Exposure tip

[XNYC]

Loving the S1H viewfinder, coming from GH3, 4,5.  Am I the only one that uses monochrome live view with colored focus peaking? I find it much more practical and effective to visualize exposure in black and white than in color.  B&W has less distractions.  Bonus: focus peaking stands very nicely. I like the bright green or orange.

Just offering this out as a neat little trick. 

[Mark Romero 2]

Thanks for the suggestion. I haven't seen the Monochrome Live View feature on my S1... wonder if it has it too??? The S-series of cameras have so many features I often find myself dumbfounded when the camera is acting in a way I didn't expect, and then I am sitting there looking at it trying to figure out what to do to get it back to "normal."

[herein2020]

On 12/17/2020 at 10:13 AM, XNYC said:

Loving the S1H viewfinder, coming from GH3, 4,5.  Am I the only one that uses monochrome live view with colored focus peaking? I find it much more practical and effective to visualize exposure in black and white than in color.  B&W has less distractions.  Bonus: focus peaking stands very nicely. I like the bright green or orange.

Just offering this out as a neat little trick. 

I only use the WFM for exposure with the S5 and in VLOG the WFM always seems to show everything is in range.  In a more controlled environment with lighting or a studio environment I would use the spot meter and a gray card which would help you nail exposure perfectly every time, but I found it wasn't very useful for run and gun because there's no time to set up the grey card especially in changing lighting conditions.

[kye]

On 12/17/2020 at 11:13 PM, XNYC said:

Loving the S1H viewfinder, coming from GH3, 4,5.  Am I the only one that uses monochrome live view with colored focus peaking? I find it much more practical and effective to visualize exposure in black and white than in color.  B&W has less distractions.  Bonus: focus peaking stands very nicely. I like the bright green or orange.

Just offering this out as a neat little trick. 

Good question and thanks for raising it.

I've contemplated this option in the past and decided against it because at the time I decided that being able to see colour was more important for framing and composition for me.  I shoot personal videos of my friends and family in uncontrolled situations so it's useful for me to see the colour so that I can include it in the shot or exclude it depending on what I want.

Having said that though, with the freedom of colour grading, I can 'fix' any undesirable colours in post, so even if I don't see them during filming it's not a problem for the final footage.

In a sense I'd like a setting that's half-way, where saturation is reduced to perhaps a third and the highlights are in a fully-saturated colour.

It would be great to be able to apply a display LUT in-camera (GH5 doesn't have that feature) as I could design one that partly desaturates the image and also shows an image with increased contrast so that it exaggerates exposure and makes it easier to get the exposure of things like skintones correct.  I'd also make it so that pure white was 100% red and pure black was 100% blue, so you could tell what you were clipping.

[Mmmbeats]

Been doing it for years on the GH cameras.  Always have Monochrome Live View toggle allocated to the top right function button (Fn2 I think it is).

[hyalinejim]

On 12/19/2020 at 3:24 AM, kye said:

It would be great to be able to apply a display LUT in-camera (GH5 doesn't have that feature)

It does if you shoot VLog 🙂 But you have to convert your lut to a specific file type. I think LutCalc can do it, but I might be mis-remembering.

[Video Hummus]

5 hours ago, hyalinejim said:

It does if you shoot VLog 🙂 But you have to convert your lut to a specific file type. I think LutCalc can do it, but I might be mis-remembering.

Yep. View assist LUTs for Vlog (.vlt) You can do false color (my favorite). The only thing I wish they allowed was being able to bind a function key to a specific view assist LUT so you can quickly toggle it on and off. Currently you can only bind the menu and then you have to scroll to find the LUT. And then back out of the menu. 

[kye]

22 hours ago, hyalinejim said:

It does if you shoot VLog 🙂 But you have to convert your lut to a specific file type. I think LutCalc can do it, but I might be mis-remembering.

Thanks, that's interesting.  I'm not relishing the idea of having to buy it separately, but I guess it might be worth me doing some reading about custom view LUTs.

16 hours ago, Video Hummus said:

Yep. View assist LUTs for Vlog (.vlt) You can do false color (my favorite). The only thing I wish they allowed was being able to bind a function key to a specific view assist LUT so you can quickly toggle it on and off. Currently you can only bind the menu and then you have to scroll to find the LUT. And then back out of the menu. 

Thanks, that's also worth knowing.  

If you can't easily switch it on and off then that would mean it would have to be suitable to be the only way you're viewing footage while recording.

Normally a DP would have a technical view like false colour to ensure proper exposure, the DP and director (and others) would have a 'normal' view (perhaps with a look LUT), and the focus puller would have a separate view with peaking.  If I applied a LUT in-camera then I'd be designing a LUT for all three applications simultaneously, which i'm not sure is possible to design well.

[herein2020]

11 hours ago, kye said:

Thanks, that's interesting.  I'm not relishing the idea of having to buy it separately, but I guess it might be worth me doing some reading about custom view LUTs.

Thanks, that's also worth knowing.  

If you can't easily switch it on and off then that would mean it would have to be suitable to be the only way you're viewing footage while recording.

Normally a DP would have a technical view like false colour to ensure proper exposure, the DP and director (and others) would have a 'normal' view (perhaps with a look LUT), and the focus puller would have a separate view with peaking.  If I applied a LUT in-camera then I'd be designing a LUT for all three applications simultaneously, which i'm not sure is possible to design well.

The S5 has the spot meter function, not sure if the S1 and S1H has it as well. Within the S5 it also allows you to set what exposure levels will cause the spot meter to show 0.0. I have a feeling that its possible to figure out how to convert that feature to the false color feature for skin tones and calibrate the spot meter to read 0.0 when the skin's exposure is at the proper IRE level on the exposure chart...out of the box it is designed to be a used with a grey card. One day when I have the time and the proper talent to work with I might try to figure out the proper calibration of the spot meter to be able to use it with skin tones vs a grey card.

I still don't get why camera makers don't include false color in camera without making you jump through hoops like using an external monitor, a custom false color lut, etc.

[Video Hummus]

12 hours ago, kye said:

Thanks, that's interesting.  I'm not relishing the idea of having to buy it separately, but I guess it might be worth me doing some reading about custom view LUTs.

Thanks, that's also worth knowing.  

If you can't easily switch it on and off then that would mean it would have to be suitable to be the only way you're viewing footage while recording.

Normally a DP would have a technical view like false colour to ensure proper exposure, the DP and director (and others) would have a 'normal' view (perhaps with a look LUT), and the focus puller would have a separate view with peaking.  If I applied a LUT in-camera then I'd be designing a LUT for all three applications simultaneously, which i'm not sure is possible to design well.

There are false color LUTs with a opacity to the false coloring. I don’t find it they useful. I usually use the false color before I record to dial in exposure for skin tones and then turn it off and record. 

[Video Hummus]

1 hour ago, herein2020 said:

 

I still don't get why camera makers don't include false color in camera without making you jump through hoops like using an external monitor, a custom false color lut, etc.

Product segmentation.

Panasonic cameras with custom view assist is the closest thing to a dedicated false color mode in a mirrorless camera.