QuoteThe Picture Style of choice for Vincent Laforet, Philip Bloom, Jason Wingrove, and many others.
http://prolost.com/flat (http://prolost.com/flat)
Thoughts?
I haven't tried this picture style in particular, however it looks very close to my modified picture style based on neutral (basically neutral with reduced contrast & sharpness, and one less notch of saturation). This has become my preferred picture style after some testing. I also occasionally use Cinestyle (usually for weddings).
I use this as my main picturestyle setting under custom picture style 1 (PS1) since it was introduced in this article
http://prolost.com/blog/2009/8/3/flatten-your-5d.html (http://prolost.com/blog/2009/8/3/flatten-your-5d.html)
On PS2 I put neutral flaat10, on PS3 neutral flaat12
When I get zebras in both highlights and shadows in PS1, I'll switch to flaat10 PS2. If that doesn't help I switch to PS3. And after that I choose to accept crushed shadows or blown highlights or head to HDR video.
EDIT
I moved from cinestyle to flaat 10 because of this article.
http://www.shutterangle.com/2012/canon-picture-styles-shooting-flat-or-not (http://www.shutterangle.com/2012/canon-picture-styles-shooting-flat-or-not)
I use Flaat9n / 10n / 11n mainly because the "p" variants push the blues (sky and stuff) into oversaturated cyan-ish territory that results in very artificial-looking images especially after grading (unless the blues are corrected). These are very close to the "prolost" profile (which is just taking neutral and pulling back on sharpening, contrast and saturation), but with the different Flaat profiles I can optimize the 8 bit encoding to the actual scenario (dynamic range vs. noise).
Hi I used Prolost flat on 2 paid job, a wedding and a documentary. I've had real problems with the skin tone and highlights with this picture profile. There is a green overcast on the skin and the highlights were very hard to judge if the exposure is proper. Underexposing basically gives an unnatural skin tone plus the greenish overcast, which is a real pain to grade/correct in post.
I strongly discourage using prolost (at least on a 5DMIII and 60D) based on my experiences. But perhaps I'm doing something wrong?
Turn off sharpening, drop contrast and saturation a little. It will work pretty much as well.
QuoteThis has become my preferred picture style after some testing
After that and the "flat" article, this kind of thing is a lost cause. Rather tinker with the encoder, something good will come of that eventually.
Quote from: JCAE on August 16, 2012, 01:40:01 AM
Hi I used Prolost flat on 2 paid job, a wedding and a documentary. I've had real problems with the skin tone and highlights with this picture profile. There is a green overcast on the skin and the highlights were very hard to judge if the exposure is proper. Underexposing basically gives an unnatural skin tone plus the greenish overcast, which is a real pain to grade/correct in post.
I strongly discourage using prolost (at least on a 5DMIII and 60D) based on my experiences. But perhaps I'm doing something wrong?
Hi that is most unfortunate. I can't confirm your experiences. It's just the neutral with some settings turned down. Outside I normally use the sunny whitebalance preset. Sometimes adjust it a little towards warm when entering a shadow or when the RGB histogram looks odd. I expose to the right with linear RGB histogram and fast zebras at 99%. adjust exposure brighter until you see the peak dots in the histogram and turn the exposure one step darker. But should should pick what works best for you.
The custom profiles also modify the curve so something like this can happen if you don't watch out. Hence I just use the neutral.
Quote from: 1% on August 16, 2012, 04:59:05 PM
The custom profiles also modify the curve so something like this can happen if you don't watch out. Hence I just use the neutral.
So you shoot "prolost flat" as well then.
Quote
Start with the Neutral Picture Style
Set Sharpness to zero—all the way to the left
Set Contrast all the way to the left
Set Saturation two notches to the left
I don't drop contrast all the way down... maybe 1/2 of prolost flat. Also only 1 down on saturation. Kind of a middle ground and no need to load custom profiles. Some people like faithful too.
Quote from: JCAE on August 16, 2012, 01:40:01 AM
Hi I used Prolost flat on 2 paid job, a wedding and a documentary. I've had real problems with the skin tone and highlights with this picture profile. There is a green overcast on the skin and the highlights were very hard to judge if the exposure is proper. Underexposing basically gives an unnatural skin tone plus the greenish overcast, which is a real pain to grade/correct in post.
I strongly discourage using prolost (at least on a 5DMIII and 60D) based on my experiences. But perhaps I'm doing something wrong?
I'ts just Neutral curve with dialed down saturation, contrast and sharpening. It is intended as a flat profile to be graded rather than a finished 'look'.
Stu Maschwitz only recently named this set up 'Prolost Flat', as I think a tongue in cheek quip at the general 'flat' picture styles that generate so much interest, fanboyism, debate and sometimes exaggerated claims.
Stu's settings are well known for many years, with the release of the 5D mkII he suggested the dialled down settings, in fact he suggests shooting flat right back when he released his book 'The DV Rebels Guide' shooting DV back then with a DVX100 and probably before that.
It's nothing more than reduced settings on the dials, no fancy curve or anything and makes a plain fact that there is no install, a random group can just start shooting together with the settings, no laptop needed for install out in the field and that no picture style suits all situations or shooting preferences.
So rather than discourage a perfectly reasonable and well established simple dialing down used by thousands without issue perhaps the better route is for each to their own and encourage testing for one's self what suits.
Not only does the final imagery we see on our computer monitors and TV screens depend on the camera settings it also depends on proper codec handling, color management and proper handling by the media player we view on. Best to check those too. :-)
Ok, so I found that 1.0x CBR is just fine for the stuff I do. I do not want to chance any audio issues, or lag etc.
Here is a test I did to show compression marks from blowing out 3 different CBR Speeds .5 / 1.0 / and 1.5
http://youtu.be/esffL7s2tXg
I tried my best to find differences in sharpness, the biggest difference was from .5 to 1.0.