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I recently bought a picture style for my 550D. It's called "VisionColor" and is modelled after 35mm analog film stock. I did some testing and IMO it's absolutely amazing!

They also made a new picture style called "VisionTech". It's VisionColor but with slightly raised shadows.
VisionLog is still in the beta phase but it's looking promising.

Visit their website and take a look for yourself:
http://visioncolor.wordpress.com/

[Here's how I did it:]

For those who don't already know Ginger HDR can produce 32bit floating point sequences of your ML HDR footage. And since 32bit images have got a linear colorspace I got the idea to convert it to a logarithmic colorspace in Nuke. This way you can easily achieve great and more natural looking gradients between dark and bright areas without clipping color channels.

Please tell me what you think about it.


Here's how I did it:


First I filmed the HDR footage with ML (ISO: 80/1250 [4EV];Neutral [0,-4,-2,0])
like you would propably normally do.

This is how it looked like with ISO 80/1250:


I merged the raw file with Ginger HDR to get a 32bit .exr-sequence.
After that I imported this sequence into Nuke and applied a "log2lin"
node in lin2log-mode and a "ColorCorrect" node.


This is what I did:
- Log2lin: I turned down the gamma (0.45) until I thought I had enough contrast in the shadow areas.
- ColorCorrect: I turned down the gamma (0.38) to get rid of the flat look of the image.
- ColorCorrect: I turned up the gain (2.1) to brighten it up again.
- ColorCorrect: I turned up the Saturation (1.14) to make it a bit more appealing.
- Log2lin: Because now some colors might clip I turned down the whitepoint just a bit (660).
Voilà!

Note: I also added a "F_DeNoise" node right after the source clip to denoise the footage since noise can be a problem with ML HDR.


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This is the final result: (click to enlarge)


Example 2 (blurry): (click to enlarge)

Note: Notice the gradient in the sky. From the sky to the nearly edge of the sun no color channel is clipping.

Unfortunately there were no clouds when I filmed otherwise the results could have been way more interesting. Anyway, I'm pleased with the result.
If you think it doesn't look appealing, yet you can tweak the colors very well since we are dealing with 32bit footage

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Example 3: (click to enlarge)


Example 4: (click to enlarge)


Example 5: (click to enlarge)

Note: Color bleeding because of red sheet of fabric below

Example 6: (click to enlarge)

Note: There's a lot of banding because of the bokeh at different ISOs

The guys at 19Lights programmed a new cool method for dealing with real 32-bit HDR footage in After Effects and Premiere. It's a nice idea in my opinion because you don't need to render out .exr sequences anymore if you don't want to.

[enable two bars]

This is my concept:
In the histogram menu you can enable two bars which will show up on the left and right side of your histogram. The left one will show the percentage of underexposed pixels in your footage and the right one will show the percentage of overexposed pixels in your footage. You can also set a threshold to choose if a pixel is under-/overexposed (like for the zebras).
It might look like this:



I already thought a littlebit about the algorithm to calculate the percentage for a bar. Unfortunately I am not experienced with programming so I can only show you my ideas. But I'd be happy to help out in any way possible if you all find this idea interesting.
As an example I will show you the (mathematical) algorithm for the overexposure bar for one frame (underexp. is analog to this).


- - - - -


The ratio R of overexposed pixels n compared to the full resolution N in the footage that will be displayed in the bar is given by


whereas the resolution N in the footage is given by its width x and height y


To tell if a pixel at position (i,j) is overexposed (greater than a threshold T) or not we now define a function tau which is 1 if the pixel's brightness B(i,j) is greater than T, else 0


Now we look at each pixel and add 1 to the total number of overexposed pixels n if it's overexposed


Now that we can calculate n let's throw it all together to the final formula to display the percentage R of overexposed pixels shown in the bar


In words: Count overexposed pixels line by line and compare it to the overall amount of pixels.
Btw. if it needs too much processing power we could approximate it and only look at the center pixel of a 3x3 or 5x5 area for example. It would only take up about 1/9 or 1/25 processing power this way and would be still very precise.

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Negative:
- May need some processing power (maybe, I don't know)

Positive:
- You can see how many percent of the histogram's area is cut off
- Great overview of the amount of under-/overexposed areas
- The underexposure bar can also be an indicator for how much noise you can see in your shot
- You can quickly balance your settings (ISO, Aperture, Exposure, variable ND filter) for a combination of minimal underexposure and overexposure in contrasty shots (optimize dynamic range)


Tell me what you think about this idea.


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Index:

[choose whether you want to only see the dark frame, to only see the bright frame, or to see it flicker while recording.]

Since it is possible now to have a flicker free screen while recording I want to suggest this option for a later version of ML:

Right now while recording the screen is alternating between ISO A and ISO B in a few seconds period. It would be nice to choose whether you want to only see the dark frame, to only see the bright frame, or to see it flicker while recording.

The new entry consists of 3 or 4 options like this:

- - - - -

Show frame:
- A
- B
- Alternate slow
- Alternate fast

- - - - -

"A" only shows ISO A while recording
"B" only shows ISO B while recording
"Alternate slow" is alternating between ISO A and ISO B like in v2.3
"Alternate fast" is alternating like in earlier versions

What do you think about the idea of adding this new entry to the HDR submenu?

Is it intendet that the fast zebras are flashing on and off every 2 seconds?