Driftwood "Moon Trial 3" @ ISO640 + Film Convert + ColorGHear + Anamorphic

[Sean Cunningham]

With a little luck, Goat Man's Hill will be going into pre-production on our next feature in the next couple months.  In all likelihood I'm going to shoot most of it with "Moon Trial 3" and anamorphic.  A good deal of it will be available light and night in urban spaces.  The basis for my finishing pipeline will be After Effects, Film Convert and ColorGHear.  

 

I've started roughing out various recipes for how the footage will flow through the pipeline, mainly dealing with NR and then the right balance of grain to put back in.  At some point I may investigate ColorGHear Pro's grain layers instead of this portion of Film Convert.

 

http://vimeo.com/60359953

 

 

This is a boring test video. If you don't like boring videos testing very specific settings, software combinations or techniques, keep moving.

 

That said, it does have a cat!

 

Seriously, there's a lot of excitement re: Driftwood's "Moon Trial 3", especially where 24P is concerned. After doing a snoop on ISO noise between 12500 - 160 I was blown away by how clean ISO640 is with this patch. I wanted to shoot a high contrast, available light scenario to not only play with NR but also different techniques and levels of simulated film grain (via Film Convert). The irony in this is not lost on me, hah-hah.

 

I output three versions of a pan + dolly. In all three scenarios I'm using Film Convert for my basic "emulsion pass" but with grain turned down to 0% (I knew I'd be applying it later). Each version also uses ColorGHear to give it a slight grade (switching off any cinegamma nodes because this function is provided by Film Convert).

 

All three versions use the "GHrain Killer" GHear to smooth out the chroma noise. Because this also filters out detail and sharpness in the luminance portion of the image I use the NR on a layer I just intend to use for its color. All three versions also use the technique I standardized on for SICK BOY to enhance small contrast and detail without the false edging you get very quickly with typical sharpening kernels and still rather quickly with the Unsharp Mask tool.

 

Lens Used: 35mm f/1.4 Nikkor + Century Precision Optics 1.33X Anamorphic

 

*1st Pass* ...I combine the "grainkilla" smoothed chroma with an original, unfiltered luma and 42% grain over the entire image.

 

*2nd Pass* ...I leave out the original luma, passing through the filtered luma and then depending on my LCE (local contrast enhancement) pass to re-establish an acceptable level of detail (still enhanced versus the original). The result is sharp edges and the ability to make out tiny textures like on the wall, the material on the chairs, etc. but also exceptionally smooth looking blacks even when I blow out the exposure to see "what's down in there". This version also has a uniform 42% grain applied to the whole frame.

 

*3rd Pass* ...in this one I do everything I did in the second pass but this time I create a luminance key with a "bell" shaped response that gives me all the mid tones while rolling off both shadow and highlight region and grain is applied through this key (this is based on an article I read interviewing the DP and colorist re: an episode of HOUSE that was shot all on the 5D where they discuss applying grain in this way). This allowed me to bump up the grain to 77% yet the net result doesn't feel as overall noisy as the previous two examples.

 

Oh, and 4' of dolly track just isn't enough.

 

 

[andy lee]

Im using Driftwood Quantum 9b updated Hack on my gh2 for 9 months now

and Im reqally happy with it

how different/ improved is Moon Trial 3

do you think it is better?

[QuickHitRecord]

I am pretty excited about this setting as well. With any luck I'll be able to test it against a D5200 this week.

 

I don't usually care much for cats. But some little creature (real or imaginary) is fortunate to be on the other side of the glass. That was a chuckle.

 

 

how different/ improved is Moon Trial 3

 

Some are saying that installing "Moon" is like getting a new camera. I wouldn't go that far, but it's the first setting that I have really liked. I have some side by side comparisons posted up in this thread (two or three posts down): http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/5806/driftwood-cluster-x-moon-%D0%85r%D1%96zznebula-drewnet/p18

[Sean Cunningham]

I don't usually care much for cats. But some little creature (real or imaginary) is fortunate to be on the other side of the glass. That was a chuckle.

 

LOL, yeah, every "epic" test video must contain a cat.  I think there's some law about that, lol.

 

 

Some are saying that installing "Moon" is like getting a new camera. I wouldn't go that far, but it's the first setting that I have really liked. I have some side by side comparisons posted up in this thread (two or three posts down): http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/5806/driftwood-cluster-x-moon-%D0%85r%D1%96zznebula-drewnet/p18

 

Yeah, it's an easy one to get really excited about the first time you use it and roll back the footage.  The only other patch I've used is Flowmotion, which was a noticeably improved recording over stock.  This felt like an even bigger jump, from Flowmotion, than Flowmotion felt from stock.  That's from a limited sampling of imagery types, I'll be the first to admit.  I've played around with the kinds of scenarios I'm more likely to be shooting in and have enjoyed seeing other user's "broad daylight" examples being posted on the net.

 

I've seen really outstanding imagery from just about all of the popular patches, and plan to do some comparison shooting with one or two of Driftwood's other patches based on his suggestions for the content being shot.  I foresee a situation where I carry a small stack of cheap SD cards with patches representing content-specific "stocks".  I'd like to be able to isolate it down to three...a general, high quality setting, a CU/ECU talent setting and a fast action setting.  Hopefully one of these also takes care of shooting the highest quality 60P possible with the camera.

 

"Moon" though, that seems to be the one to beat for 24P.  I did, however, really like whatever that patch was that the Spanish (I think that's right) GH2 feature was shot on in the daylight.