Actually you can make the GH5 look very cinematic!

[Bioskop.Inc]

15 hours ago, kidzrevil said:

@Bioskop.Inc oh God I hated the SOOC ungraded LOG look ?? I know hella people who associated the look with high end productions. Remember when the teal & orange M31 LUT look was the go to aesthetic ? LOL ! Or how about the green shadow tint used & abused in 1990's action movies ? Maybe the confusion is everyone defines "cinematic" differently cause its a subjective word. Cinema is art and every artist paints their pictures differently

That T&O phase was just horrible - was Transformers to blame?!

 

10 hours ago, mercer said:

I remember after Technicolor released CineStyle, for Canon cameras, there was an onslaught of SOOC Flat "cinematic" videos posted on YouTube... I wondered if any of these people ever watched a movie.

The Cinestyle PS was probably the worst thing to happen to DSLRs & I really do think that people haven't really learnt about LOG profiles properly either.

I shoot LOG (Film mode) with the BMPCC, but view in Video mode & I shoot as I see it in ProRes HQ, then tweek later. I would never use ETTR for anything else than RAW recording, there are no benefits of using this technique for any other codec as it simply can't cope. Can't believe there's a thread on this forum advocating using ETTR on a camera that doesn't shoot RAW - it's wrong, pure & simple, and leading people down a rabbit whole where nothing good can be found.

A lot of people are obsessed with DR & think it means that you have to have a uniform picture - no noise in Blacks or blown Highlights. I have always tried to get it right in-camera & then just tweek in post - ProRes HQ is 100% ok to use & I see RAW as completely pointless, it is only useful for special effects shots.

Finally, Perfection doesn't exist! As soon as you learn this & embrace filming, the better off you'll be. Filming & Experimentation go hand-in-hand - so the more you fail, the better you'll get.

[kidzrevil]

On 6/29/2017 at 6:19 AM, Mattias Burling said:

When the BMPCC was new and I posted test footage I often got asked about the look I got.

They used the same lens, same film convert but didn't get as "nice", "sharp" or "filmic" results. The reason was that I always used the levels tools to slightly crush the shadows and blow some highlights.

People, and Im talking about real non nerd people, still like contrast.

Contrast & heavy saturation like those instagram filters ?

[mercer]

1 hour ago, Bioskop.Inc said:

That T&O phase was just horrible - was Transformers to blame?!

 

The Cinestyle PS was probably the worst thing to happen to DSLRs & I really do think that people haven't really learnt about LOG profiles properly either.

I shoot LOG (Film mode) with the BMPCC, but view in Video mode & I shoot as I see it in ProRes HQ, then tweek later. I would never use ETTR for anything else than RAW recording, there are no benefits of using this technique for any other codec as it simply can't cope. Can't believe there's a thread on this forum advocating using ETTR on a camera that doesn't shoot RAW - it's wrong, pure & simple, and leading people down a rabbit whole where nothing good can be found.

A lot of people are obsessed with DR & think it means that you have to have a uniform picture - no noise in Blacks or blown Highlights. I have always tried to get it right in-camera & then just tweek in post - ProRes HQ is 100% ok to use & I see RAW as completely pointless, it is only useful for special effects shots.

Finally, Perfection doesn't exist! As soon as you learn this & embrace filming, the better off you'll be. Filming & Experimentation go hand-in-hand - so the more you fail, the better you'll get.

Yup I learned it the hard way. I wasted about 8 months of my life with the NX500 and G7 shooting everything ETTR. I stopped using zebras altogether... Well, I am shooting ML Raw now, so obviously I ETTR. But with other cameras I'll use the meter as a guideline, but my eyes are more important. Once in a while I'll throw them on to see if I blew out an important highlight but my eyes can usually see if I did. I hate color checkers too. I have also stopped doing pointless tests. If I want to test something, it is going to be something I can possibly use. I actually have a small short planned for late summer where I am going to test how close to the middle I can shoot ML Raw. I know it goes against the grain, but I have seen some amazing 5D3 footage that wasn't ETTRd. I assume I'll lose some DR, but I think in the end it could be easier to get a more uniform correction and better skin tones. 

But I will say with sLog you do need to expose to the right or you will have a hot mess going on. 

[kidzrevil]

@mercer I actually started intentionally blowing out certain highlights with my G85 and the noise performance and dr is great. If I have a scene with too many hotspots & white areas i'll expose until 105% zebras show up with cined and the results are amazing. I hope this carries over to the GH5 its how I reach a cinematic quality image with these consumer cameras. Exposure is hands down the most important part of the process

[AaronChicago]

I made that Fargo LUT based on an interview that I heard with the DP Dana Gonzalez. He said that they stripped out the blue channel. If you notice the sky or anything that is blue - it's virtually monochromatic. He said they were basing the look off of Inside Llewyn Davis.

[mercer]

9 minutes ago, kidzrevil said:

@mercer I actually started intentionally blowing out certain highlights with my G85 and the noise performance and dr is great. If I have a scene with too many hotspots & white areas i'll expose until 105% zebras show up with cined and the results are amazing. I hope this carries over to the GH5 its how I reach a cinematic quality image with these consumer cameras. Exposure is hands down the most important part of the process

Interesting, your footage lately has really looked like you are trying some new things and as usual it looks great. I know it's not your thing, but I'd love to see you shoot a narrative. We could use a modern Mean Streets shot guerilla style on the streets of NYC.

 I only shoot horror/thriller/suspense/mystery stories so I've really been experimenting with using my midtones to add my contrast. I'll raise my blacks to like 10 ire and then drop my mids to bring in the contrast and deeper color tones. 

But as we all know, there isn't a paint by numbers way of doing this. If you need to see into the shadows a little bit and you want them clean, with certain cameras, you have to overexpose slightly.

Each shot is different but I think it's safe to say that with most of these cameras, the sweet spot is between -1 and +1 and the closest you can stay to +/-0 on your meter is the best bet. In my opinion. And if one can see some dynamic range in the shot while you're filming, then that will probably be the best you're gonna get, or the most you can expect. There's a reason why Hollywood films use lights and flags with an Alexa... and that has what... almost 16 stops of DR.

6 minutes ago, AaronChicago said:

I made that Fargo LUT based on an interview that I heard with the DP Dana Gonzalez. He said that they stripped out the blue channel. If you notice the sky or anything that is blue - it's virtually monochromatic. He said they were basing the look off of Inside Llewyn Davis.

Okay that makes sense now. The scene with the state trooper, in the last episode, looks insane. I have been really into B&W lately, planning a film in the Fall/Winter.

[Bioskop.Inc]

1 hour ago, mercer said:

Yup I learned it the hard way. I wasted about 8 months of my life with the NX500 and G7 shooting everything ETTR. I stopped using zebras altogether... Well, I am shooting ML Raw now, so obviously I ETTR. But with other cameras I'll use the meter as a guideline, but my eyes are more important. Once in a while I'll throw them on to see if I blew out an important highlight but my eyes can usually see if I did. I hate color checkers too. I have also stopped doing pointless tests. If I want to test something, it is going to be something I can possibly use. I actually have a small short planned for late summer where I am going to test how close to the middle I can shoot ML Raw. I know it goes against the grain, but I have seen some amazing 5D3 footage that wasn't ETTRd. I assume I'll lose some DR, but I think in the end it could be easier to get a more uniform correction and better skin tones. 

But I will say with sLog you do need to expose to the right or you will have a hot mess going on. 

What i found with [ML] RAW is that ETTR only needs to be used to help clean up the noise in an image when filming in dark situations & a complete waste of time in well lit places - but that's obvious, right? There is too much misunderstanding about how or when to use this technique & I've had so many DOH! moments when watching footage of people using it in nice daylight!

I'm with you, I expose to what my eye likes & then peep a little at the zebras. When I first started out, a seasoned cameraman told me that to begin with I should set the zebras to around 70-80% & then as I got used to exposure, move up to a max of 90% - he said never set at 100%, because it'll only show the hotspots that are really blown & mask other areas of the image that won't look blown, but can very easily be unrecoverable. This is mainly because zebras aren't 100% accurate & should always be treated as such - they put you in the right ball park, but never tell you the whole story. The only thing that will be accurate is a light meter.

1 hour ago, kidzrevil said:

@mercer I actually started intentionally blowing out certain highlights with my G85 and the noise performance and dr is great. If I have a scene with too many hotspots & white areas i'll expose until 105% zebras show up with cined and the results are amazing. I hope this carries over to the GH5 its how I reach a cinematic quality image with these consumer cameras. Exposure is hands down the most important part of the process

Is that because you're using a Black Pro Mist filter & the result has a more pleasant rendering for blown highlights - to my eyes they really bloom softly & become a lot more pleasing to the eye.

[kidzrevil]

@mercer Im going to take a shot at shooting a narrative one of these days, sounds like a good idea. As far as exposure is concerned -2/3 to +2/3 is my ideal range for video & -1 to +1 for RAW photos.

1 hour ago, Bioskop.Inc said:

 

Is that because you're using a Black Pro Mist filter & the result has a more pleasant rendering for blown highlights - to my eyes they really bloom softly & become a lot more pleasing to the eye.

Yeah overexposing when you use a diffusion filter looks way better than without one. Single coated lenses also have that soft bloom to them. Both options helps you avoid those crushed shadows

[Emanuel]

 

[Emanuel]

 

[jonpais]

On 6/29/2017 at 7:18 PM, Tim Sewell said:

I've always been a little unsure about this never-ending desire to see detail in shadows. I mean - sometimes, if there's something in those shadows that you particularly want or need to see then - yeah - I get it. On those occasions you need to expose (or light if you're able) to reveal it. But most of the time I just can't se the point. Film, video, photography - even used journalistically they're not reality, where you can see into shadows with your human eyes; they're a stylised representation of reality where you, as the artist, get to use light and dark to convey a 3d scene into 2d, to model and sculpt, to draw attention and imply emotion. Seeing into a shadow is important for a sensor demo but for art - especially narrative art - it seems a particularly silly aspect of the whole to get uptight about.

FWIW I think the OP's teaser is a compelling and beautiful piece of art. His placement of black tones on the response curve is immaterial to that.

I beg to differ - shadow detail is as important for narrative art as are watercolor papers to a painter or speakers to a musician - imagine a set of speakers with a bass response that only went down to 5,000 Hz. In broad daylight, I don't have to strain to see detail in the jacket of someone standing only a few feet away.

On 6/30/2017 at 6:53 PM, Bioskop.Inc said:

That T&O phase was just horrible - was Transformers to blame?!

 

The Cinestyle PS was probably the worst thing to happen to DSLRs & I really do think that people haven't really learnt about LOG profiles properly either.

I shoot LOG (Film mode) with the BMPCC, but view in Video mode & I shoot as I see it in ProRes HQ, then tweek later. I would never use ETTR for anything else than RAW recording, there are no benefits of using this technique for any other codec as it simply can't cope. Can't believe there's a thread on this forum advocating using ETTR on a camera that doesn't shoot RAW - it's wrong, pure & simple, and leading people down a rabbit whole where nothing good can be found.

A lot of people are obsessed with DR & think it means that you have to have a uniform picture - no noise in Blacks or blown Highlights. I have always tried to get it right in-camera & then just tweek in post - ProRes HQ is 100% ok to use & I see RAW as completely pointless, it is only useful for special effects shots.

Finally, Perfection doesn't exist! As soon as you learn this & embrace filming, the better off you'll be. Filming & Experimentation go hand-in-hand - so the more you fail, the better you'll get.

Embracing filmmaking means learning how to expose and color correct properly. Giving advice like the more you fail the better you'll get is as good as no advice at all. I could just as easily say that we learn from our successes!

Funny that you say that ETTR is just wrong for anything but RAW - since Paul Leeming, Noam Kroll and thousands of others find it very useful for everything from Cinelike D to V-Log. And there have been many posts online showing how ETTR can improve image quality, including my own shot in Cinelike D.

Someone mentioned film noir, as though film noir had blown highlights and crushed shadows, which absolutely is not true. I've watched many, from Otto Preminger to Louis Malle and Fritz Lang, and they are correctly exposed.

Some here seem to be allergic to using scopes, meters, histograms and peaking. Can you imagine a sound man just playing it by ear? Not using level meters? Unthinkable! It's common practice to record so peaks are at -12dB, then raise levels in post. I've never heard of someone saying, what the heck, -6dB/+6dB, it's all good! If sound is recorded at 0dB or higher, there will be distortion. Roger Deakins might be able to judge exposure by eye, but we're not all Roger Deakins. If a colorist has a properly exposed image to begin with, it's going to make their life much easier than one that's underexposed.

Others are dismissive of distribution channels such as YouTube and Netflix, saying that nobody cares about image quality online, but like it or not, that's the future. 

Also, nobody wants to talk about how soft the image is, or the distracting bokeh... strange!

[AKH]

23 hours ago, Bioskop.Inc said:

That T&O phase was just horrible - was Transformers to blame?!

CSI Miami predates Transformers by about 5 years.

[mercer]

4 hours ago, jonpais said:

I beg to differ - shadow detail is as important for narrative art as are watercolor papers to a painter or speakers to a musician - imagine a set of speakers with a bass response that only went down to 5,000 Hz. In broad daylight, I don't have to strain to see detail in the jacket of someone standing only a few feet away.

Embracing filmmaking means learning how to expose and color correct properly. Giving advice like the more you fail the better you'll get is as good as no advice at all. I could just as easily say that we learn from our successes!

Funny that you say that ETTR is just wrong for anything but RAW - since Paul Leeming, Noam Kroll and thousands of others find it very useful for everything from Cinelike D to V-Log. And there have been many posts online showing how ETTR can improve image quality, including my own shot in Cinelike D.

Someone mentioned film noir, as though film noir had blown highlights and crushed shadows, which absolutely is not true. I've watched many, from Otto Preminger to Louis Malle and Fritz Lang, and they are correctly exposed.

Some here seem to be allergic to using scopes, meters, histograms and peaking. Can you imagine a sound man just playing it by ear? Not using level meters? Unthinkable! It's common practice to record so peaks are at -12dB, then raise levels in post. I've never heard of someone saying, what the heck, -6dB/+6dB, it's all good! If sound is recorded at 0dB or higher, there will be distortion. Roger Deakins might be able to judge exposure by eye, but we're not all Roger Deakins. If a colorist has a properly exposed image to begin with, it's going to make their life much easier than one that's underexposed.

Others are dismissive of distribution channels such as YouTube and Netflix, saying that nobody cares about image quality online, but like it or not, that's the future. 

Also, nobody wants to talk about how soft the image is, or the distracting bokeh... strange!

Man, Jon I love your passion about filmmaking. I don't always agree with you, but I appreciate the depths you'll go to improve your craft.

With that being said, ETTR is a bad habit to rely on. Sure it can work, but in a lot of instances you're setting yourself up for more work in post and risking ruining shots if you can't pull back those highlights or you end up with weird skin tones because now the curve is messed up.

It all depends on the curve. sLog2 needs to be overexposed by about 1.7 to 2 stops, otherwise it is an unrecoverable, noisy mess. CineLikeD works best -2/3 to +2/3 depending on the shot.

You have lucked out in your tests because you've needed the +2/3 and it seems to coincide with ETTR. Plus from your test, we've already surmised that since you are relying on the lens' aperture stops and not an incremental change from a variable ND or a clickless aperture that you are actually not even truly using ETTR correctly.

Try it with an actor with a bright blue sky behind them and trees in the background in mid day sun. Or light an actor's face until 100% zebras appear and then back off with a variable nd, clickless aperture or the dimmer from the light. Those skin tones will be a pain in the ass to correct.

Why do you think Panasonic cameras have their zebras set to 80% and 100% out of the factory? The 80% is for skin tones.

These cameras are only capable of so much DR. I don't think it's worth the risk of losing shots with ETTR to get an extra half a stop.

I respect your pursuit of craft, you have way more patience and skill than I have, but you would probably be better served with a light meter than from the Leeming LUT. In most instances, the camera's light meter is sufficient enough. 

I was constantly worried about ETTR after I dumped my EOS-M for an NX500 and all of my footage suffered from banding and bad color. Part of that was my lack of skill, but part was due to my ETTR with every shot, in every scenario, without regard. I did the same with the G7 and I had the same results. Finally, after getting the GX85, I started using the in camera light meter instead and I had better results overall. But it really wasn't until I got the D5500 which won't even meter on older Nikkor lenses, let alone has zebras, so I had to go back to exposing by eye and without a doubt it was some of my favorite and best work. 

No doubt that zebras are a tool and they are great for reference but they are not a reliable measurement of light and exposure. If you want or need that then you should definitely get a light meter.

I don't mean to keep bringing this up to argue with you about, but if you Google ETTR and video, on the very first page, near the top, the infamous Ebrahim Saadawi's long post about it pops up. When I first started coming around this site, I thought he was an authority on video, I took some cues from his bloviated posts because I thought he knew his shit. We know how that turned out. 

Again I think ETTR can work in some instances and I would never not use it when needed. Hell, I use it most of the time now with ML Raw but even then, I will back exposure away if I feel the shot requires it. 

[fuzzynormal]

I think the reason this is a popular thread on EOShd is simply because this is a nerd site for cheap cameras. 

We know, or want to know, the intricacies of techniques and  equipment.  

What we do with these bits of info, if anything, is another matter altogether. 

I will say that, personally, the people I know and admire creatively aren't  obsessively concerned with the nerdy tech stuff.  

They know enough to work and the rest ain't a big deal ---or trust others to carry that water. 

That's my world though. Yours might be different. 

[BTM_Pix]

The Expodsic (or at least this £13 'equivalent' version) is a good cheap alternative to an incident light meter as well as being a quick and reliable way to set white balance.

You just hold it over your lens whilst pointing to the light source that is falling on your subject so and when the camera meter hits centre then thats the exposure set correctly as the camera expects it to be because it is seeing 18% grey through the Expodisc.

Its quite interesting to see how that can look on screen when you then take away the Expodisc and on the histogram (especially with cinelike d) as it is definitely not ETTR but sure enough with zebras at 100% the peak highlights are only just pinging the zebras.

I wouldn't say its a definitive way to expose but its a very consistent starting point from which to make the decision and as its measuring whats falling on the subject rather than whats reflecting from it then its more appropriate IMO.

Kicks arse for white balance setting.

 

[Mattias Burling]

True.

The TV crew shooting a reality show where I work used an F5. They also had for example a small hd with the sidefinder. When I asked about it they had no idea what I was talking about. They where creators first, tech guys second and forum nerds last/not at all

[mercer]

4 minutes ago, BTM_Pix said:

The Expodsic (or at least this £13 'equivalent' version) is a good cheap alternative to an incident light meter as well as being a quick and reliable way to set white balance.

You just hold it over your lens whilst pointing to the light source that is falling on your subject so and when the camera meter hits centre then thats the exposure set correctly as the camera expects it to be because it is seeing 18% grey through the Expodisc.

Its quite interesting to see how that can look on screen when you then take away the Expodisc and on the histogram (especially with cinelike d) as it is definitely not ETTR but sure enough with zebras at 100% the peak highlights are only just pinging the zebras.

I wouldn't say its a definitive way to expose but its a very consistent starting point from which to make the decision and as its measuring whats falling on the subject rather than whats reflecting from it then its more appropriate IMO.

Kicks arse for white balance setting.

 

That's pretty cool. I've always wondered about those. 

Do you have your in camera meter set to spot or multi?

[BTM_Pix]

4 minutes ago, fuzzynormal said:

II will say that, personally, the people I know and admire creatively aren't  obsessively concerned with the nerdy tech stuff.  

They know enough to work and the rest ain't a big deal ---or trust others to carry that water. 

So true.

I worked with some people in my other other life years ago in music that actually had the reputation for creativity via cutting edge technology but who I found were surprisingly lacking in technical knowledge when it came to discussing some projects with them. They had a skill for recognising and exploiting the actual real benefits of the technology without being troubled by the minutiae all of its features. Being able to see the wood for the trees is a major skill in itself.

Their other skill was finding nerds who could harvest these benefits for them.

7 minutes ago, mercer said:

That's pretty cool. I've always wondered about those. 

Do you have your in camera meter set to spot or multi?

As its seeing exactly the same thing across the whole frame its theoretically agnostic to metering mode.

Which is why I leave it on centre weighted

[tweak]

57 minutes ago, Mattias Burling said:

True.

The TV crew shooting a reality show where I work used an F5. They also had for example a small hd with the sidefinder. When I asked about it they had no idea what I was talking about. They where creators first, tech guys second and forum nerds last/not at all

That's true. A few of the better people I know don't know much about the tech either because that's not what they are into.
But... I will say that when I see these people and work with them I often teach them many things to help them produce better work and some of the best work they produce is when I (or someone else) is shooting and they are meerly editing the stuff. Different people are good at different things, that's life.

[Bioskop.Inc]

7 hours ago, jonpais said:

Embracing filmmaking means learning how to expose and color correct properly. Giving advice like the more you fail the better you'll get is as good as no advice at all. I could just as easily say that we learn from our successes!

Funny that you say that ETTR is just wrong for anything but RAW - since Paul Leeming, Noam Kroll and thousands of others find it very useful for everything from Cinelike D to V-Log. And there have been many posts online showing how ETTR can improve image quality, including my own shot in Cinelike D.

Someone mentioned film noir, as though film noir had blown highlights and crushed shadows, which absolutely is not true. I've watched many, from Otto Preminger to Louis Malle and Fritz Lang, and they are correctly exposed.

Some here seem to be allergic to using scopes, meters, histograms and peaking. Can you imagine a sound man just playing it by ear? Not using level meters? Unthinkable! It's common practice to record so peaks are at -12dB, then raise levels in post. I've never heard of someone saying, what the heck, -6dB/+6dB, it's all good! If sound is recorded at 0dB or higher, there will be distortion. Roger Deakins might be able to judge exposure by eye, but we're not all Roger Deakins. If a colorist has a properly exposed image to begin with, it's going to make their life much easier than one that's underexposed.

Others are dismissive of distribution channels such as YouTube and Netflix, saying that nobody cares about image quality online, but like it or not, that's the future. 

Also, nobody wants to talk about how soft the image is, or the distracting bokeh... strange!

You really need to start reading people's posts properly & perhaps between the lines a little.

Some of us actually have genuine experience filming for proper production companies & have learnt a lot over the years.

I'll repeat myself, Zebras should not be completely trusted & I wouldn't ever advocate someone using them at 100% - i've been filming for 15 odd years & I still don't put them at 100%. And we aren't allergic to scopes etc...it's just that sometimes you do need to trust yourself, rather than a computer, which might not always be right. In all frankness, a light meter is the way to go - always has been, always will be.

Oh, and you can only properly use or get good results using ETTR with RAW! Not going to change my experience/opinion on this.

Also, if people cared about image quality, why are there so many high profile TV dramas & Films that are loaded with Moire/Aliasing?

And don't get me started on the Soft image vs. the Super Sharp.....

Sound & Image are completely different animals - please don't confuse the two or use one as an example for the other.

Amazon & Netfilx are really shaping up to producing some great content - watched OJKA last night & it was amazing (on Netflix now!).

Good Grief, sometimes its like slamming your head in the fridge door & realising you should be using the oven.....