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Saturation in DSLR for post
Hi All.
Excuse my ignorance in this field but i was trained to shoot on film many years ago and have since learned that when shooting digital ie: DSLR it is better to under expose than to overexpose.
i understand this is to retain light information, but what is the situation with saturation?
Is it better to desaturate or pump the colour in camera so that there is a lot to play with in post?
My logic says saturate the picture so i can pull out colours if need be in post… Am i wrong here?My camera man seems to think it is better to desaturate slightly in camera, i get nervous when he says things like that!
THANKS !!!
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4 Replies
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No, he’s right…research custom picture profiles for DSLRs and you will find that most very much tone down the color saturation so that in post you can bring them back to the degree you want. Some people who don’t plan on doing any great deal of color correction might just go with the standard picture profiles and call it a day…it all depends. You aren’t actually permanently losing any color information by filming a less saturated picture since you can bring it back in post. My 2 cents is now yours.
Oh, and protecting the highlights has to do with exposure and making sure you don’t accidentally overexpose the image and end up recording pure white in sections of your picture…THAT you can’t really do much about, the information is gone at that point. So yes, underexpose a bit and maybe undersaturate too.
Steve Crow
Crow Digital Media
http://www.CrowDigitalMedia.com -
Agree with Steve. I more than once had the problem of clipped colour channels when shooting digital. A clipped colour channel is almost as worse when colour-correcting as highlight clipping.
Underexposure is a common thing when shooting digital, but don’t overdo (or underdo?) it. The shadow areas are where the noise appears. And the heavy H.264 compression will push noise and artifacts even more.
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“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster KeatonMe on Twitter (english/german)
https://twitter.com/FastFoodVideo -
Wayne –
I was on the fence about this one myself, until I read this exhaustive blog post on Prolost:
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
Thanks for your 2 cents, Steve. It may prove to be worth a lot more than that!
I find it very interesting that it doesn’t omit any information by desaturating in camera.I think i should apologise to my cameraman for doubting his skills 😉
Thanks again!
THANKS !!!
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