Reverse Engineering Picture Styles

Started by dfort, December 07, 2015, 05:50:39 AM

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Walter Schulz

It has to be verified 7D2 indeed does binning. But unscaling has to take place. 1920 x 3 = 5760 pixels. 7D2 -> 5472 pixels horizontal. Close ...

ddelreal

Quote from: Walter SchulzIt has to be verified 7D2 indeed does binning. But unscaling has to take place. 1920 x 3 = 5760 pixels. 7D2 -> 5472 pixels horizontal. Close ...

Ah, that's what I thought. I used to have a couple of 6D's and the line skipping was horrible. Binning, although not great, is much better IMHO to line skipping.

P.S. I shot an entire 26 episode season of a children's TV show using the Neutral profile flattened out. I've recently tried James Miller's CLog3 and Andrew Reid's EOSHD CLog. I have a hard time pulling shadow detail out of those "Log" profiles. So I recently started using "Faithful" flattened out. If I expose protecting highlights, I get much better shadow detail. Very interesting. I wish I would've used "Faithful" on those episodes.

dfort

Quote from: ddelreal on October 09, 2016, 07:40:42 PM
...I shot an entire 26 episode season of a children's TV show using the Neutral profile flattened out. I've recently tried James Miller's CLog3 and Andrew Reid's EOSHD CLog. I have a hard time pulling shadow detail out of those "Log" profiles. So I recently started using "Faithful" flattened out. If I expose protecting highlights, I get much better shadow detail. Very interesting. I wish I would've used "Faithful" on those episodes.

You bring up a couple of interesting points.


  • What differences have you observed between using "Neutral" and "Faithful" flattened out? The reason I'm interested is because on our CineStyle like picture styles I dropped logFaithful on the latest test version, maybe I should bring it back?
  • Do you have an issue pulling shadow detail with CineStyle? I find that I'm getting more shadow detail with CineStyle but haven't done a direct comparison with those other log picture styles yet.

Danne

QuoteI have a hard time pulling shadow detail out of those "Log" profiles.
The little I tried of various mimic C-logs they clip shadows too much. I compared with cinestyle(logNeutral) and shadow details are much better preserved.
I tried to refine the shadow part in cinestyle(logNeutral) but it,s just too good as it is for me to bring out anything else from it.

Have you tried logNeutral? Or log logFaithful? @ddreal

ddelreal

Faithful also seems to help skin tones, but Cinestyle is good with shadow detail too. I think I'll be using those two styles for now until something changes. I haven't used logFaithful yet, I may give it a try.

ddelreal

Quote from: dfort...What differences have you observed between using "Neutral" and "Faithful" flattened out? The reason I'm interested is because on our CineStyle like picture styles I dropped logFaithful on the latest test version, maybe I should bring it back?...

You have to be extra careful with Neutral when exposing, it can get muddy and difficult to recover in post. Faithful, even flattened out seems to give more color information and shadow detail - that is if you're exposing to protect highlights.

I like Cinestyle too, I'll be using both styles for now depending on my shooting situation.

Danne

I,d say neutral is the most rec709-ish colorspace of them all and I cant, really say what the other styles are but they can of course work as you are the creative mastermind here.
Would be nice to have any second opinions about neutral(rec709) colorspace thoughts.

Kharak

Funny you say Neutral is the most rec709'ish, to me it seems like good ol' faithful is the closest to Rec709. But I dont have any technical analysis to back this up, but it looks to me like Faithful is the closest to the colours and DR of Rec709 broadcast cameras. Not saying the look of Faithful, because it definitely has a style to it, but saturation wise and shadow to highlight ratio seems close to rec709. The look of Faithful is this suttle teal/green/blueish cast, which I really like, and if you nail the WB I find it easy to grade in to a very filmic look. I'll post a video later

Also converting the video levels to log yields more information in the highlights and shadows than first perceived. I guess because the look is so contrasty, the compression algorithm attacks the parts of the image where no information is and leaves more bits for real information contrary to cinestyle where the compression has to deal with the entire image because nothing is crushed. I am not trying to bash the cinestyles or logneutral. I've shot with cinestyle since its release, but i was digging up old footage for a project from before cinestyle was born, it was shot in Faithful and I was amazed at how good the images were and how easily gradable they were(good wb). And i believe that if i shot that project in cinestyle i would not get such good results as i did. Especially my latest project where i used all this old footage from that shoot and graded it with all the knowledge I've learned since then. Again, I'll post it later. If you wanna download 5 gigs.
once you go raw you never go back

ddelreal

Yeah, pretty much my same findings. I can't technically explain it but I can get more filmic looks from Faithful than any other style.

Danne

Thanks Kharak and ddreal. Maybe logFaithful would be worth a try then reading about opinions/conclusions.

DeafEyeJedi

Indeed logFaithful is definitely worth another shot to take a dive with and will share my findings.

Will test again thoroughly between Faithful, Neutral, logFaithful v1.3, logNeutral v1.3 and maybe few other 3rd party log's that I haven't tried yet.

The one PP has me deeply curious is Canon's very own 'Emerald' version in which a few have reported supposedly nice results earlier in this thread -- will probably give that one a test run as well.
5D3.113 | 5D3.123 | EOSM.203 | 7D.203 | 70D.112 | 100D.101 | EOSM2.* | 50D.109

Kharak

The Faithful Video.
Some friends of mine were producing an Opera/show, I was asked by them to produce a video for the Opera part of the show, they wanted something rough and preferably from the sea, luckily I have a bunch of footage like that. The video was to be projected behind the opera singer, it was quite hard and fun at the same time for me, because they were doing this show in another country then I was in and they didn't have an overall idea of what they wanted, "rough and wild, but slow but it follows the tempo". So I was very free. I got the opera song they were going to sing via a youtube link, the youtube song was from a big concert from a famous German female opera singer (forgot her name) so I had to match the tempo to another Opera.. So I just followed my gut and cut it to the youtube version.. The tempo matched perfectly they said. I never got to the see the show.

:link removed:

This is the rough cut I already have uploaded, the final version is very much similar.. So I don't wanna upload another 5gigs. This was the final Color grading also. The youtube version song is in the video for reference only

Ignore the unfinished black border and quirky fast forwarding in the one scene.

I shot this with a Cinemascope in mind, this was before ML or atleast before I knew of ML, so I had no Cropmarks to follow, I framed by centering everything a bit more.

5D MK II
PP-Faithful.
Canon 24-70 2.8
Polarizing filter
All handheld on a rolling ship..

Neat Video, Dark Energy, Video Levels to Log LUT - Conversion, CC, log2hd Luts, Graded in AE, Synthetic Aperture and Colorista.

Cut in Premiere. 

Don't get sea sick. I'll leave the link up for a few days.
once you go raw you never go back

dfort

Yeah, that got me a little queasy. Add some dirt and scratches and you've got a film look.

Just kidding, nice moody piece. Thanks for sharing.

So this was shot on Faithful but on the default settings, not flattened, right?

Kharak

I don't recall, but I don't think I've touched any of the settings. That was my first piece shot on DSLR, I had just purchased the 5D MK II and it was my first venture in to the DSLR video recording. I just remember that I only shot on Faithful before Cinestyle was introduced.

I bought the MK II for video recording, I think by the time I upgraded to MK III, my MK II had taken just over a 1000 Photos and about 15000 Shutter activations from switching to Liveview for video.. heheh
once you go raw you never go back

chmee

[btw] is it necessary discussing usage of picture-styles in a "REVERSE ENGINEERING"-Thread?
[size=2]phreekz * blog * twitter[/size]

Kharak

No you are right. It all stemmed from what PP is closest to rec709 to me babling too much about faithful. I'm a talker and sometimes lose track of my surroundings.

LogFaithful sounds interesting though, but not sure if I would ever use it other than reference. Read my signature.

once you go raw you never go back

ddelreal

Quote from: chmee[btw] is it necessary discussing usage of picture-styles in a "REVERSE ENGINEERING"-Thread?

True to a point, I think application of said REVERSED ENGINEERED style is important as well.

Quote from: KharakLogFaithful sounds interesting though, but not sure if I would ever use it other than reference. Read my signature.

I just downloaded LogFaithful 1.3 and will try soon.

DeafEyeJedi

Guys-

I know this may be expected but Canon/Apple has done it again. Upgraded to 10.12 Sierra on OS X and now EOS Utility (all three versions) don't seem to work.

Version 2 just hangs with spinning ball.

Version 3 just tells me that the camera is unsupported (when I know it is) as I've previously used it before the upgrade.

Also found this forum which shows similar problems of others reporting 10.12 Sierra breaking things up -- What gives?
5D3.113 | 5D3.123 | EOSM.203 | 7D.203 | 70D.112 | 100D.101 | EOSM2.* | 50D.109

ddelreal

LogFaithful is my new friend (until Raw becomes a dream come true). Magenta seems more correct than Cinestyle, and less yellow. Really like it on my 7D2's.

dfort

Interesting, I thought logPortrait might be the hero because people were complaining about skin tones on CineStyle but it looks like logFaithful is the underdog.

I'll have to wait to load it on my camera out since I'm on Sierra now:


ImaXineria

Does anybody knows the base/native ISO of the 5mk3?

ImaXineria

Im not sure this is the right place for these noobie question but:

http://s1119.photobucket.com/user/hingsberg/media/canon_c-log_iso.png.html

I saw this for the sensor on C canon cameras, this works for 5dmk3 too?
Seams the native/base ISO of cinema cameras are 640. As ask before does anybody knows the one for 5dmk3?
and finally... in the same papers said the 18% should be at 32.79% IRE for Cinema Cameras. Does anybody knows if the same goes for all this news C-log picture profiles?

dfort

@ImaXineria - If you are referring to the base ISO on the C100 using log mode the Canon documentation rates it at ISO 850 and not 650 as you commented in your post. You can go higher but shouldn't go lower. This may seem counterintuitive to still photographers because we're used to setting the camera at the lowest ISO to get the best image. Here's an article that explains this better than I can.

Take another look at the graph you referenced:



Note that ISO 850 is where the "Canon Log Base Sensitivity" is pointed out.

There was a discussion between @a1ex and @Andy600 that we should also be using higher ISO values when using log profiles in this post:

QuoteI have a view that for a 'static' log profile like Cinestyle we should be shooting at higher ISOs (probably 640) and using NDs to maintain a consistent noise profile. I don't think there is any real difference between a DLSR and a dedicated cinema camera in this respect. It's the same math but we tend to shoot at the lowest ISO possible because it's cleaner. If this carried through to a cinema camera everyone would be shooting at the lowest ISOs all the time but that's not the case and the base is typically fixed between 400-800 ISO.

As far as exposure, once again we find ourselves at odds over what we normally do as still photographers. It has become common practice to expose as far to the right of the histogram without blowing out the highlights. However, that's not the way to properly expose a log profile. You are probably referring to this AbleCine blog post about working with Canon Log--it has the graph that you pointed out. There is also this post showing that each log profile has an optimum IRE value for 18% grey and 90% white.

I'm not sure how to work this out for the cameras and profiles that we're using here but if anyone has ideas how the "Base ISO" for each log picture style can be calculated and how it should be exposed, it would certainly add to this discussion.


Kharak

5d mk iii base iso is 200, same for mk ii. But mkiii has greater DR at lower iso than base e.g. iso 100 and the dark and ominous iso 66.

Cinestyle's base iso for 5d mk ii is 160.
once you go raw you never go back

ImaXineria

@dfort: wonderful. great info. Really really thanks a lot