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James Miller deLUTS are awesome


Ed_David
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I started to mess with the deluts - for slog3 - these are excellent

i didn't shoot this - but this is an example of one.  Red raven, what?  This looks 1000x better than stuff I'm seeing on this camera or any other.

once again, it ain't the camera always, it's the grade :)  (also dp, lenses, editor, lighting, etc etc)

 

 

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Guest Ebrahim Saadawi

Your own grades are SO much better than this ED.

This is typical Philip Bloom) footage, now I know why, his video quality began taking a huge hit in my opinion at the same time he started using James Luts/presets. I mean, how does that look good? It's yellow, it's extremely low contrast with blacks pushed way up, with some colour every now and then. Instagram-ish is not the word because Instagram app filters aren't even that extreme. 

Do clients like that now? I can easily create that look manually with a few steps. Should we do it or stick to subtle naturalistic/filmic colour grading? 

I'll try going for that look on my next project, and it will either make people hell impressed or hell sarcastic, but we'll see. A risk worth taking to know.  

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Its great if thats the look you are going for...

What did the original footage look like?

I don't know... I remember a couple of years back, I was trying to learn color correction and I saw something similar to this, ONLY it was in english:

 

Just saying that that video, almost seems like a western coloring was thrown on a milky S-Log???

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In this autumn context, the LUT fits - (but after a time, it annoys me as well).
These kind of Miller LUTs always seems to me as if the footage were dipped in chocolate sauce...
Here an Philip Bloom example with this kind of LUT:

 

For my taste, this C300 footage looks super terrible and flat but nearly 100% of the comments (except mine:) loved it.
Same with the Clip above.
So, maybe I'm totally wrong:) - (btw: without doubt, Miller and Bloom are definitely very, very talented people).

That style always reminds me of the fairy tale The Emperor's New Clothes …
I think it is related to our viewing habits by our smart phone filters, etc
Sorry, that I get so upset about it ... but I have really antagonistic feelings about this fad!
:)
 

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I think one of the biggest problems with the Sony A7 series is the motion cadence. Funny that I would say that, as only a short while ago I really had no idea what that was. But now that I do, I can safely say that no matter what you do with the grade, these cameras still have an underlying, "videoish" quality caused by this motion cadence. Granted, you can mask this to some extent by use of cinematic camera movements and appropriate lighting. But in the end, once you combine the motion cadence with the limited bit rate of the A7 series cameras, you soon reach a point where you'd be better off trying to get as close as you can to the look you want in-camera... So that you won't need to push the image too much in post. They are still great cameras. Indeed I own the A7Rii and love it. But there are limitations.

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I think overall you guys are right - the deluts can be a little wacky - especially with skintone and raised shadows, and even just crushing shadows a little too much.

 

But some can be nice.

I think filmconvert potra and impulz 200t are really nice starting points for luts.

I mean, at the end of the day, luts are kind of wonky - they through out information.

But for me, a DP who just uses them to see what I can do with imagery quickly, they are useful.

But yes, gotta be careful with them.

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DBounce, I'm curious if anyone's done any kind of controlled testing on the motion cadence issues you mention.  Obviously this is much harder than comparing Canon color to Sony color, but I'm wondering if there is any kind of visual comparison that can be done to visually highlight these differences.  For example, same controlled scene with an object moving at a controlled rate past two cameras set to the same shutter / aperture / ISO-equivalent.

Feels like it would be enlightening if we were able to narrow in on the specific visual differences in motion cadence.

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6 hours ago, tellure said:

DBounce, I'm curious if anyone's done any kind of controlled testing on the motion cadence issues you mention.  Obviously this is much harder than comparing Canon color to Sony color, but I'm wondering if there is any kind of visual comparison that can be done to visually highlight these differences.  For example, same controlled scene with an object moving at a controlled rate past two cameras set to the same shutter / aperture / ISO-equivalent.

Feels like it would be enlightening if we were able to narrow in on the specific visual differences in motion cadence.

There was a side by side comparison with the a7s and f35 in an old thread about motion cadence, but to me it showed rolling shutter more than cadence issues, kind of cheating. In Philip Bloom's a7s review, in his talking head, his hands when he gestures seem to move really weirdly, and I think I've come to see that as more of a cadence issue, though for a long time I was convince the shutter speed was wrong or something. I know it's not in direct comparison, but that's where I've seen it the worst probably. 

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