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ETTR: Noise, Dynamic Range and Skin Tones


jonpais
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9 minutes ago, mercer said:

Btw speaking of fashion @BTM_Pix I was working in NYC while the NY Fashion Show was running and I was talking to a photographer at my hotel who was there covering the show.

So of course I asked him "Canon or Nikon?" Being a video hobbyist and unfamiliar with the professional photography world, I was initially surprised by his reply... "Who cares about the camera, they're all good enough and cheap enough, it's the lens investments that dictate your body choice."

I know I droned on about it regard the Sony A9 but its a classic example of what he's talking about.

They just don't have the lenses for the task they're trying to push it at so it could do a gazillion frames a second at a trillion ISO and they're still going to get the reaction of "That's nice...now where is your 400 f2.8 then?". Same for Fuji as well, even though I enthuse about it. I mean, I am actually using them for pro sport work but only within certain limits and I've still got to be hawking a 400 f2.8 with a Nikon on the end of it around with me.

Funny thing, actually, is that I was shooting what could be described as quite a big football match a couple of weeks ago (TV audience of 350 million people) and thought for sure that someone amongst us would have been shooting with the A9 as Sony would've handed a few out to get it into this particular game but there wasn't a single one. In fact, out of the 140ish of us covering it, the only one not exclusively Nikon or Canon for the game was me! A few people use mirrorless cameras for build up pictures and shots of the crowd and so on but not for the actual match because there just isn't the lenses.

During the warm up session, I handed the X-T2 with the 50-140 f2.8 on it to one of my old mates who was shooting the game as well for him to have a go.

"Fucking hell...this is actually a contender isn't it?" he said and then enthused for a few minutes about how fast it was and the image quality.

And then......

"Where's the 400 f2.8?"

Oh.

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27 minutes ago, BTM_Pix said:

There are a couple of Fisher Price ones on there for 99 cents that would be more suitable than the RED was.

23 minutes ago, mercer said:

Yeah Pixel Vision would definitely capture the last leg in beautiful analog cassette tape. 

I love the look of the Fisher-Price Pixelvision!:

 

@BTM_Pix:   If they are selling at 99 cents, I'll take a dozen!

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4 minutes ago, tupp said:

I love the look of the Fisher-Price Pixelvision!:

 

@BTM_Pix:   If they are selling at 99 cents, I'll take a dozen!

That definitely should not have been ETTR'd. L O L!!!

But seriously, there is something really eerie about that... like I went back in time and looked through a peep show at a kinetoscope booth. 

I wonder if you chopped off the lens and attached a Nikkor if it would sharpen up a little and soften those highlights?

Either way it's really freaking cool and could work in my film. How would one go about digitizing it?

This one's even creepier...

 

Just kidding BTW, I wouldn't use one in my film, but the spirit behind the image is interesting.

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13 minutes ago, mercer said:

 

Either way it's really freaking cool and could work in my film. How would one go about digitizing it?

Its got a composite out so any old usb capture device like this will do it.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ex-Pro-Grabber-Editor-capture-Windows/dp/B001HB9C1O/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1497815270&sr=8-2-spons&keywords=video+capture&psc=1

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On 6/15/2017 at 4:44 AM, jagnje said:

Wow, you guys are really taking this to the next level :)

I have since forever exposed my footage to the right, even now that I shoot with log profile of the fs7. The reasson, it's how the companys colorist wants it. 

That being said, it's just preference. The differences in this cheap 8 bit cameras are so minimal that it hardly makes a difference. These are toy cameras that can give great results in the right hands and in the right circumstances. Expose as you wish and film what you like. 

 

"Toy cameras" lol todays toy camera is yesterdays 5D mark iii. I would disagree and say whethere 8 bit, 10 bit toy or pro camera exposure is critical because : physics.

 

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I just shot these in San Francisco. I wasn't testing ETTR as much as I was testing the cameras ability to recover highlights in post or at least create a smooth roll off to the highlights.

these were exposed at +1/3 to +1 with zebras set to 105% with the natural profile. My takeaway from this is according to the camera's meter you have a maximum of -2/3 to +2/3  of range before the image becomes hard to manage in grading. I also believe the in camera sharpening and NR works hand in hand. I will be shooting with both turned completely off and everything else at default settings.

I am going to test cinelike d next and see how far to the right I can push the image and recover highlights or produce a decent highlight rolloff in post. 

When I am done with that I will test how much in camera contrast I can add to each picture profile because the higher the in cam contrast the less noise the cam seems to produce

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@kidzrevil I think this is showing exactly what happens when you over expose these cameras... especially when you are grading the image and not just correcting it. I think you did a fine job under the circumstances but I have a sneaking suspicion that if exposed, according to the in camera meter, at -2/3 to +/- 0 you may have ended up with softer highlights. That just looks crunchy. Did you use a Black Pro Mist?

But that is a tough shot to expose for and grade anyway. I'm actually surprised the camera held up as good as it did. 

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@mercer This was with a tiffen black satin 2.

You are absolutely right if I under exposed by -2/3 a stop the highlight roll off would be way better which I confirmed with my other tests. Im going to try and convert this footage to cineon using vision color impulz because I do believe I can get better highlights out of this footage. These shots were graded to be contrasty and very colorful using a combo of filmconvert and visioncolor impulz. Im leaning towards a bright, contrasty and colorful style of grading so I don't mind how this came out but for the sake of testing I will convert this to cineon and see what I can do about these highlights

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1 hour ago, kidzrevil said:

@mercer This was with a tiffen black satin 2.

You are absolutely right if I under exposed by -2/3 a stop the highlight roll off would be way better which I confirmed with my other tests. Im going to try and convert this footage to cineon using vision color impulz because I do believe I can get better highlights out of this footage. These shots were graded to be contrasty and very colorful using a combo of filmconvert and visioncolor impulz. Im leaning towards a bright, contrasty and colorful style of grading so I don't mind how this came out but for the sake of testing I will convert this to cineon and see what I can do about these highlights

I don't necessarily dislike the results, and I can see where you're going with it. Will be interesting to see and hear your progress. I actually found a deal for a GX85 that was waaay to cheap to turn down. With the new hack, and my Samyang 21mm lens, I am giving these cams one last try before I sell off all my m4/3rds stuff and focus my efforts on Canon and Nikon.

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There is something in the overly reduced contrast levels and noise interaction.

I'm definitely going to create an automated test routine to produce an evaluation video file with different permutations.

The snag is that at 2 seconds per permutation, even eliminating unreasonable combinations, it will still clock in around the 3 hour mark.

We might need to watch it in shifts.

Although we could probably have a decent crack at the Tate Modern putting it on as an exhibit.

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5 minutes ago, BTM_Pix said:

There is something in the overly reduced contrast levels and noise interaction.

There definitely is a direct correlation between contrast levels and noise. I kept the lens cap on and was shifting through the picture styles and noticed standard,vivid & cinelike v had no visible noise on the viewfinder. The minute I switched to portrait,natural & cinelike d I see chroma & luma noise. Since the contrast slider seems to predominantly affect the midtones im going to experiment with cranking it up a little and seeing how it responds fo the +2/3 & -2/3 exposure range

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