Your ideal NX1 Settings

[Marco Tecno]

Casey, interesting post. Imo you should get Andrew's guide and try its settings and the log conversion file. And report your findings, of course.

[Pavel Mašek]

I shoot always in 0-255 becuase you can change it to 16-235 in Premiere. 

16-235 has better DR than 0-255... but 0-255 has richer colours by default and even in case you convert it to 16-235 in Premiere. For me is 0-255 best and only one option... DR is finally same and it has better colours...

[rimpamposh]

Pavel, how do you do this conversion in premiere? I looked through it quite a bit but can't find anything (I'm a premiere noob).

[Pavel Mašek]

Pavel, how do you do this conversion in premiere? I looked through it quite a bit but can't find anything (I'm a premiere noob).

I am new in Premiere too :-). 

It can be done via Fast Color Collector. It is described in this video within few seconds starting 1:55 https://vimeo.com/92613144  (he changed it just in one direction from 255 to 235 but same works also to 0/16 indeed). 

[rimpamposh]

Thanks.

 

KarimNassar, in your bandingcomparison you said "save file and open in Photoshop". What exactly do you mean? Save file in what program? Grab frame in premiere pro or other method? Thanks.

[KarimNassar]

Thanks.

KarimNassar, in your bandingcomparison you said "save file and open in Photoshop". What exactly do you mean? Save file in what program? Grab frame in premiere pro or other method? Thanks.

save file on computer and open in photoshop. That has only to do with the color shift and different color management of the different web browers. As long as the file has an attached color profile by opening it with photoshop you are ensuring it is displayed correctly.

Pavel, how do you do this conversion in premiere? I looked through it quite a bit but can't find anything (I'm a premiere noob).

it's not a conversion, all he is doing in that video is bringing the highlights down. If you want to understand what is going on, look at the bottom right of the video ( the red green and blue waveform) as he sets the output level to 235 the highlights shift down. The fact that he calls it "an error" and always sets the number 235 makes it unnecessarily confusing. All he is doing is bringing the highlights down to recover highlight information, you can do that with a variety of other tools as well. And always setting to 235 as if it is a magic number fix to that "error" is also unnecessary. Depending on the amount of highlight information that is above the displayed range it can be more or less.   

[rimpamposh]

Interesting, thanks.

Btw, my question was how to save the file on computer? I have an mp4 file. How do I proceed to get that image file? (I know how to use programs, just want to know your way of doing this image acquisition that saves all the 0-255 information for sure, the color range thing confuses me slightly, as seems the case with most).

[KarimNassar]

Allow me to explain further rimpamposh, because that video is explaining the situation in my opinion in a twisted and counter intuitive way IMO.

Lets look at the RGB waveform of this NX1 file:

If you look at the top of the waveform it seems the highlights are clipped. However pay attention to the bottom right Clamp Signal checkbox that is checked on and that I circled in green. That clamp signal checkbox, clamps the display of the highlight. It does not DISPLAY in the waveform scope the highlights above the 100 line. However the information is in the video file, it is simply not displayed because that checkbox is checked.

 

Lets have a look at what our waveform looks like once we uncheck it:

As you can see we have more highlight information visible in the waveform scope than what was previously displayed. 

And that is all that has changed, the clamped highlight information above 100 is now displayed in the waveform monitor only. In our video it is still out of range because it is above the 100 line, so in our video those highlights are still clipped. How do we recover that information and unclip the highlights in the video? 

This is where in the video he says to set the 235 number. You do not need to do specifically do that, and you can do it with a variety of tools. And that specific amount will not be adapted to every situation. All you want to do is bring the highlights down. That is all. In this instance I did it as following:

You can do it in different ways. Hope it helps.

[rimpamposh]

Ok, all clear now. There's just one thing left: why isn't 0-255 displayed correctly with all the range, why is it clipped? And how can we fix this?

[caseywilsondp]

Ok, all clear now. There's just one thing left: why isn't 0-255 displayed correctly with all the range, why is it clipped? And how can we fix this?

it's not actually clipped, it's just displayed beyond the range. 16-235 in camera squeezes that extra bit into range, but it's not actually capturing any more info, it's just displayed that way. if you want to display your 0-255 clips as though it were 16-235 (thus displaying everything in range) simply add a fast color corrector, then change your output to 16-235. or, if you plan on using any decent color grading software (speedgrade/davinci) you'll have access to all that information still, and you can adjust it into range as you desire.

[Geoff CB]

https://www.fotodioxpro.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=nd+throttle+nx1

NX1 ND throttle adapter! I already ordered, very glad they decided to make it for the NX mount.

[Dean]

https://www.fotodioxpro.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=nd+throttle+nx1

NX1 ND throttle adapter! I already ordered, very glad they decided to make it for the NX mount.

Thanks. Looks like a very good idea. I wonder what the quality of the ND filter is like?

[kidzrevil]

Debating on getting a shogun assassin for this thing but I haven't seen anyone mention any gains in quality from it. 

Gonna take @Geoff CB advice and transcode / downscale the in camera files to 10bit prores and see if it will improve the quality of the files. Tried it before with gamma c and raised master black levels and it was a disaster in deep shadows. Had to crush the macroblocking away. fingers crossed

[gsenroc]

Debating on getting a shogun assassin for this thing but I haven't seen anyone mention any gains in quality from it. 

Gonna take @Geoff CB advice and transcode / downscale the in camera files to 10bit prores and see if it will improve the quality of the files. Tried it before with gamma c and raised master black levels and it was a disaster in deep shadows. Had to crush the macroblocking away. fingers crossed

I'll be thinking about BMMCC with speed booster if I have shogun, it looks a better combo than with the NX1 because of the better HDMI/SDI output of the BMMCC. I think the advantage of NX1 is its internal recording with good quality, just using the camera itself as a whole system.

But BMMCC is not available yet... Still I'm a bit interested in buying one.

edit: oops, I mean the BMMSC if I'm right, the micro studio camera with 4k output, which is already available  

[kidzrevil]

I'll be thinking about BMMCC with speed booster if I have shogun, it looks a better combo than with the NX1 because of the better HDMI/SDI output of the BMMCC. I think the advantage of NX1 is its internal recording with good quality, just using the camera itself as a whole system.

But BMMCC is not available yet... Still I'm a bit interested in buying one.

edit: oops, I mean the BMMSC if I'm right, the micro studio camera with 4k output, which is already available  

you are right ! Im settling on using the nx1 for documentaries and things that require quick turnovers. No complaints about the quality I just know we can squeeze out a little more in terms of performance lol.

Gonna get the 5d3 for projects that I can put some time and effort into the grade

[Geoff CB]

Debating on getting a shogun assassin for this thing but I haven't seen anyone mention any gains in quality from it. 

Gonna take @Geoff CB advice and transcode / downscale the in camera files to 10bit prores and see if it will improve the quality of the files. Tried it before with gamma c and raised master black levels and it was a disaster in deep shadows. Had to crush the macroblocking away. fingers crossed

For me the file size is not worth it for the slight image quality gain on 1080p output.

[caseywilsondp]

Thanks. Looks like a very good idea. I wonder what the quality of the ND filter is like?

I used the nikon to e adapter on my a7s and it was top notch. might have added a bit of green, but it wasn't much and it was easy to correct in the grading process.

Debating on getting a shogun assassin for this thing but I haven't seen anyone mention any gains in quality from it. 

Gonna take @Geoff CB advice and transcode / downscale the in camera files to 10bit prores and see if it will improve the quality of the files. Tried it before with gamma c and raised master black levels and it was a disaster in deep shadows. Had to crush the macroblocking away. fingers crossed

i'll do a test tomorrow of internal vs external. i dont think the gains will be significant though.

[kidzrevil]

For me the file size is not worth it for the slight image quality gain on 1080p output.

the size is just...nuts. A file went from 120mb to 1gb ! 

[mercer]

https://www.fotodioxpro.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=nd+throttle+nx1

NX1 ND throttle adapter! I already ordered, very glad they decided to make it for the NX mount.

I picked up the nd throttle for Nikon to m4/3 and it is great. No color cast. Hard stops. No messing around with step up/down rings. Well worth it!!!

[caseywilsondp]

Here are the results of internal vs external.

because quicktime (external) takes 0-255 and makes it 16-235 or whatever I adjusted the internally recorded one in premiere from 0-255 to 16-235 to emulate what was happening in the shogun. this doesn't affect the quality of either file as all the information is still there, but it helps them appear to match better (it's actually not exact... which is odd).

so here is the scene as a whole (Shogun then Internal):

here are two power windows (from speedgrade) around the lightbulb and around the statues on the chair to demonstrate highlight/shadow information

and then just a 300% crop comparison (not perfect as he was slightly leaned back, but on this wide of a lens the sharpness shouldn't vary too much)

jpegs aren't a great way to judge, so i've attached original files:

 SAM_0818.MP4 <-internal file

 SHOGUN_S001_S001_T004.MOV <-external file

 Int_Ext Test.zip <-tiffs

my thoughts:

first, i expected conforming the internally shot footage to 16-235 would make them virtually identical (it did not). when it came in originally, it was very crunchy, but 16-235 made it actually a little flatter than the prores, which I am under the impression takes 0-255 signals and clamps them to 16-235 already. so, not sure what to make of that.

as far as quality goes... the difference is not huge. i would say externally the macro-blocking is smaller and almost appears as less-fine noise, while internally its a bit more exaggerated and chunky (the shadow recovery demonstrates this the best). 

highlight detail isn't much different, with maybe a slight edge going to the external codec.

(EDIT) I just noticed according the JPEGs and TIFFs you'd probably come to a different conclusion, not sure why the tiff export did that, but I can assure you in speedgrade there is more detail. i'll upload the internal and external file now for viewing.

while the color kind of appears to be a different,  that's mostly just the not-quite-matched 16-235 making the internal a little flatter... it's really very similar when you end up grading it.

detail (300% crop) isn't much different between the two.

personally if I didn't already own a shogun, i'm not sure this test would convince me it's needed, though if you absolutely wanted the best image... i suppose it gives it a bit of an edge.