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What was it about the camera / footage that you didn't like?

The XC10 - the bane of my introduction to colour grading. I could never get the footage to look good, and now I finally realise why. Long story short, it's a cinema camera with a slow zoom lens, so you have to use it fully-manual, and I didn't. What that means is that if you put a scene in front of it that is within a few stops of correct exposure then it will look fine, but if not then it will either drown the image in ISO noise, or will hit its fastest shutter-speed (which being a cine camera isn't that fast) and will then stop down the lens, which was slow to begin with, and introduce diffraction. These are why most of the images I have from it look like poor quality JPG images, and sharpening them just makes them look awful, not sharper. OK, I'll move past that and let's move on to what it looks like from the few shots I have that look good..... This is a test shot from when I first got the camera, it's SOOC so I suspect it's a 709 profile: and here's the analysis: Seems reasonable. What about C-Log? This is SOOC: As usual, the CST created a neon abstract painting out of the skin tones, but with saturation at 60%, we get something reasonable: and the analysis: All good too. Soft skin, but close-up and with direct sunlight, gives some green. <long sections complaining about the camera deleted lol>

I've gone through and reviewed the shots I pulled from my back catalog and got some interesting results. Let's start with the GH5 in UHD 24p, on a 1080p timeline. (In order to sharpen you have to have something to work with, so I'll be talking about how good the codec is, you'll see why later on...) Take a shot like this, SOOC: Apply a CST and maybe some level adjustments if it needs it, and we get: and this is what the analysis looks like: This looks very similar to what we saw from the streamed reference images. The stubble but softened light gives a bit of green but not a strong amount. We can apply some sharpening and get this: and a 100% crop of the 1080p timeline: But that's in relatively good lighting conditions, how about under tricky situations? This is an image of dark skin tones, on a boat with no lighting on a river perhaps 50-70m from shore where the floodlights are lighting up the festivities. It was taken with the Voigtlander 17.5mm wide open (these lenses are known for being soft wide open) and the GH5 in auto-ISO mode, so who knows what the ISO was... This was my first trip with the GH5 and the Voigtlander and I had no idea what I was doing, and if memory serves, I think I was exposing to protect the highlights in the background!! Image SOOC: The standard CST does this, which is radically underexposed: But if we apply a ridiculous exposure adjustment we get this, which doesn't look good but will serve our purposes to look at sharpening: and this is the analysis: Note the green areas on the face are not just random noise - there is detail there. I reviewed successive frames and it is indeed detail. This is a 100% crop without any sharpening, just so you can see what detail is there: and with the sharpening I applied before, we get: It's worth pointing out at this point that these are from the 150Mbps Long-GOP UHD mode, not the 400Mbps ALL-I one. The GH5 earns its reputation once again. Now, let's change gear and talk about the XC10. Remember I said that we'd be talking about codecs for a reason? Well......

I didn't realise there were PDFs - that might be worth a look. I've commented before elsewhere that it's tricky once you know half a program because you probably won't get the overall structure / rationale of it from continuing to learn bit-by-bit but that watching videos that are mostly filled with things you already know is almost unbearably tedious. PDFs however, might be useful as you can scroll and go at your own pace. As an aside, I didn't realise until recently how useful the speed controls are in YouTube - watching something you're broadly familiar with in 1.5x or 2x speed can be refreshing as you can still follow it but it skips along nicely and doesn't seem to drag. It's definitely worth drawing attention to the training. Lots more people are moving to Resolve it seems, and the free offering is very capable. I definitely agree about architecture, which is not easy to learn if you're teaching yourself bit-by-bit. In terms of learning how to colour, you're right that they won't teach you that, and many colourist resources also won't. I started a thread some time ago to try and collect useful things, it's here: In the same way that learning bit-by-bit won't teach you the architecture of a thing, lots of good colourist content also doesn't teach you the overall mindset and approach for colour grading. If you're interested in a training course that I did recently that was absolutely spectacular, I can heartily recommend the masterclass by Walter Volpatto who works at Company3. The class was streamed some time ago but you can buy the download. I re-watched it recently and was blown away by how deep Walters knowledge was, and how he went another level up again from most colourist content by talking about workflow and how to manage large projects. He took great pleasure in occasionally roasting the colourists on YT, making serious criticisms of even the advice given by the top YT colourists who are obviously working pros, let alone the "buy my LUT" crowd who couldn't even spell LUT 2 days before they launched their own line.

I've watched some of their videos in the past and found them very good. They're quite slow, considering they cover everything and don't assume prior knowledge, but are very thorough. What is especially valuable, and you almost can't get anywhere else, is that they give you hints of how they designed Resolve to work and the architecture of it all. If you have the time and patience then watching the videos might be good value. Not sure what value certification would give you unless you're a pro looking for work though, and you're likely to have to re-certify every new version.

I've gradually worked my way "up" from cameras that applied too much sharpening to less and less. Typically they applied too much and so I got a bit familiar with blurring the image to soften it to get it to a good look. Now I own cameras that shoot in 1080p RAW and look completely silly without sharpening, and I realise I know very little about how to do that. Interestingly, there aren't many tutorials around going through how to do it, even the basics aren't covered well. Unlike topics such as how to apply a LUT, but I digress. So, this thread is about me learning to apply sharpening, sharing what I find, and maybe getting some hints from others. I've been taking screen captures from TV shows and movies as references for a long time (always a good thing to have when colour grading) and I thought I'd start by analysing these images first, then seeing what levels of sharpening come with the various cameras I have. I've compiled a bunch of source footage from my projects over the years as references. So, here's how it works.. I put a bunch of images onto a 1080p timeline, and then by some Resolve trickery, we can highlight areas of strong edges in red, medium strength edges in blue, and weak edges in green. Happy to describe the node tree if anyone is curious, but it turns images like this: Into outputs like this: I've looked at a range of images from Peaky Blinders, Chefs Table, S.W.A.T. and Unabom and they all appear to have similar levels of sharpening. For images where there is very harsh lighting and/or strong detail on faces (such as facial hair) the face texture just dips into the blue, but is green. For images that are softly lit and are of female leads who are meant to appear with smoother skin those areas of skin don't get any green highlighting, such as this: or this: but other than those things, people tend to get green highlights on the lighter areas of skin and not in the shadow areas, and blue on specular highlights: Now to analyse my images. I'm looking at footage shot on XC10 in 4K, GH5 in 1080 120p, 4k60, 4k25, and 5k25, iPhone 4k60 and 4k25, Sony X3000 4k25, and BMMCC/BMPCC 1080p RAW or Prores HQ. More to come.

I used to be into hifi and buying exotic valves and one of the stores that sold old valves started selling jewellery as well. Lots of hifi guys aren't the type to really understand women so maybe wouldn't know where to start and (maybe out of guilt / obligation) would just shop there as it was easy and they were already signed up etc. I have no idea how much they sold, but they still have a section of the site dedicated to it and their selection seems to have expanded! Maybe combine things? "There's a shortage of food, therefore prices have gone right up, that's why your car is missing AND I've brought less food home lately and the cupboards are bare. Oh, and BTW, people are getting desperate out there, so better to not go outside and see for yourself...."

I've found that normally the best display for someone to judge something on is the one they're used to the most. The best display in the world won't be a good reference if it's different to what you're used to. The argument that no-one is viewing things using a calibrated display is very common, but is ultimately a very strange idea. Chefs know that food tastes different to everyone, but they don't go around saying that there's no point making the food taste good to them because people eat their food with uncalibrated mouths. Musicians don't go around saying that there's no point practicing their instruments because people hear music through their own cultural reference and taste. I'l go first with a camera guess. Sony. The reason that I think it's a Sony is because 1) the first image look relatively good, and 2) the fact you're asking suggests to me that the camera isn't one that is expected to have good colour. No-one posts images from an Alexa and then is keen to hear what camera they shot it with.

Interesting survey, although hardly surprising results coming from a site with "economics" in the name. I've been doing an interesting survey for more than two decades where I ask senior management about talent and the overall state of the workforce. The result? Every leader that ever commented to me said they have very serious difficulty hiring people with leadership ability. A decent percentage volunteered that they've had to change their approach to organising, even restructuring, to work with the leadership pool they have. I've detected no change in this over the years. In business, everything eventually gets traced back to people, then to management, then to external forces, then to those people, and eventually to the human condition itself. The more things change, the more they stay the same, and the longer you look the more this becomes clear. And if you think that COVID is an exception, go read about the Spanish Flu.... it makes covid look like a head-cold in comparison.

I'd be curious to hear how many people commenting in this thread have calibrated displays and are viewing in controlled lighting conditions. When comparing images with no reference (except pure aesthetic reaction and visual memory) these things factor in hugely.

That sounds like it! Anyone who has recorded sports in 120p (or more) and then had to review the footage in post will know that slow-motion is no joke... for every second of 120p you watch at 24p, you get 4 seconds further behind!

I'm having deja-vu as I swear someone has asked this question before, and it made no sense then or now. What are you trying to achieve? and how is this not achieved by shooting 24p with a short shutter speed?

@EphraimP I definitely prefer A as it's warmer and colours have more clarity and fullness. B is cooler and so the neutral tones in the background and lack of saturation in the skin tones make it look more hollow and like the guy is in poor health. If it's meant to be in neutral lighting and the guy in good health then B looks like someone has used the wrong colour space transform. Having said that, you haven't said what the film is about, and "nice" doesn't work well for horror or action or many other genres, so the aesthetic should dictate the look...

OT, but I thought this was an interesting video on the supply chain issues: TL;DR: by optimising supply chains for the lowest costs you concentrate demand onto fewer and fewer suppliers and supply chains, which also happens when factories to make highly specialised items like semiconductors cost so much to setup, but unfortunately that means that that approach introduces many single-points-of-failure in the production of many goods. There are also issues with unbalanced supply chains causing shortages of things like shipping containers etc and any temporary situations (like lockdowns) will take potentially years to recover from.

It is a nice image, no doubt. I think it's the way it looks so natural even under unforgiving lighting, such as direct sun, that really makes these cameras stand out. FB has a lot of good groups with people posting finished projects and footage on a regular basis. It's a different crowd..

P2K and not Micro, but almost identical image....

Didn't Canon have an industrial modular camera that worked up to 4,000,000 ISO? I have vague memories that someone made one..

I have vague memories of the Prores being as flexible in post for WB as the RAW - is that right? Regardless, I shoot Prores HQ with 5600K WB. So unless you want to change the framerate, which isn't often, and you're using a manual lens, you don't have to access the menus at all. Just focus and aperture via the lens, and then ND for exposure.

....but seriously though, the earths population is going to peak and stabilise. The total output of the worlds land will eventually stabilise. It's likely that our energy usage will continue to grow, but assuming we're still around, that will shift to being sustainable and so that won't drive the economy nearly in the same way that population growth does. This means we're headed for the transition from growth-based economics to steady-state donut-based economics (no, I'm not kidding, it really is called that, see here for more info!). If you think that COVID has put some challenges in our path then go read about the Spanish Flu and realise that this thing is a head-cold in comparison to that horror movie**, and then think for a minute that the transition from growth to donut economies will be the first time this has ever happened in the history of humanity. ** by the way, there's a bunch of evidence that suggests that the Spanish Flu might have been the inspiration for the entire horror movie genre, as it happened shortly before cinema was really established, and if you read the reports about the symptoms they sound very similar to the average horror movie.

Just speaking for myself here, but if anything is going to push me over the edge into prepping, it's f0.95 in a Hollywood film.

I think the GH6 may not need an attention grabbing feature to stand out considering the price bump. People who were at the limits of the GH5 might find that the GH6 is worth the upgrade, considering how much money they might have in lenses and the total cost of changing systems. For example: 120p going from 1080p to 4K is a useful upgrade for those that use that mode, sports shooters for example 60p going from 4K 8-bit to 5.7K 10-bit is a meaningful change too, especially for those shooting log Even in an incremental upgrade there are likely to be other minor improvements. The Panasonic colour science has advanced quite a bit from the GH5, so even if the GH6 just 'catches up' to S1/S1H performance, that would be something. Addition of Dual-ISO would make a huge different to people who shoot in low light. I shoot with f0.95 lenses in available light and that works well, but it would be nice to be able to stop down to get a deeper DoF without the noise overwhelming the image. A new sensor opens up some very interesting possibilities, including faster read-out times, higher DR, dual-ISO, etc. A new processing engine is something that's also interesting considering the existing processing engine is actually enormously capable. I did some testing and confirmed that the GH5 does the following: 4K and 1080p are downsampled (which everyone already knows) 4K60 is downsampled, so is 1080p60 (and IIRC so is 1080pVFR) Also, the 1080p mode with 2X digital zoom is also downsampled from the middle 2.5K of the sensor, even in 60p! None of this pixel-binning, line skipping, BS that other cameras seem to think is normal. So, if the processing engine is being upgraded and gets new features, they won't be to enable it to do things you'd expect it to do anyway, it will be things that are in addition to normal functions you'd expect.

There's no such thing as technical perfection, only how well the technical choices support the content / context. It's like asking what size paint brush is the best - very different answers if you're going to paint detail on a miniature, the face on a portrait, or blast a flat colour on the side of a building. Any time someone rates a piece of equipment out of context they're substituting in their own context without mentioning it. Sadly, that context is often to brag about their equipment on the internet.

I totally agree that it's about the quality and not some arbitrary technical specification. It's a bit sad that most manufacturers make us choose between heavily-sharpened low-bitrate low colour sampling h264/5 and RAW without many options in-between. Imagine if cameras let you customise a profile to independently specify the codec, bitrate, bit depth, colour subsampling, Intra/ALL-I, resolution and frame-rate.... Then imagine if they gave you a rocker switch to smoothly zoom in-between a downsampled full-sensor readout and a 1:1 crop at your selected resolution, that would be pretty sweet. I ended up with a P2K (OG BMPCC) and M2K (BMMCC) for cine-camera tasks and mostly shoot Prores HQ, and a GH5 for run-n-gun handheld travel videos using the 200Mbps 10-bit ALL-I 1080p mode. That mode on the GH5 isn't my dream spec, but I'm prioritising ease of editing so am choosing between the ALL-I modes and I did a comparison between all the modes and when you put them onto a 4K timeline and upload to YT there isn't any visible differences that I could tell, perhaps because they're all downsampled from 5K in-camera. I'd get a P4K or P6K if the cameras weren't so large, considering I want to blend into the "just another tourist with a camera - nothing to worry about" category for the projects I shoot. I also seriously looked at the Sigma FP but couldn't get past the impossible choice between the enormous data rates of the RAW files and poor quality of the internal compressed files, whereas the P2K and Prores HQ really nails the size and codec I'm looking for.

Good points. I did a bunch of testing on the overall image quality of various codecs and bitrates in a separate thread some time ago, and here's the results I got from 1080p: and graphed: Prores and h264 from Resolve are in the key but not in the graph because its quality is poor and below the graphing area. Resolve is known for not having great encoders unfortunately. The rest of the thread is here: Results were similar for UHD, so not worth repeating. I do wonder about the perceptual / aesthetic aspects of the errors that each generates. My perception is that Prores always looks so much better than h26x codecs, and I wonder if that's the nature of the error. For example if you take an image and blur it then you will generate a rather significant error from the source image but it would probably be very benign aesthetically, whereas if you took vertical stripes 10px wide and increased their brightness to get the same overall total error across the image it would be almost unwatchable, and a similar thing happens comparing random noise with fixed-pattern noise, so the nature of the error is of significant aesthetic concern. Of course, it could be that Prores tends to look nicer due to its higher bitrates, or tendency to have less sharpening added prior to compression, or 422 instead of 420, etc. I also agree that 100Mbps is sufficient most of the time, but the problem is that when you buy a camera costing multiple thousands of dollars you are likely to hit the situation where it's not sufficient at some point during your ownership of that camera, and for every person that buys it and doesn't hit that situation (for example always shooting in controlled conditions) there will be another person who buys it for use in outdoor adventure and films trees in the wind, rain, snow falling, all while hand-held, and basically experiences those problems on a weekly basis. It's like putting the tyres from a corolla on a Ferrari and not being able to change them - it's a huge bottleneck for the output of the camera.