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There seem to be some discussions appearing now about using Resolve to edit stills. This thread on the colourist forums has one such discussion. I haven't tried it myself, as I no longer do stills basically, but I'll admit that Resolve isn't that intuitive a tool for working with stills and the associated workflows.

Great little edit. Film emulation is on-point too - great stuff!

Cool edit, and especially amusing transition at the end to the reality of the situation! Honest thoughts about the grading: You've done well, and some shots are definitely there with the film look I think the saturation is too high - if you do a google image search for "super 16 film stills" and just scroll through then you'll see that film doesn't get that saturated, or if it does it's because it's been pushed in one direction (e.g. when the whole frame is very warm or very cool) I think the "look" is applied too strongly - the look pushes the warm and cool colours and mutes the magenta/green colours but if you look at the rainbows (the bag and the girls t-shirt with the heart on it) the purple is almost colour-less compared to the warm and cool tones which are bordering on electric Some shots are too sharp - different film stocks all had different colour palettes but one of the give-away things of film was the texture of details and of grain. Some shots are soft and have the right amount of detail, but other shots are much more detailed/sharper and are reminiscent of 35mm or MF film, which doesn't fit with the camera being hand-held outdoors. A slight blur of those shots would really help. Getting the "film look" is a rabbit hole that's very very deep, and I've seen colourists say that they've never seen a film grain emulation that looked real to them - but that's because they stared at real film for 12-18 hours per day for 30 years. Obviously the rest of us aren't so attuned to it! If you apply the film emulation slightly less strongly, make the whole thing less saturated and blur the shots more evenly then I think it'll be quite convincing. The awesome thing about these three treatments is that they all help to make lower-quality footage from a cheaper camera look better. I've played this game with very very low-image quality cameras and you'd be amazed at how much you can 'save' a horrifically digital image by making it look low-quality film. Image quality doesn't get better, but it's much much nicer to look at.

Yeah, that lens should be a spectacular performer. IIRC that's the same glass as the Zeiss CP.2? @mercer is that right?

I can't speak to which VND filters to buy, but if you search YouTube usually you can find videos where people test and compare various VND filters. It's a bit of a difficult one because "good enough" is different for each person, so what is acceptable for one person isn't for another. I'd suggest doing some searching and seeing what you can find.

Awesome! Maybe it's a newer version of Resolve - I tried exposing a power grade to a LUT and it failed because it ignored the CST OFX plugin, and surprisingly, it didn't work right without that CST in the middle of it!! Resolve is better, no doubt. However, you can do a huge amount even with basic tools, so there's no excuses 🙂

You never said you had underworld connections... maybe we can use them to finally get someone to make the perfect camera!

@webrunner5 I've put your post through an automatic meme generator and this is what came out... Of course, you're right. All the more reason for governments to keep them in check.

@hyalinejim Have you confirmed this works? I thought LUTs ignored OFX plugins? I've tried creating LUTs before with it and the OFX plugins were ignored and the LUTs weren't usable because of this.

The press release is dated yesterday, and the statute of limitations for these things extends back a ways, plus it was an existing ruling. Always good to have government oversight to prevent for-profit companies over-reaching. When left to their own devices, the profit motive will put the public in significant danger in all kinds of cruel and unusual ways, sadly.

Absolutely agree. I shoot travel style content of my personal travels and started studying Parts Unknown and especially the parts they film outside (as opposed to the sit-down interviews which are controlled lighting and often closed set). The first thing that stood out to me was that their cinematography wasn't radically better than mine, but the editing and storytelling absolutely blew anything I did away. If you looked at the stills from an edit of mine and stills from an edit of theirs then there were lots of similarities, but that was where the similarities ended. After analysing many episodes I've come to realise that it's actually the sound design that drives their edits, and I would say that in that situation the sound is significantly more important than the image, and the purely visual aspects of the image (composition, exposure, colour, movement) is of dramatically less importance. I think if you gave their team some rather uninspired and drab footage, by the time they'd edited the interviews, edited up the b-roll and travelling segments, applied copious amounts of music, sound design, and audio effects, and then put in the voice-over, you'd potentially not really be able to tell that the visuals that went in were lacklustre at all. Of course, the visuals that did go in were of high-quality, no doubt, but that's not what makes or breaks a project. I think that camera YT paints a completely false impression that the camera and image is what carries a production. The elephant in the room is that it absolutely doesn't, and cannot. Cinematography is probably not even top 5 in terms of what makes or breaks a project.

It's hard to tell from stills - so much of film-making is in the context of the story that you really have to see it to understand. There are still a bunch of quite tangible things I see in film-making all the time that I have no idea what causes them or how to manipulate those aesthetic aspects. I find it's best not to get too polarised about anything - either too positive or negative - as reality is always much more towards the middle with both sides represented. Just concentrate on the things that are within your power 🙂

There has been a revolution in colour grading over the last 15 or so years with the invention of colour managed workflows. These enable the automatic conversion of footage between various colour spaces, and enable things like colour matching between cameras. Prior to this, all colour grading was based on either manufacturer-provided LUTs (or other LUTs like print film emulation LUTs), or manually grading the camera files to create the desired output (typically grading log into rec709). However, colour management doesn't negate the need for manually adjusting the image to get a desired look. I've been working with colour management and colour grading for years now, but decided to up my game by getting a control surface and learning to do things manually, no colour management or LUTs - just full manual ruthlessness. Enter the BlackMagic Micro Panel! which isn't actually that micro in real life.... After shipping delays (8 weeks!!!) it has arrived and I've put in maybe 6 hours over two sessions. As anticipated, my skill level is "disappointing", but my plan is simply to put on some music and put in the hours, like building any other skill. My first grading session was actually a bit of a revelation. I started off grading C-Log footage from the XC10, and using on the Lift/Gamma/Gain controls. My second session was grading HLG footage from the GH5, and including Contrast/Saturation/Offset as well as a bit of Lift/Gamma/Gain. The three trackballs adjust the hue offset, and the three rings/wheels adjust the luminance. At first I thought that the wheels were very insensitive, large rotations seemed to make small changes in the image - especially the Gamma wheel. However, the more I used them a funny thing happened. I found that there were all these little "niches" where suddenly a particular thing emerged. Go a little bit one way or the other and you adjust the feel, but go a bit too far and the look dissolves. These are so fragile that the whole niche might only be 1-2mm of adjustment on one of these wheels. So when you find one of these all of a sudden the control feels like it's very sensitive, not too sensitive but you definitely don't want it to be faster. These things are "looks" related to a colour balance, but can also be "textures" related to shadow levels and shadow contrast, or to do with highlight rolloffs. They can be broader too, like "warm sunset glow" where the balance of the colour matches the contrast, or when I was grading some Thai temples there's a way to make the gold-gilding on the buildings and statues really glow. These looks really seem to be based on combinations of various things in the image. Here are my initial take-aways: These controls are enormously powerful There are dozens / hundreds / more? of looks that you can do with only the LGG controls - throw in the Contrast/Pivot/Saturation/Offset controls and it's almost limitless. Just using a surface is a revelation I've used all the individual controls (LGG, Contrast/Pivot/Offset/Saturation, etc) literally thousands of times over the years, but I'm learning new things by the hour that I never noticed or never understood. I genuinely have no idea why having a control surface has made this difference, but it really has. Maybe it's being forced to concentrate on only one or two controls at once. Maybe it's the tactile nature of it. Moving multiple controls at the same time is game-changing Moving two controls at the same time and in opposite directions is game-changing and simply isn't possible without a control surface. This is where the plethora of looks comes from, as you adjust multiple controls against each other the overall image doesn't change much (assuming you're balancing the adjustments) but the ratio between the two does and you can gradually dial in different looks by navigating up and down this balance point. There's no way you can do this with a mouse because by the time you adjust one control (which throws off the whole look of the image) and then adjust the second control (to almost completely eliminate the impacts of the first control) you've forgotten what it looked like before, so you can't possibly dial in the subtle changes required to find these tiny niches in any reliable way. Muscle memory developed really early This surprised me, but it was really fast to really develop. The surface feels familiar even after a few hours. I'm told that pros grade without looking down, maybe at all, and that's part of their efficiency. You can grade full-screen This is perhaps a Resolve-specific thing (I don't know how panels work in other NLEs) but if you're adjusting things with the mouse then you can't do that with a full-screen image because the controls are hidden from the cursor. I have an external reference monitor, but it means that I can put scopes on my UI monitor to cover the controls and I can still adjust things even though those controls are under the scopes. Very useful. It's teaching me to see I've spotted a few things happening in the footage (which I had seen previously) but because I was adjusting something at the time they emerged, I was able to play with the controls and see what caused them. Now, I recognise that thing and know what is causing it. I've learned what causes things I've been seeing for years. Once you've found a look it's interesting to adjust each control individually to see how that control impacts the look. That can help to dial-in the look too - you adjust each control to optimise the look and after a few 'rounds' of tweaking each control you'll have nailed it. You'll also learn very quickly which controls matter to the look, and also which ones that look is more sensitive to. Would I recommend this? Yes and no. Yes, but only if you're willing to put the time in. If not then you're probably going to have a very bad time. I tried grading some iPhone footage, with its auto-WB and highly processed 709 image, and I was half-way to rage-quitting within about 15 minutes. I still had that sour taste in my mouth the next day, and it took me a few days to get over! I've now realised that all practice is good practice and so I may as well grade more forgiving footage and leave the iPhone until my skills are significantly more developed. I don't know what my long-term plans will be, maybe I will learn to grade well enough that I don't need to use a panel but will be able to use the knowledge I've gathered. Maybe I'll always want one. I will definitely grade real projects using colour management and LUTs, but having these skills will complement that. At the moment, it's a learning tool, and damn - I'm learning a lot.

The chart is actually a little bit misleading - there weren't three films shot on A7 cameras. Of the 49 feature films that premiered at Cannes, three of them used an A7 camera within their camera lineup. Of course, the A7 might only have contributed a single shot to the film to be included. The list is:

Footage looks good to me. What is it about the shots that you don't like @PPNS?

I've read people saying that the earth is flat, that it's round, that it's a virtual reality, and that there's no proof that we exist. I've found there are two types of information: information that doesn't matter - it doesn't matter because there aren't any decisions we're making that are impacted by it information that does matter - it matters because it directly relates to what we are doing, and therefore, because it directly relates to what we are doing, we should test it personally, and not rely on what other people, who may or may not be completely full of shit, say about it, when at no time in their testing were they us Does your R6 have C-Log 2 and 3? If not, who cares. If so, test them yourself. ....after you learn how to colour grade.

"It doesn't really matter which one you use, they're both great, just pick one and get out and shoot, because learning how to use the camera you already have is so much more important than upgrading your camera or switching to a supposedly better brand".

Yet another example of the importance of the new sensor... https://ymcinema.com/2022/06/13/the-cameras-behind-cannes-2022-alexa-mini-still-dominates/ As lots of Alexa 35s get bought and the previous models become more affordable, it will only make getting into the top tier of images that much easier.

Let me rephrase: C-Log2 requires learning to colour grade in order to get a good grade in terms of highlight rolloff and dynamic range as well as the final output S-Log2 requires learning to colour grade in order to get a good grade in terms of highlight rolloff and dynamic range as well as the final output S-Log3 requires learning to colour grade in order to get a good grade in terms of highlight rolloff and dynamic range as well as the final output The reason that I say this is that if you know even the basics of how to colour grade then they are essentially interchangeable, in terms of getting "a good grade in terms of highlight rolloff and dynamic range as well as the final output", and if you don't know how to colour grade then you won't be able to get "a good grade in terms of highlight rolloff and dynamic range as well as the final output". Remember how I said in the "please tell me what camera to buy so I won't have to learn how to colour grade" thread that you keep asking the same question over and over but just using different words? Well, this is another example of that.

Any time you're renaming something, I'd suggest leaving the original clip name in the filename (in this case maybe last), that way it's always reversible and the clip name isn't lost.

If you're using Resolve, you can convert from one to the other, so essentially zero difference. In practical terms, both will be rubbish until you learn to colour grade.

I will let @hyalinejim address your technical questions directly as I have no experience with V-Log, but I think there might be a broader context worth considering. I have viewed a selection of your videos, which are shot in only available light - this means across a varied array of lighting conditions. This is how I also shoot. In these situations, exposure isn't something that you "get right" it's something you adjust to try and balance according to the needs of the shot. You are likely to face a few scenarios: all your subjects are evenly illuminated - this means adjusting the exposure to be "correct" and not making exposure adjustments in post your subjects are not evenly illuminated - this means you would adjust exposure to be between the subjects, so that no subject is too dark and no subject is too bright - you might even out this situation in post so that all subjects are clear your subject is illuminated but there are details you want to keep in the scene that are brighter - eg the sky or perhaps the outside world if you are shooting inside or if your subjects are around a fire - this means lowering your exposure so that the bright element isn't blown out and then raising the exposure of your subjects in post so they're clearly visible but the bright elements are also visible same as above only the detail you want to keep is darker - so you expose higher than normal and bring your subject down in brightness in post Considering the dynamic range and quality of modern cameras, these adjustment are possible and there is a significant amount of latitude in the footage for you to be able to compensate for the conditions. In this context it's great to understand "proper" exposure, but it would benefit your work more to expose in a more flexible manner and concentrating on learning to grade your footage better. I have vague memories of your previous visits to these forums and you were having trouble getting the colours that you were looking for, and were talking about how to use your camera to get the best colours. Actually, learning how to manipulate the colour in the files you have is a much more useful skill.

I watched this video recently, which I thought was quite enlightening.. One thing it mentioned was that advertising / media / marketing deliberately do things that will filter out unwanted people from the pipeline: spam makes copious amounts of spelling errors as they don't want to waste time trying to con educated people get rich quick types are deliberately assholes so that they can sell to people who care about money more than people etc..

YT is a very strange place indeed. Recently I found a YT channel that uses exclusively primitive CGI footage and artificially-generated robot voices (I suspect deliberately made worse) and yet it is far far far too funny to not be humanly generated. Here is one video I recommend: I also recommend the Queen's Gambit Defence video too - longer but worth it. If this is AI, it's not all bad!

Yeah, I'd love to get a few files and have a play! Which pockets do you see as B-cams? Definitely curious about that. I think the FP would probably be the best candidate as a B-cam, as it's FF giving it the best lens selection, the sensor and colour seems super capable of capturing a wide DR and gamut, and the codecs are definitely up to the challenge. While I didn't follow all the details that you guys were talking about in the FP thread I think that matching it in Resolve should actually be relatively easy if the right conversions are done. If you have any shots from the Alexa and FP that you can share I'd be curious about how easy they are to match.