The Master Pedestal mystery

[Guest Ebrahim Saadawi]

Thanks, makes perfect sense now. Sometimes I have been shooting some shots which had a lot of range and I felt like I had to choose if I should allow something to clip in the background because my subject was still too dark. Obviously, in the perfect scenario I would use a light to supplement, but sometimes when I'm the middle of the woods, on a sunny day, I don't remember to throw an LED in my bag. 

Yes it's a shameful situatiom any videomaker faces onregular basis simply because our cameras don't have enough dynamic range to capture every scene's dynamic range (from the sun spot to an inside of a car, which is probably a 100 stops of DR). But anyhow, I face that situation when I use the GH4 more than my Nikons, I assume it'a because of lower dynamic range on the Panasonic of at least a stop. We need an alexa

[mercer]

Yes it's a shameful situatiom any videomaker faces onregular basis simply because our cameras don't have enough dynamic range to capture every scene's dynamic range (from the sun spot to an inside of a car, which is probably a 100 stops of DR). But anyhow, I face that situation when I use the GH4 more than my Nikons, I assume it'a because of lower dynamic range on the Panasonic of at least a stop. We need an alexa

Do the Nikons have any exposure guides?

How many steps can you go either way with exposure compensation? Does to much +/- stress the codec?

[Guest Ebrahim Saadawi]

Nope zero exposure guides. Zebras on the D750 & D810. On the others, the LCD does a pretty accurate representation of when something clips so I ETTR based on it. Of course with a Canon or Panasonic or a Sony my method of choice is setting zebra to 100 (clipping point) and upping exposure until it shows, then down slightly until it vanishes = perfect ETTR

+ stresses the codec, meaning underexposing and trying to lift the image up in post is disastrous, while - (bringing down exposure in post) actually gives a more robust image to manipulate and grade, the opposite of stressing the codec as undeexposure does. 

All of this applies to all the cameras I've used really. Darkening a bright image in post gives the lowest noise, lowest compression and best colour image while lifting a dark image in post gives much more noise, comoression and very poor colours, in some cameras like Canons it can result in an almost black and white colours if you lift up a dark image, really destroys colour.

(If you haven't checked it out you can type ETTR in the forum search and read a thread I started about it with tests)

[Mars]

Darkening a bright image in post gives the lowest noise, lowest compression and best colour image while lifting a dark image in post gives much more noise, comoression and very poor colours, in some cameras like Canons it can result in an almost black and white colours if you lift up a dark image, really destroys colour.

Is it really that way round? I'm asking because what I've learned most recently from stills photographers I value quite high is that you nowadays - in the time of ISO-less sensors used by Nikon - may safely underexpose by, say, even up to 5 stops and get perfect pictures. Would be interesting to understand why for video this doesn't apply any more. Is it really just the codec and its compression?

See i.e. here:
http://www.dslr-forum.de/showpost.php?p=12645063&postcount=54

Left is the unprocessed picture from the D810, 4 stops difference.

[kidzrevil]

Is it really that way round? I'm asking because what I've learned most recently from stills photographers I value quite high is that you nowadays - in the time of ISO-less sensors used by Nikon - may safely underexpose by, say, even up to 5 stops and get perfect pictures. Would be interesting to understand why for video this doesn't apply any more. Is it really just the codec and its compression?
See i.e. here:
http://www.dslr-forum.de/showpost.php?p=12645063&postcount=54

Left is the unprocessed picture from the D810, 4 stops difference.

its different for video because of the compression and the bits assigned to each stop of light (bitrate). It's important to nail exposure and saturation in camera...at least for me it is. Some people shoot super flat and underexpose only to push and pull the image like crazy in post. You lose color fidelity and introduce artifacts like Ebrahim mentioned. If you can overexpose without sacrificing important highlight details the camera compression will assign more bits to the important detail like midtones which is what we want. In raw especially in stills you can over expose about 2 stops and darken and it looks amazing but im assuming you will be shooting on a compressed format which doesn't allow you that privilege 

[Mars]

Ok, interesting. For stills (in RAW) you rather underexpose to avoid blown out highlights and brighten up even 4-5 stops in post. Possible because the dark parts of the picture retain enough practically noise-free information nowadays... For video, since the engine can and does compress dark parts more, "uncompressing" them for viewing can lead to artifacts or lost colour. Thx. But I understand right that monochrome areas in the picture are not compressed more heavily? Asking because using lenses more open could lead to bigger out-of-focus areas which are more evenly coloured...

[M Carter]

I was going to use my nikkor with a tiffen diffusion filter because another thing I need to tackle is the in camera sharpening but i'll save that for another test. One thing at a time you know ? For now im using some m42 lenses seeing if that gives me more of a "film" look. My nikkors and canon fd L have more of a modern feel 

The main problems with on-camera diffusion are - you can't take it off or dial it down later, and you need several levels of diffusion if you want the same look from wide to tele. That, and just how many types are out there - pro mist, black pro mist, warm, gold, and all the other vendors and flavors. Just a set of 4x4 black promists in a reasonable range (1/8, 1/4, 1/2, full) could set you back over $400 new.

I've been playing with Invisible Chainsaw's diffusion plugin for AE and I've gotten some cool looks testing it; it can be very subtle, and you can also mask it to keep things like eyes clear. They have a massive preset library and the presets are named "sorta like" the brands they're emulating (for legal reasons I assume, but it does make it easier to try things). It also has some interesting skin-tone tools I need to play with more. Takes some render time but to my eyes, looks much more real than all the plugin and layer recipes you'll find on google.

[kidzrevil]

The main problems with on-camera diffusion are - you can't take it off or dial it down later, and you need several levels of diffusion if you want the same look from wide to tele. That, and just how many types are out there - pro mist, black pro mist, warm, gold, and all the other vendors and flavors. Just a set of 4x4 black promists in a reasonable range (1/8, 1/4, 1/2, full) could set you back over $400 new.

I've been playing with Invisible Chainsaw's diffusion plugin for AE and I've gotten some cool looks testing it; it can be very subtle, and you can also mask it to keep things like eyes clear. They have a massive preset library and the presets are named "sorta like" the brands they're emulating (for legal reasons I assume, but it does make it easier to try things). It also has some interesting skin-tone tools I need to play with more. Takes some render time but to my eyes, looks much more real than all the plugin and layer recipes you'll find on google.

i only use optical diffusion. No longer using pro mists on my nx1 because the debayering/sharpening cuts right through it. The tiffen black diffusion fx is what im using right now because it is an "invisible" type diffusion. I agree you need different grades of it but I bought 5's and 3's because the edge enhancement of the nx1 is way too strong. I can always add sharpening and contrast in post so I prefer the "invisible" type diffusion on the tiffen on the camera. Issue is making sure things are in focus at wife apertures but at f4-8 it is a dream, it looks organic ! 

I did some tests with it today on my nikkor with master pedestal jacked all the way up with the gamma c profile. i chose gamma c because it seems to slam everything to the left of the histogram at its default settings. Hopefully this combination truly combats the compression artifacts with the combined raised pedestal & diffusion

[Guest Ebrahim Saadawi]

Ok, interesting. For stills (in RAW) you rather underexpose to avoid blown out highlights 

That's also perfect ETTR. It's just dynamic range varies  from camera to camera in how much they keep in the shadows of a high DR scene.