secondary color of red in the face. I think slog will get you there with good grading - scientifically it has more color information than film according to the chart. I think the c300 c log does make really lovely skintones and gets you there easier, but the s gamut especially on the f35 can be incredible - you just have to get there. Secondary color correction, bringing out the saturation on the reds - on the lips, also doing an offset for secondary skintones, it's all interesting stuff to get where you need to. color grading takes a lot of work but you can get there with tons of practice and you can make any camera look really nice. Some definitely can be easier to use to get there, but it's also easy to mess up even alexa footage when graded poorly.

Nice interview - also ironic because Apple post-jobs is releasing crap. Ipad sales are down. The iwatch is a flop. Apple Music doesn't seem like it will be anything more than Spotify. Anyway, cameras can't compete with smart phones - except in one way - better image quality. They need to adopt that new film-like invisage technology to make the image just better. I see stuff on the iphone that looks as good as most stuff I see on the canon 5d. And the end product is instagram. Also, using depth of field for portrait shots. The fact is, I think the consumer camera model is dying out - no one needs point and shoot. All focus should be on high end dslr or medium format or mirrorless. That game is over. I was shooting on the nx1 and uploading to instagram but honestly I couldn't really see much of a difference vs just shooting and coloring well on my galaxy s4 phone. Also let's remember Samsung is killing it with smartphones. Their entry into photography wasn't needed really. Canon and Panasonic and Nikon aren't that diversified. Sony is, they got rid of their computers and TV division and I think trying to create more innovation. I don't know. Canon has always been kind of a mess. I remember before the C300 they had no professional option. Just glass. Man I am rambling.

beautiful work!

buy it back for about $200

oh nice! opps. I googled ISS to see if it was a camera part and that's what came up. I should have known!

What is ISS? The recorder - the PIX 240? I went composite out from the dvx100 (video) with bnc to rca adapter to AJA composite to sdi converter into the PIX 240

Thanks for sharing Michael. Yes we all remember this camera foundly. Yes this is the DVX100b.

This is a first of a series of test. The goal is to save money and still shoot stuff that feels like film or vintage-y. It was my first camera, the dvx100, and this The DVX100 was my first camera. I bought it with inherience money. I was nervous to spend 3k on a camera but my dad told me if it doesn't work out I could sell it. Well I sold it about probably 7 years ago. I used it with the redrock micro m2 adapter, then I think a letus extreme adapter. Then I went to HD with the HVX200. So I just rebought a Panasonic DVX100 on ebay for $200. Hooked up to an AJA Composite to SDI signal converter then into the Sound Devies PIX 240 which can upres SD to HD! But I kept the bars and zoomed in resolve for 16x9 - you can crop it via the PIX but it added I think some artificial sharpness. I shot CINE-D which is the flatest I think (If I can remember Barry Green right) and FLOURESCENT as the matrix - turned sharpness all the way down. Don't know if there is a way to shoot with less contrast. Oh well. In resolve, I put on REC 709 to Impulz Lut Kodak 5209 50D CINEON color space. Added Gorilla Grain and actually unsharpened it even more. I messed around a ton with color - has some weird telecine-esque deinterlacing to do since it sends out a signal as 60interlaced. And just messed around. I think it feels a lot like super 8mm and bad 16mm and maybe if lucky bad s16mm. The motion is nice, not too smooth. Shot at 1/48 shutter. Anyway it's kind of interesting. I like super8mm film stock but I don't like how expensive it is to shoot and develop and do a telecine. Sorry film friends. This is cheaper and a way to try to make digital feel less like digital. Next time I'll put some soft fx over the lens to make it all feel more defracted or that glimmerglass to add some shininess. Shot this in really crappy light. The last shot I used a astra 1x1 light to make it look a little less poopy. I am putting the dvx100 at 400 ASA up to maybe 640ASA on a good day. Shot wide open which I think is a 2.8 on the lens. No idea really.

Red was pretty important in the shift of the industry. They effectively, along with the Canon 5d Mark II lowered the price by hundreds of thousands of dollars of cinema cameras. They also kind of spurred the movement where younger nontraditional people could advance faster to positions of directors of photography. So they have that to thank for - and I own two red one mx. They are a fascinating company. Jim Jinnard is a fascinating leader - he is like the weird billionare guy on "Silicon Valley" or like Mark Cuban - and he made the company pretty exciting. He is like the Commandant from "Beasts of Nowhere" - kind of a bully, but a father figure. But now it seems like Blackmagic design is disrupting the system with Resolve and their cameras. Also now Sony is back into the game. And Arri has survived the transition to digital from film. I think on a nerdy level it's all pretty interesting.

Basically I posted about reduser.net - their other website - and how it was faking or using bots to make the amount of people viewing it to make it seem bigger than it was. Posted that on reduser then got banned then posted it on dvxuser and got banned. Beyond that, I also said on reduser.net how Red has gone in the wrong direction. That the red one was revolutionary and the red epic was basically more of the same but with poor ergonomically ideas and overheating issues that didn't make it conducive towards narrative work (giant fan noises) and only one hd-sdi out port and horrible audio options. Then the red dragon which they said was 20+ stops of dynamic range (and then they deny) was a flop because either you use it with the low light filter and dynamic range barely increases or the highlight filter and you have a camera that is only clean up to 320 ASA. And how they get people's hopes up then let them down is bad marketing and they need to be more realistic. And again, people are excited for the Weapon and the Raven, but honestly I don't know how much of an improvement this is. I don't think they liked that. And yes, I was being critical of them on their own website, but it was constructive criticism. I knew I would get banned especially for calling out their "fake" view counts, but it was me just being me. Truth to power.

It's basically like this

They are going for the smartphone market, not the cinema market. Hence why they compare it with another smartphone camera. But Sony if its true and teams up with them, may start putting this into bigger camera tech and create a camera has finally a newer sensor tech than the Alexa, which has been king since 2010 - which feels like so long in this short-term Moore's Law game.

I wasn't even being a jerk this time! They found out I was banned before for life. This is my only forum now besides nofilmschool and cinematography.com. Until I get banned here.