mercer

Haha, I'll have to remember that. I was blaming my girlfriend because she kept talking to me while I was trying to nail the skin tones. But yeah, this Tokina lens is awesome. I didn't expect much from it when I bought it, but I'm a sucker for 28 and/or 35mm f2 lenses. Those look great, so you didn't use any LUT at all? I was getting the colors close, but they ended up looking too flat, how did you get that finish polish or sheen to it? Is it simply contrast? Thanks!

Panny, thanks that looks better than mine. The first version was the ungraded and the second was my graded attempt. I Color Finale, a plug in that works inside FCPX. I did not color balance, which may be why I am having so much trouble with it. I like the brownish almost golden background, but when I get that looking good, the red in it turns his skin too orange. I'll keep at it. Thanks. I also lifted the blacks a little because his jacket was very faded, almost grey. There seems to be a lot of information hiding in the shadows, but I think for my next tests I am going to ETTR.

Thanks Bio, I think I may have watched part of that a while back but I'll go back and give it a thorough watching. Do you use Color Finale?

As you can probably tell from a recent post of mine, I have been attempting to do a little color grading. You can probably also tell that I am not that good at it. So, I was wondering how many people would recommend, to a beginner, LUTS or a plug in from Red Giant like Magic Bullet or Mojo? I am in the middle of writing a script that was originally intended to be a short but has now ended up as a feature. There are few characters and even less locations, but is a high concept script and very feasible to shoot on an extremely low budget. For the past few weeks I have been running tests and trying to nail down a look for the movie. I have had the most luck using a plug in from Color Grading Central called CineLook, but it is extremely computer intensive and my Mac practically comes to a halt while editing. So, I decided to try my hand at grading some of the tests. In some ways I can come close to what I'm looking for, but it's still off, so to make a long story short, do slider plug ins like Magic Bullet degrade the image at all? Or would a simple LUT or FCPX "Look" be better? Or should I just bite the bullet and practice, practice, practice until I get better at grading? Also, would using a color chart to balance my color make my efforts more fruitful? Anyway, thanks.

Just got Vimeo's Newsletter emailed to me. It's basically a big pat on their own back. But one line seemed like an acknowledgment toward the complaints... "We’ve also done our best to give creators as much control as possible over their videos and how they present them to their audience." And that was it. To me it seemed like they acknowledge the complaints, but too bad because they have always tried. I would imagine it would take a drastic and huge movement of subscription cancellations for Vimeo to step back at this point. I assume all of the complaints were forwarded to the department who was the brain child of this new restriction... They will never admit fault, so unless a massive amount of subscribers unsubscribe and they see the drop in their quarterlies, it will be business as usual.

I found another clip that has Contrast at 0, and everything else dialed down, if you wanted to give that a try as well. I threw a LUT from SmallHD on top of it and adjust the curves a hair.

If this camera had a mic input, 24p and the Flat profile, I would seriously consider it... Especially at this price.

Here you go... I did a regrade using an inverted curve, only 50% strength on the cinelikeD LUT and a different finishing LUT. These were both shot in CineLikeD with everything dialed all the way down. It seems like there is a lot of latitude in the shadows... which is good because I underexposed these slightly. And both were shot with the RMC Tokina 35mm f2 lens. Have at it. Also they look like they could use a little noise reduction and some sharpening, but I don't have neat video... or even a good photo editing program.

Sure, no problem. Give me a few minutes to wake up. The ones I posted are jpegs, would you rather have a tiff?

Thanks, I am definitely getting better than I was when I first got the NX500. Yeah, I'd love to check out that Reddit site and any LUTS you can pass my way. I have been putting two of the same clips onto my timeline. One with a LUT and one without and then I practice coloring by trying to match my ungraded footage to the LUT. I find it's been helping me a lot.

The RMC Tokina 17mm is a great lens. It's a 3.5, but speed boosted, it should be plenty fast enough. I had the Canon FD 17mm and that was a decent lens too.

I wouldn't be surprised if one of their point and shoots get 4K before their rebel line. Actually, I think the eos-m4 will be their first consumer camera to have 4K... eos-m4K.

Thanks, I'll check that out. Honestly, I'm surprised how much latitude the G7 has before everything falls apart. As you can tell, I have pushed the shit out of these images. But I think the last one turned out okay, and that is CinelikeD dialed down, so there may be something there.

Lately I have been really into f/2 lenses. My obsession started with the FD 28mm, then I picked up a 28mm MD, which I traded for the Rokkor-X version and now I have the Nikkor ai 28mm f2 and the Olympus, which I think I am going to sell. And most recently I picked up the Takumar 35mm f2 and the RMC Tokina 35mm f2. The Tokina is blowing me away, a beautiful lens. So yeah, f2 lenses all the way. As far as dream lenses go, I would love to own the Contax Zeiss Distagon 28mm f2, often referred to as "The Hollywood," some day.

Thanks Bunk, not bad. I use Color Finale with FCPX and it comes with a basic CineLikeD to rec709 LUT. So, I use that for the first layer, then I adjust the curves, the master and the red and blue and then I finished it with an Impulz Tetrachrome LUT. I was trying to keep the warm glow of the afternoon sun on his face, but it was hard to keep it from looking like a spray tan. I originally used CinelikeD with Contrast at 0, Sharpness and NR at 0 and Saturation at -2, or -3. I was getting decent results, but everything I was reading said Natural was the best.

Just to add, I really commend you colorists out there. It is a craft all its own and I'm not sure I'll ever get a good grasp of it. But thanks for humoring me.

This one is with the Tokina RMC 35mm f2. This is also cinelikeD with everything dialed down. His skin looks orange here, but it is showing good on the vectorscope. His blotchy, Scottish skin is proving to be difficult. This one is the same Tokina lens but I used the Natural profile with a variation of Andy Lee's settings. I left everything at default except I dialed down Saturation. This one is still with the same Tokina lens and Natural profile, but I used Andy Lee's settings for the G7, which are... Contrast -5, Sharpening 0, NR 0, Saturation -5 And here's the last one. This was shot with the Minolta MD Rokkor-X 28mm f2 using CineLikeD with everything dialed all the way down.

Over the past few months I have been testing the G7 for the best settings, the best lenses, I own, and possible looks/grades. I am in the process of finishing a feature script that I intend on shooting over the next couple months, so here are some looks I have been trying. Using cinelikeD requires a lot of work to be done to get the skin tone less orange, so that is what I have been working on primarily. This shot was taken with the Minolta MD Rokkor-X 24-50mm zoom lens.

Looks interesting. But according to the specs on BH, it only shoots UHD 30p. Hopefully, it's just preliminary and updated specs will include 24p.

I really like how you were able to just keep enough rosiness on her nose to show it's cold out. Of course Panny's subject and composition helps a lot here. Her little curly cue really helps to pull you into the shot and adds a nice bit of contrast to the foreground. What program are you using for color?

Nice job. Her skin looks great.

I think somewhere in between is the sweet spot. I like your skin tone better, and contrast... She really pops from the background, but I like Panny's yellowish sky... It looks like an early 2000s spy thriller.

You pulled that back nicely. What lens were you using there, Panny? Also, since the WB was set to incandescent, you have the perfect recipe to try a day for night shot. Would like to see how that would look. And yes, I have got to give natural a good test. I know I am in the minority, but every time I take out my G7, with the intention to test other profiles, I end up with cinelikeD dialed in.

Thanks Ebrahim, I actually have the G7, not the gh4 and I own only vintage lenses. I have a small set of Nikkors, Tokina AT-X zooms, RMC Tokina prime and zoom lenses, a nice set of Minolta MDs, a few Takumars, some C-Mount lenses, and others. So far I have been happy with CinelikeD, the skin tones are manageable, but definitely tend to run a little red. My next test is to give Natural a thorough run. I'll definitely give the dial down a go. Of course, even in CinelikeD with contrast at 0, I have found that I still need to add more contrast in post. Not to mention, when contrast is too low, the focus peaking becomes very weak. As far as the D5500 is concerned, the body is selling for $487 on eBay, if/when it drops below $450, I will probably buy one. A nice, clean S35 image, with native glass and 60p for short films with web delivery sounds very appealing to me. I have seen some very impressive videos on Vimeo with clean shadows and surprisingly good DR. I wish it had focus peaking, but I have read that there is a "green dot" focus confirmation in the viewfinder, that works with manual lenses... Is that true? Anyway, thanks again Ebrahim!

Thanks, Stew. It may just be better to save up for the metabones. Much appreciated, you saved me a bunch of headaches.