Hi everybody and MANY congras to the author of this wonderful piece of software. MLV App is definitively in my workflow.
My question: I work on RAW files from 5D3, and I'm using MLV App to obtain Prores Proxy files to make a preliminary/sketchy grade in Davinci. I tried 3 Profiles: Alexa, Cineon and BMDfilm. My first impression is that with a bit of patience, you can achieve the same result with the 3 profiles. But since I'd convert a big bunch of RAWs with a single profile – for convenience – I'm try to understand which is the “good-enough-for-every-shot” profile that is possibly also a “less-nodes-for-a-good-grade” profile!
In short, my question is: which profile do you recommend (to be graded after in Davinci)?
I try to elaborate (forgive the non-technical terms):
A) Cineon seems to compress the histogram slightly pushing it towards the right (that should be good because it “saves” informations in a no-noise area);
B) Alexa does a similar thing but toward the left (theoretically not good because it's a noisy area, right?);
C) BMDfilm instead stretches the histogram with blacks starting on the very left.
It seems to me that BMD gives the fastest “couple-of-clics” good result (after Davinci grading) because of its contrasty histogram and “filmy” tone, BUT (for my taste) it's more difficult to obtain a less-contrasted look, and grass-greens seem to be flattened into a single unnatural color (even in Davinci...)
For my taste, Cineon and Alexa logs give the most pleasant results (always after Davinci grading): Alexa is faster for grading dark shots without great contrast (where Cineon adds always a bit of “halo”), whilst Cineon wins hands down in highly contrasted shots, also thanks to a creamy/screeny/gaussian rendition of lights when near to clipping.
For these first-and-rapid impressions, I'd decide go for Cineon for converting all my shots into proxies, but I'd like to know what you think about. Any advice?
Thanks a lot.
