Panasonic Profile Stepper App

[BTM_Pix]

Mmmm.....

I've just tested it on 2 different phones and a tablet with GX80, LX15, G7 and FZ2000 all without any issues.

Its really odd that its not setting the shutter for you.

Basically, if that part of it has an issue then the brackets won't work as it hasn't got a starting point.

OK, try it with your other phone tomorrow and let me know.

[QuickHitRecord]

I just learned about this and it's nothing short of brilliant. Did anyone ever post their results?

[Grimor]

54 minutes ago, QuickHitRecord said:

I just learned about this and it's nothing short of brilliant. Did anyone ever post their results?

More than 3 years has passed and I still usin slider app. 

 

[BTM_Pix]

Funnily enough, I actually used the stepper app in anger last year to go through all the profiles in an FZ2500 stepping through -5 to to +2 in contrast with saturation going from -5 to +3, so there were 72 permutations in all per profile.

I didn't bother with stepping through the sharpness and NR parameters as it wasn't relevant at the time as I was just looking at colour and contrast.

The idea was to see if there is any unconventional wisdom to be had such as using untapped settings such as Portrait with -4 contrast and +2 saturation etc as the end goal was to make a profile that could be used as an out of camera look that would play well on its own or to create one that played well with a particular emulation LUT.

I've always had this nagging thing about giving away too much colour and contrast in the capture because thats what everybody does to get a flat image and then has to add it back post capture with all the artefacts that can bring.

What I found interesting is that with everything except the two Cine profiles, there were some terrible artefacts happening (particularly in the sky) in some interactions between lower contrast and lower saturation and in fact the only way they cleared was when the saturation was actually boosted to +1 or +2.

That made me think that my suspicion about giving up the goods saturation wise potentially being a folly was quite accurate.

The two Cinelike profiles don't seem to share these issues but, of the two though, going by trying to retain saturation in the capture, I actually favoured what I saw from the usually less fashionable Cinelike V profile.

The net result was that with the stepper app, I ended up with a single video file where it was easy to see all this laid out and whilst the Cinelike V being preferable to my eye than the Cinelike D was a bit of an eyebrow raise, the process quickly let me eliminate the possibility of there being any particularly revolutionary permutations with the other profiles.

It saved an absolute shit load of time and as time is money then I used the saving to buy the V-LOG upgrade for the camera 😉 

 

[mercer]

1 hour ago, BTM_Pix said:

It saved an absolute shit load of time and as time is money then I used the saving to buy the V-LOG upgrade for the camera 😉 

 

I remember that test. I believe we were discussing a Dogme95 approach to using these P&S compacts for a more out of box film simulation effect. I've been on the lookout for another FZ2500 ever since, but I can't seem to find one for the right price.

How's the vLog on the camera? And I can't remember if we discussed this...

Your CineLike hack works with the LX10, right? Did you try your stepper test with that camera, and if so, did you see similar results regarding CineLikeV?

[kye]

5 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

Funnily enough, I actually used the stepper app in anger last year to go through all the profiles in an FZ2500 stepping through -5 to to +2 in contrast with saturation going from -5 to +3, so there were 72 permutations in all per profile.

I didn't bother with stepping through the sharpness and NR parameters as it wasn't relevant at the time as I was just looking at colour and contrast.

The idea was to see if there is any unconventional wisdom to be had such as using untapped settings such as Portrait with -4 contrast and +2 saturation etc as the end goal was to make a profile that could be used as an out of camera look that would play well on its own or to create one that played well with a particular emulation LUT.

I've always had this nagging thing about giving away too much colour and contrast in the capture because thats what everybody does to get a flat image and then has to add it back post capture with all the artefacts that can bring.

What I found interesting is that with everything except the two Cine profiles, there were some terrible artefacts happening (particularly in the sky) in some interactions between lower contrast and lower saturation and in fact the only way they cleared was when the saturation was actually boosted to +1 or +2.

That made me think that my suspicion about giving up the goods saturation wise potentially being a folly was quite accurate.

The two Cinelike profiles don't seem to share these issues but, of the two though, going by trying to retain saturation in the capture, I actually favoured what I saw from the usually less fashionable Cinelike V profile.

The net result was that with the stepper app, I ended up with a single video file where it was easy to see all this laid out and whilst the Cinelike V being preferable to my eye than the Cinelike D was a bit of an eyebrow raise, the process quickly let me eliminate the possibility of there being any particularly revolutionary permutations with the other profiles.

It saved an absolute shit load of time and as time is money then I used the saving to buy the V-LOG upgrade for the camera 😉 

 

As usual your logic is impeccable.  This is why it frustrates me that cameras often make you choose between a flat log profile, with it's noise and quantisation errors amplified in post, or a 709 profile with limited dynamic range.

The XC10 was interesting in that it's standard profile didn't clip the highlights, just rolled them off rather heavily. Kind of like a HLG profile does with a hybrid 709 and log gamma - the secret was in the name... Who knew!

In a sense you'd actually want a profile that was like film - linear in the middle and shoulders in the highlights and shadows, but also with a saturation curve that is maybe a log of saturation and boosted significantly, which would ensure no clipping occurred and would capture more subtleties in lower saturation areas and lose resolution in the higher saturation areas where less sensitive colour reproduction is fine.

Then a colour profile / LUT could be used in post to reverse the saturation curve, or, you could just pull it down linearly and would end up nicely desaturating the strongest colours, which is an effect that I use quite a bit and have a power grade specifically for.

[QuickHitRecord]

5 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

I've always had this nagging thing about giving away too much colour and contrast in the capture because thats what everybody does to get a flat image and then has to add it back post capture with all the artefacts that can bring.

What I found interesting is that with everything except the two Cine profiles, there were some terrible artefacts happening (particularly in the sky) in some interactions between lower contrast and lower saturation and in fact the only way they cleared was when the saturation was actually boosted to +1 or +2.

Same thing for me. I'm curious to see if there is a sweet spot for my new G80. The colors I've been getting so far leave a lot to be desired.

I got this warning when installing on my Android phone: This app was built for an older version of Android and doesn't include the latest privacy protections.

But it seems to have been properly installed anyway. I am hopeful that I can get it up and running.

How are you liking the FZ2500? I've looked at it a few times on account of the long zoom range and built-in NDs.

[QuickHitRecord]

It seems to be working. I can't tell the different when looking into the LCD which makes me wonder if the phone is controlling the camera, but I wouldn't expect to be able to easily see a 1 notch difference in saturation or sharpness or contrast in this little screen. 14641 permutations in the Natural PP at two seconds each would take over 8 hours to record! I had hoped to shoot some footage of my wife reading a book to see if I could get a lock on better skintones, but that would be asking a lot. So I need to be more selective than that. Still, a fascinating tool.

[kye]

3 hours ago, QuickHitRecord said:

It seems to be working. I can't tell the different when looking into the LCD which makes me wonder if the phone is controlling the camera, but I wouldn't expect to be able to easily see a 1 notch difference in saturation or sharpness or contrast in this little screen. 14641 permutations in the Natural PP at two seconds each would take over 8 hours to record! I had hoped to shoot some footage of my wife reading a book to see if I could get a lock on better skintones, but that would be asking a lot. So I need to be more selective than that. Still, a fascinating tool.

I've heard War and Peace should do the trick, assuming she can hold it up for that long.  

Maybe get a book stand.

[BTM_Pix]

15 hours ago, mercer said:

I remember that test. I believe we were discussing a Dogme95 approach to using these P&S compacts for a more out of box film simulation effect.

Yes, we were indeed.

I shamelessly lifted our conversation as the basis for that post 🙂 

15 hours ago, mercer said:

How's the vLog on the camera? And I can't remember if we discussed this...

Its OK.

Its a bit noisy, of course, so I definitely need to experiment with the exposure to get the most out of it, especially in piercingly bright sunlight like this, but even in this rough test (grabs from 1080/24p recording) it was easy to get it in to ballpark of the sort of style that we were discussing. 

16 hours ago, mercer said:

Your CineLike hack works with the LX10, right? Did you try your stepper test with that camera, and if so, did you see similar results regarding CineLikeV?

Yes, it does work on the LX10/LX15 but I haven't done the stepper test.

As far as I know, its the same sensor so should be the same but the FZ has a few more controls like master pedestal that could influence it.

These are from my hacked LX15 using Cinelike D and an old Sony camcorder Teleconverter attached with a magnetic filter adapter. The top row shows the wide end of the lens, the middle row shows the long end of the lens and the bottom row shows the long end of the lens with the TC attached. For anyone looking for a pocketable travel camera (at a cheaper cost and with a faster lens than the RX100) then the LX10/15 is a good option anyway but is far more versatile with the hack and the TC

12 hours ago, kye said:

As usual your logic is impeccable.

You are talking to a man who bought the Philips CD-I at launch and declared it to be the future of home entertainment, so lets not be too hasty on the logic front.

12 hours ago, kye said:

In a sense you'd actually want a profile that was like film

Yep, the purpose was to come up with something akin to the WYSIWYG nature of reversal film and have the same rigid guideline of it having a fixed ISO (100 in this case) with a simulated push ability of a couple of stops so you can expose at ISO200 or ISO400 if needed.

So if you can't make the exposure at ISO400 then you need to light it, accept it as is or stop shooting !

The FZ is suited to this restriction for daylight use, as are similarly equipped cameras, because the internal ND makes the low ISO restriction easier to deal with

The other similar approach was to make something akin to negative film with the same restriction ISO wise but with an implicit 'developing' stage LUT/Preset.

The approach that I've kind of settled on is a hybrid by using the optional VLOG-L profile and single shot preset of three corrections and a LUT and taking the dogmatic approach of applying it equally and rigidly to every shot, even if an individual shot could be improved by a bit more tweaking.

I'm looking to re-instigate the discipline of shooting on Kodachrome back on myself albeit in a suspiciously sado masochistic manner !

12 hours ago, QuickHitRecord said:

How are you liking the FZ2500? I've looked at it a few times on account of the long zoom range and built-in NDs.

I can't think of another camera that does everything it does in one unit but of course I can think of numerous ones that rinse it in terms of image quality.

So its always a question of whether the balance of all round functionality and ease of use outweighs the lack of comparative flat out image quality. Obviously that is a question of personal preference and/or the application you're using it for.

With regard to the lens by the way, the stabilisation at the long end is borderline witchcraft but the autofocus is not all that.

Or even half all that.

10 hours ago, QuickHitRecord said:

It seems to be working. I can't tell the different when looking into the LCD which makes me wonder if the phone is controlling the camera

It gets an handshake back from the camera for every command so it should let you know with a pop-up if something is amiss.

To double check, though, set your camera to one of the colour profiles and then use the stepper to go through the Black&White profile as the change from one to the other will be much more noticeable 😉

10 hours ago, QuickHitRecord said:

14641 permutations in the Natural PP at two seconds each would take over 8 hours to record

The simple solution is to knock it down to 1 second intervals so she only has to sit motionless for 4 hours !

What I would do for the first pass is not alter the sharpness and noise reduction so just leave their range to be 0 and 0 and then just use the colour and contrast permutations.

Once you are happy with a specific colour and contrast permutation then do another pass with those set as the range (so if colour was 2 then just set the range to be 2 and 2 etc) and then do permutations of the sharpness and NR.

Again you can also reduce the permutations of the second pass considerably by clamping the upper limit of sharpness and NR to way below 5 as there is a lot of nastiness at those levels.

Having said that, you never know whether some bizarre combination of +4 sharpness and +5 NR might not open up a secret portal into an incredible look !

[mercer]

7 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

I shamelessly lifted our conversation as the basis for that post 🙂

Well it's a good idea. It's so easy to get lost in the minutiae of filmmaking and 9 out of 10 times it distracts from the point of the process, so if an out of camera look can make the process easier...

I've shown a few non-filmmakers a bunch of videos from different cameras and, although anecdotal, I was often surprised by the results. For instance... Kendy Ty's earlier work from his t2i years and his made for camera picture profile often beat out much bigger productions with much better equipment.

Those VLog shots look pretty good to me, but the LX10... look really great.

@kye shared a few shots with me that he recently took with his old GF3 from an outing at some food trucks and I just loved the look. There's still something to be said, and exploited, from these old small cameras that I wish I had more time to explore.

How does the magnetic attachment work on the LX10? Is there a ring that needs to be glued on? Do you notice any weird wobble with the zoom that may eventually break it? I probably wouldn't need a wide angle or telephoto attachment but with that lens, I'd definitely want some ND. I saw that Lee Filters make an attachment for the RX100, I'll have to do some research to see if it would work with the LX10 as well.

And there's also the Sony ZV series that I suppose has some potential... especially for B&W.

[BTM_Pix]

12 hours ago, mercer said:

How does the magnetic attachment work on the LX10? Is there a ring that needs to be glued on? Do you notice any weird wobble with the zoom that may eventually break it?

It uses a 3M type of peel off strong sticker.

The beauty of the magnetic one is that it (intentionally obviously !) breaks away from the camera if it takes a knock so whatever is attached to the filter part will suffer rather than the camera.

In hindsight though, I think the alternative one that just provides the screw thread might have been a better idea (I have a similar one on the RX100) as the ND will more or less be a permanent fixture.

This video gives a good overview comparison of fitting and using both 

 

12 hours ago, mercer said:

And there's also the Sony ZV series that I suppose has some potential... especially for B&W.

I've noticed that a lot of the non-photo/video channel stuff I watch on YouTube are using these now and in the main their output looks a lot better.

Of course when you finally relent and get your Sigma FP, the Fotodiox EF-L AF adapter with internal variable ND will be waiting for you to roll your own full frame RAW shooting version of the FZ2500 😉 

With it supporting IS lenses, it also mitigates the lack of IBIS in the camera and the EF mount is obviously a gateway to putting your F mount or CY mount or R mount etc lenses on it and still having the benefit of the variable ND for all of them.

 

[mercer]

6 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

This video gives a good overview comparison of fitting and using both 

Both seem pretty slick and good options. I mentioned a Lee Filter adapter, but I meant Nisi...

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1536116-REG/nisi_nisi_fh_rx100_pkit_filter_system_for_sony.html/?ap=y&gclid=Cj0KCQiAsqOMBhDFARIsAFBTN3dFh26uoWcm4U4JCJTmvvMw1QLPeen4qnXKLBoirTVFFwJAx771rTYaAiWLEALw_wcB&lsft=BI%3A6879&smp=y

I suppose it wouldn't work with the LX10 without knowing some measurements first, but I do like the push on option of the Nisi.

6 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

Of course when you finally relent and get your Sigma FP, the Fotodiox EF-L AF adapter with internal variable ND will be waiting for you to roll your own full frame RAW shooting version of the FZ2500 😉 

Haha, I literally just checked to see if there were any new discounts on the FP, or Open Box models available. I've been awaiting a significant price drop for a while, but it just isn't happening. But man do I still want one.

With that said, the Fotodiox adapter seems pretty slick. Obviously, I love that IS lenses work with it. And I had one of their ND Throttle adapters back when I had a G7 and I loved the functionality of it. Even their handgrip looks pretty nice.

[kye]

In case anyone was curious about the GF3 frames that @mercer mentioned, here they are.

SOOC:

and here's the same three after being tweaked and put through a Kodak 250D / Kodak 2393 emulation:

Those are all screen grabs from the GF3's whopping 17Mbps 1080p.  Whopping!

On 11/8/2021 at 1:36 AM, BTM_Pix said:

Yes, we were indeed.

I shamelessly lifted our conversation as the basis for that post 🙂 

Its OK.

Its a bit noisy, of course, so I definitely need to experiment with the exposure to get the most out of it, especially in piercingly bright sunlight like this, but even in this rough test (grabs from 1080/24p recording) it was easy to get it in to ballpark of the sort of style that we were discussing. 

Yes, it does work on the LX10/LX15 but I haven't done the stepper test.

As far as I know, its the same sensor so should be the same but the FZ has a few more controls like master pedestal that could influence it.

These are from my hacked LX15 using Cinelike D and an old Sony camcorder Teleconverter attached with a magnetic filter adapter. The top row shows the wide end of the lens, the middle row shows the long end of the lens and the bottom row shows the long end of the lens with the TC attached. For anyone looking for a pocketable travel camera (at a cheaper cost and with a faster lens than the RX100) then the LX10/15 is a good option anyway but is far more versatile with the hack and the TC

You are talking to a man who bought the Philips CD-I at launch and declared it to be the future of home entertainment, so lets not be too hasty on the logic front.

Yep, the purpose was to come up with something akin to the WYSIWYG nature of reversal film and have the same rigid guideline of it having a fixed ISO (100 in this case) with a simulated push ability of a couple of stops so you can expose at ISO200 or ISO400 if needed.

So if you can't make the exposure at ISO400 then you need to light it, accept it as is or stop shooting !

The FZ is suited to this restriction for daylight use, as are similarly equipped cameras, because the internal ND makes the low ISO restriction easier to deal with

The other similar approach was to make something akin to negative film with the same restriction ISO wise but with an implicit 'developing' stage LUT/Preset.

The approach that I've kind of settled on is a hybrid by using the optional VLOG-L profile and single shot preset of three corrections and a LUT and taking the dogmatic approach of applying it equally and rigidly to every shot, even if an individual shot could be improved by a bit more tweaking.

I'm looking to re-instigate the discipline of shooting on Kodachrome back on myself albeit in a suspiciously sado masochistic manner !

I can't think of another camera that does everything it does in one unit but of course I can think of numerous ones that rinse it in terms of image quality.

So its always a question of whether the balance of all round functionality and ease of use outweighs the lack of comparative flat out image quality. Obviously that is a question of personal preference and/or the application you're using it for.

With regard to the lens by the way, the stabilisation at the long end is borderline witchcraft but the autofocus is not all that.

Or even half all that.

It gets an handshake back from the camera for every command so it should let you know with a pop-up if something is amiss.

To double check, though, set your camera to one of the colour profiles and then use the stepper to go through the Black&White profile as the change from one to the other will be much more noticeable 😉

The simple solution is to knock it down to 1 second intervals so she only has to sit motionless for 4 hours !

What I would do for the first pass is not alter the sharpness and noise reduction so just leave their range to be 0 and 0 and then just use the colour and contrast permutations.

Once you are happy with a specific colour and contrast permutation then do another pass with those set as the range (so if colour was 2 then just set the range to be 2 and 2 etc) and then do permutations of the sharpness and NR.

Again you can also reduce the permutations of the second pass considerably by clamping the upper limit of sharpness and NR to way below 5 as there is a lot of nastiness at those levels.

Having said that, you never know whether some bizarre combination of +4 sharpness and +5 NR might not open up a secret portal into an incredible look !

Nice looking screen grabs!

In terms of your logic, I've tended to hang out with people who were computer engineers, computer scientists, applied electronics experts, etc, and they routinely adopted new technology based upon sound engineering principles and solid judgement.  This, of course, meant that I have watched quite a bit of Betamax, and quite a bit of Laserdisc too.  As time went on I became less technical myself and so I missed HD-DVD, and I never ran into a DVD-Audio player of any repute, but I did listen to a collection of SACDs on a $150K hifi system and with a single exception all were inferior to the CD version of the same recording.

I'll take your vote for CD-I as a vote of confidence on your technical abilities any day - just because the marketing department voted against you isn't anything to be judged by!

[BTM_Pix]

13 hours ago, mercer said:

I suppose it wouldn't work with the LX10 without knowing some measurements first, but I do like the push on option of the Nisi.

Let me get the calipers out and find out for you...

They are close enough to look like you might get away with it but I couldn't be sure.

Thats a nice looking system though.

13 hours ago, mercer said:

Haha, I literally just checked to see if there were any new discounts on the FP, or Open Box models available. I've been awaiting a significant price drop for a while, but it just isn't happening. But man do I still want one.

MapCamera have a used one currently at almost exactly $1000 which, sadly, is as attractive as it is inaccessible as they don't do mail order and Japan is still closed to visitors.

Hopefully a sign of the direction of travel price wise though.

[mercer]

2 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

Let me get the calipers out and find out for you...

Haha, you're the best. Thanks.

2 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

MapCamera have a used one currently at almost exactly $1000 which, sadly, is as attractive as it is inaccessible as they don't do mail order and Japan is still closed to visitors.

Hopefully a sign of the direction of travel price wise though.

They sell on eBay. They have one for 1201 USD. I may buy one to try out to see if I like it and if I do, then I'll return it and wait for the right price... just to get it out of my system. Haha. 

[kye]

OOPS!