James Miller deLUTS are awesome

[kidzrevil]

just graded these with deluts. Some 4k stills from my NX1. Brought down the blacks so the lut didn't have that washed out look you guys hate about it

[Bioskop.Inc]

17 minutes ago, kidzrevil said:

just graded these with deluts. Some 4k stills from my NX1. Brought down the blacks so the lut didn't have that washed out look you guys hate about it

Man, you can wash your blacks out a little bit - don't listen to these idiots, since taste is absolutely subjective.

And your footage always looks nice...

[kidzrevil]

@Bioskop.Inc thanks man I really appreciate that. I will never give up my style for anybody but I at least want to show whats possible using these luts.

[Volker Schmidt]

54 minutes ago, Bioskop.Inc said:

Man, you can wash your blacks out a little bit - don't listen to these idiots, since taste is absolutely subjective.

And your footage always looks nice...

uih, hard words… 
Personally, I only get upset about the „chocolate dip style“ often used by bloom and miller.

Nothing against washed out blacks or the Deluts from Miller in general.
Mattias Burling has brought it quite sober to the point:
It´s all about adjusting them (LUTs). No matter if its Deluts or Impulz or other.

And of course: Everybody can do what he wants to do:) Taste is absolutely subjective.

[dbp]

As soon as you get into heavily stylized grades, there's going to be a large degree of subjectivity. Still fun to discuss, though.

When stylized grading is done well, I like it. But 95% of the time with stuff I see online, it looks hokey and I think the footage would've looked better with a more natural (albeit safe) look. It's risky for sure.

 

edit: It's often done well with higher budget/hollywood stuff. I think it's because there's a specific plan and reason. The art direction, color palette are all designed to compliment the grade. Whereas with random online stuff, it's just some LUT thrown on to random footage with no real plan. 

[Bioskop.Inc]

17 minutes ago, Volker Schmidt said:

uih, hard words… 
Personally, I only get upset about the „chocolate dip style“ often used by bloom and miller.

Nothing against washed out blacks or the Deluts from Miller in general.
Mattias Burling has brought it quite sober to the point:
It´s all about adjusting them (LUTs). No matter if its Deluts or Impulz or other.

And of course: Everybody can do what he wants to do:) Taste is absolutely subjective.

I object to that cLog style type of washed out stuff that you used to see - lazy Alexa grading?

Of course Mattias is right - LUTs are just a [lazy] starting point.

Dislike Bloom's stuff, just does nothing for me - the man, the machine, the whole package.

I love putting a tiny amount of Blue in the Blacks or Mids, but this is partly because I'm using the Arri Alexa profiles from Film Convert on BMPCC footage, which seems to introduce a green tint.

[Volker Schmidt]

24 minutes ago, Bioskop.Inc said:

I love putting a tiny amount of Blue in the Blacks or Mids, but this is partly because I'm using the Arri Alexa profiles from Film Convert on BMPCC footage, which seems to introduce a green tint.

Yes, let´s talk about love...:)
I love to talk about looks, colors, grading etc. (far more than to talk about tech specs)
In comparison to the London impressions from above here a anamorphic test clip from cooke with a color palette that I really like:

 

[BenEricson]

2 hours ago, Volker Schmidt said:

And of course: Everybody can do what he wants to do:) Taste is absolutely subjective.

Yes, but why care so much about bit rates and dynamic range, when you apply a look that makes your 4k Pro Res footage look like 8 bit 5D footage... 

[Bioskop.Inc]

2 hours ago, Volker Schmidt said:

Yes, let´s talk about love...:)
I love to talk about looks, colors, grading etc. (far more than to talk about tech specs)
In comparison to the London impressions from above here a anamorphic test clip from cooke with a color palette that I really like:

Its a very interesting grade, as she looks very natural, whilst it also highlights the warm colour in all the lights.

32 minutes ago, BenEricson said:

Yes, but why care so much about bit rates and dynamic range, when you apply a look that makes your 4k Pro Res footage look like 8 bit 5D footage... 

Yes it always amazes me when people talk about great DR and then don't ever use it to full effect - they just stick a LUT on it & go wow look at this.

Its like people who think they need a 4K camera & don't realise that hardly anyone has the capability to actually view it - compounded even more by the fact that no HD TV channel is actually broadcasting in Full HD & streaming can be/is an even bigger joke. Once you point this fact out, they come back to you with "well, now i have the ability to re-frame" - which is basically admitting they can't frame properly in the first place. Or, they talk about pretending they can downscale & somehow miraculously convert 8-bit into 10-bit.

Each to his own, i suppose.

[dbp]

21 minutes ago, Bioskop.Inc said:

 

Its like people who think they need a 4K camera & don't realise that hardly anyone has the capability to actually view it - compounded even more by the fact that no HD TV channel is actually broadcasting in Full HD & streaming can be/is an even bigger joke. Once you point this fact out, they come back to you with "well, now i have the ability to re-frame" - which is basically admitting they can't frame properly in the first place. Or, they talk about pretending they can downscale & somehow miraculously convert 8-bit into 10-bit.

 

I get your point for narrative, but for events/anything live, it's very valuable at times.

[markr041]

1 hour ago, Bioskop.Inc said:

 

Its like people who think they need a 4K camera & don't realise that hardly anyone has the capability to actually view it - compounded even more by the fact that no HD TV channel is actually broadcasting in Full HD & streaming can be/is an even bigger joke. Once you point this fact out, they come back to you with "well, now i have the ability to re-frame" - which is basically admitting they can't frame properly in the first place. Or, they talk about pretending they can downscale & somehow miraculously convert 8-bit into 10-bit.

Each to his own, i suppose.

You do not have to have a 4K-capable viewer to see the benefits of 4K. Viewed at 1080, 4K original footage quite easily has higher resolution, streamed or not. This erroneous point about needing to have 4K viewers to see 4K benefits seems to be made by people who want to rationalize why they have not made the investment in shooting 4K. And, no, I do not believe that resolution is the only thing or even the most important, but I am not in denial that the benefits of 4K are not visible unless you have some special "capability" to view 4K. It's not a joke, or a delusion unless you only shoot close ups of flowers where 3/4 of the frame is bokeh.

[Mattias Burling]

I have had lots of 4K cameras and even 4K Raw cameras and the screen to watch it. And I agree. As soon as you put it on youtube you might as well upscale HD. Same goes for Vimo. And as pointed out, TV is 720p at best.

DR and color is much more important to make an audience like it.

And reframing isnt my thing either. Ive done it on for example an interview where the space was to cramed for two cameras. So yes it can be a life saver. But for me its an emergency tool, not SOP.

All IMO of course.

[DayRaven]

16 hours ago, Bioskop.Inc said:

Once you point this fact out, they come back to you with "well, now i have the ability to re-frame" - which is basically admitting they can't frame properly in the first place.

To be fair, when you have a camera with serious rolling shutter and 4k (a6300, I'm talking about you), a "crop pan" is brilliant

[Ed Andrews]

If you are shooting SLog2 with A7s mk1/2, try giving the Arri Rec709 LUT a shot. It's now my go-to one for standard, naturalistic stuff.

Used after primary adjustments for exposure, it pulls the slightly iffy sony colour into decent shape and gives a slight warmth in the skintones.

[Bioskop.Inc]

My only problem with 4K is the 8-bit cameras, just won't ever go there again after ProRes HQ (I've just no time or space for RAW - it is amazing though). The reason is that at the moment i'm editing up some old 8-bit footage & it just sucks. There's no need to defend your 4K decision, if you're happy, that's fine with me. I just hate the overly sharp aesthetic it produces, it looks fake & unrealistic to my eyes - you really need a filter to kill the sharpness.  For me its all about getting perfect 1080p or 2k, and as far as broadcasters are concerned in the UK, its the same for them - need to crack that first before we start to think about trying to roll out imperfect 4K TV. Cinemas is a totally different thing & that's why 4K was invented - big screens need it to project digital pictures, way more than small screens.

ATM, because I shoot anamorphic, I'm more than happy with 2K footage - Colour, resolution & only a small part is DR.

10 hours ago, dbp said:

I get your point for narrative, but for events/anything live, it's very valuable at times.

I done live concerts, never been a problem - you test stuff out during the sound check (or before the event) and when you see the shot, you film the shot. I understand it can be a life saver, but personally, I don't need it right now - mistakes is how you learn & get better.

2 hours ago, DayRaven said:

To be fair, when you have a camera with serious rolling shutter and 4k (a6300, I'm talking about you), a "crop pan" is brilliant

Yeah, crop pans are great when shooting x2 anamorphic - its a good easy way to add a bit of movement/life to some footage.

1 hour ago, Ed Andrews said:

If you are shooting SLog2 with A7s mk1/2, try giving the Arri Rec709 LUT a shot. It's now my go-to one for standard, naturalistic stuff.

Used after primary adjustments for exposure, it pulls the slightly iffy sony colour into decent shape and gives a slight warmth in the skintones.

Arri Alexa mode in Film Convert really is so much better for BM footage & I am assuming their LUTs are great for all cameras - skintones especially (actually for everything).

[vaga]

I generally agree with you all on the LUTs and images with raised blacks and wonky colors being irritating, but I think the LUT in Ed's example works really well because the raised-black silhouettes give the video a very mystical feel (and I'm guessing that was the intention).

@Liam and @DBounce I had always thought there was a weird shutter issue with NX1 videos for the longest time as well! I think the odd motion cadence is some type of artifact of rolling shutter, because the NX1 1080p doesn't seem to suffer the same issues that 4K does in that regard (stuttery/jumpiness). (This is why I'm really excited for 2.5k video).

But, although the a6300 has as bad or worse RS than the NX1, I find it to have an overall much smoother picture even in 4k. The NX1 seems to see a little bit of improvement with higher bitrate but it's nothing significant IMO.  

What I feel with the NX1 is that while each individual frame is beautiful and beautifully detailed the overall image seems to lack (enough) motion blur. Perhaps adding a small bit in post (or maybe even 1 pixel gaussian blur) can clear up Motion Cadence issues for these cameras.

Overall, this a discussion worth having and a scientific test worth doing. 

[AaronChicago]

I used one of the DeLUTS on this shot and brought down the blacks with a curve. Set the strength of the LUT at 50%.

 

[kidzrevil]

I like 4k simply because I get a full pixel readout from sensor and downsizing to 1080 reduces apparent noise. To me that is the main benefits but I definitely understand that it can be way too sharp at times. I rather have good DR but good luck fitting anything over 11 stops in an 8 bit image without introducing major artifacting (a7s slog2 and technicolor cinestyle guys this is for you). Im comfortable prioritizing my exposure to fit what I need into 10 stops though. Consumers dont care for wide dr anyhow they like contrast and color. I remember sending clients images that looked "natural" to the eye only to have them throw a ton of instagram filters on it to show their audience *shrug*

[AaronChicago]

1 hour ago, kidzrevil said:

I like 4k simply because I get a full pixel readout from sensor and downsizing to 1080 reduces apparent noise. To me that is the main benefits but I definitely understand that it can be way too sharp at times. I rather have good DR but good luck fitting anything over 11 stops in an 8 bit image without introducing major artifacting (a7s slog2 and technicolor cinestyle guys this is for you). Im comfortable prioritizing my exposure to fit what I need into 10 stops though. Consumers dont care for wide dr anyhow they like contrast and color. I remember sending clients images that looked "natural" to the eye only to have them throw a ton of instagram filters on it to show their audience *shrug*

Yep I've had that happen too. The worst is when you hand off a final render to a client and they use "enhance" on YouTube.

[Ed_David]

Sure you can make fun of people using a lut as a starting point,

those same people make fun of me when I light something with a light from the home depot

but whatever gets you to the end goal, who cares what they think.

And I like instagram filters - for some projects, it works.  For others, more naturalistic ones are good.

The biggest thing for me is skintones - get this right.  Once that's right, then everything else you can play around with.

But if skintones are off, the whole thing won't be believable.

 

Also Aaron Chicago and kidzareevil - your delut work is really, really, nice!

 

what lut names are they?

 

I like Baxter a lot.  I used that to color a commercial I just shot.