[Bruce Greene]

[john sharaf] “John,

The advantage is having predictable steps of highlight compression, from 200-500 setting of Dynamic range. Crushing the Gamma from the default .45 to .55 or even .65 restores the blacks for a wysiwug look”

It should be noted that when “crushing the gamma” to .55 that the slope of the brightest half of the image becomes normalized in contrast. The darkest half becomes lower in contrast than normal. Unfortunately crushing the blacks using the pedistal does not fix this in a way that normalizes contrast evenly either. The result from my experience is that I use much less “fill” light in the shadows as one can see very deeply into them. The final result is that the photograph may lack “punch” in the shadows in a way that is hard to explain in words, but that is different than film, but more film like than standard video.

The best fix for this would be a software update that allowed a highlight gamma correction menu and a shadow gamma correction menu item that work in Film Rec mode.

For the original John, the poster: The advantage of using Film Rec mode is that the image looks more “photographic” and one can clip the highlights in a more natural looking way. It’s not perfect for the reasons mentioned above,

The second reason to use Film Rec mode is to obtain a much, much cleaner, less noisey image. The trade off is that you will have less light sensitivity at a given master gain setting. For example Vid Rec at -3db gain = EI 640. Film Rec at 0db gain and 300% dynamic range and gamma =.55 gives an EI (exposure index) of EI 400. I would suggest setting dyamic range to 200% unless the situattion demands one go higher.

Please note, from my testing there is a highlight abnormality when using -3db gain in Film Rec mode at 300% dynamic range or higher so remember to avoid that.

That’s about it, and I can only recomend testing your approach before shooting as always…

-bruce

Varicam/Steadicam Owner
Los Angeles, CA
http://www.brucealangreene.com

[Bruce Greene]

[nickhigz] ”

Does anyone have any words of wisdom for in camera tweaks on an HDX900 to make the most of darker skin tones?”

Nick,

This is a hard question to answer without knowing what “make the most of” means.

You can make the midtones lighter by lowering the gamma number in the menu.

You can change the overall color of the image by adjusting the RGB gain or perhaps RGB gamma controls.

You can change the color/hue/saturation of specific colors using the color correction/matrix controls. With this approach you could target only colors close to skin tone, but of course any skin tone color will receive the change whether or not it’s on someone’s skin. It’s best to make these adjustments using a DSC Chroma DuMonde color chart while viewing on your monitor and a vectorscope.

Personally, I think the best approach is to light the people so they look good 🙂

-bruce

Varicam/Steadicam Owner
Los Angeles, CA
http://www.brucealangreene.com

[Bruce Greene]

[nickhigz] ”

Does anyone have any words of wisdom for in camera tweaks on an HDX900 to make the most of darker skin tones?”

Nick,

This is a hard question to answer without knowing what “make the most of” means.

You can make the midtones lighter by lowering the gamma number in the menu.

You can change the overall color of the image by adjusting the RGB gain or perhaps RGB gamma controls.

You can change the color/hue/saturation of specific colors using the color correction/matrix controls. With this approach you could target only colors close to skin tone, but of course any skin tone color will receive the change whether or not it’s on someone’s skin. It’s best to make these adjustments using a DSC Chroma DuMonde color chart while viewing on your monitor and a vectorscope.

Personally, I think the best approach is to light the people so they look good 🙂

-bruce

[Bruce Greene]

David,

My advice to you would be to let the whole issue go and just edit the picture to the best of your ability.

The director and the producer(s) clearly chose the camera person and seem to be satisfied with the photography. Why make them doubt? If you bring up the subject (without being asked) you will put yourself at risk to be replaced. If they are happy with the pictures, than someone will be wrong in this discussion, and it will be you.

As a camera operator of many years, I’ve been asked to make many compositions I did not care for. Many times I’ve heard “too much head room” and later “don’t cut off the hair!”. “Stop centerpunching!” and “Why do you frame so far to one side?”. It never really ends when everyone sees the image live in video village and many think they can do it better themselves. “How much skill can it take to pan and tilt?”

I guess my point is that there are many different views on what proper or even, “normal” composition should be. Every individual might have their own set of rules. Personally, I wouldn’t rock this boat. Just my 2 cents.

-bruce

[Bruce Greene]

Jesus,

For sure do not use the 5 year old tv!

Unless you are going to buy a broadcast monitor, and have it calibrated (for white balance, not just color bars) you’re kind of working in the dark.

So I’ll go out on a limb and make another suggestion: Buy a computer monitor calibration light meter/software for your Apple Cinema display. Something like the Greytag/McBeth Eye One Display which costs about $240. Calibrate your screen to D65 color temperature. You won’t have to worry about setting color or tint on your calibrated computer screen at all and so the color bars will not be used.

The drawback of this approach is that FCP does some weird things when displaying DV/DVCAM video. You’ll notice that the color shifts when you pause playback, and I would only trust the image when paused. That said, you can at least pick a good looking frame as a reference and match to it. Even if you’re not spot on your color, you’ll at least get a consistent look (provided you have the skill at color correction), and this look will be close enough to correct for most purposes. I would also suggest using using the waveform/vector scope tool in FCP to make sure your black and white levels are correct.

One final note: Normally video is displayed on a tv monitor set to a “gamma” of 2.2. However, the Mac used to be traditionally set to a monitor gamma of 1.8 and the FCP / Quicktime software I think (not 100% sure) assumes that your computer monitor is set to a gamma of 1.8. Apple then programmed into the DV playback a correction to the 2.2 gamma video footage. So I would start by calibrating your Apple Cinema Display to a gamma of 1.8 to use to color correct your project.

I actually color corrected an entire feature film last year in FCP using a Sony 9″ professional broadcast monitor and even that monitor was not perfectly white balanced when new from Sony. And neither was my Panasonic 17″ HD LCD broadcast monitor (they seem to come from the factory a little on the green/yellow side).

One final tip: do all your color correcting using the “color correction” tools in FCP. Avoid the “contrast/brightness” controls and any others whose name sounds like a control knob on a tv.

And one final note: I wish Apple would fix the FCP software so that we could be confident that the image we see on a calibrated computer monitor (because they are so easy to calibrate using software like the “EyeOne”) is a good representation of the image and the average joe could color correct in FCP with some confidence.

Best of luck with your project.

-bruce

[Bruce Greene]

[Chi-Ho Lee] “I would like to shoot at 23.98 FPS for lighting/flicker reasons.

I have suggested that the footage be captured via firewire to external hard drives and downcoverted to mini dv for dailies simultaneously by a post house.

Why downconvert at all? DVCPro HD is a easy format to capture and edit in natively via firewire capture.

I would like a dv copy of the dailies for myself and to review on the set if necessary

I think the editor would ideally like the sound recording (when shooting double system) to have the same time code as the captured footage. What is the best way to do this as I believe the Varicam always uses 30/29.98 timecode even when shooting at 24/23.97 FPS. If we shoot at 24 or 23.97 what timecode will be on the captured footage?

Double check with your rental house but I believe your audio recording should run at 29.97 since your final video footage will be 23.98. This is an easy question for your rental house to answer.

I’ts not so easy to get an answer to this unfortunately

On another note, why double system? You’re making it a lot more work for post with double system. You can feed the audio to the camera as well as an external recorder.

We will, but will shoot double system when using Steadicam and some car shots.

Use the external recordings/DAT as a back up. HD Audio can be record as 24 bit these days – just as good a DATs or Devas.

The current version of FCP will accept BWF. This may help your situation with timecode.

FCP can capture 25fps fine via FW but 23.98 is your best bet for NTSC and PAL outputs.

-CHL “

Thanks CHL
-bruce

[Bruce Greene]

Steven,

Could you be more specific? What do mean by finishing?

If you mean will the orginal footage be recaptured and what type of online will be done, this is unknown, and I think will not be known in advance.

Would there be some problem with using the original capture to use in finishing if all the rendering is done uncompressed to avoid recompressing to the dvcproHD codec? I’m not sure the editor is a workflow expert, just an artistic cutter. And there is a lanuage barrier to overcome.

Do you also have a suggestion for a finishing method?

-bruce

[Bruce Greene]

q[Ryan Santos] “I’m looking for a camera with a shallow depth of field so I can easily blur the background. I’m told that the DVX100B has a short lens and so that is not a good choice for my purposes. What do you think about the FX1, is the lens long enough to have a shallow depth of field. Are there any other camcorders with long lenses at the price range of the DVX100B and FX1? Thanks”

Ryan,

I think you’re out of luck using any of the cameras similar in size to the DVX100. You’ll need to use a professional camera with a larger imaging chip(s) to reduce the depth of field.

That said, a smoke machine might seperate your subject from the background and give the illusion of shallow depth of field, or you can adjust the lighting style to seperate the subject from the background.

Or you can shoot your film like Citizen Kane and brag about your deep focus! 🙂

[Bruce Greene]

thanks Bruce. I’ve been searching for the ability to play back anamorphic in quicktime properly for a while. Very helpful.

I think if you save the QT file with the new settings, it will play back un-squeezed the next time.

I don’t have an anamorphic lense. My choice is shoot 4:3 and crop in post, or shoot squeeze mode anamorphic. Won’t even squeeze mode give me more resolution than 4:3?

The DVX100a has 4:3 chips. When you set it to record in anamorphic mode, the camera shoots a 4:3 image, crops, and then re-sizes to fill the screen with an anamorphic image. The result is that you’ll crop in the camera or in FCP. Your choice.

[Bruce Greene]

You can play the anamorphic video directly out out QT player if you have QT Pro installed.

If the file plays squeezed then go to the “window” menu and select “show movie properties”. Select “video track” and click on “visual settings”. Unclick “preserve aspect ratio” and enter in new pixel dimensions in the boxes provided to stretch the image back to normal. A good starting place is to punch in 1280×720 pixels. If this size isn’t ideal then drag the bottom right corner of the player box to the best size. Also click on “high quality” in the bottom right corner or else it will play at 1/2 resolution (this goes for playing dv from the QT player in general).

If you’re not using an anamorphic lens on the camera, I wouldn’t bother with the shooting in anamorphic mode in the camera as you won’t gain any resolution advantage as a previous poster commented. It is possible (though I haven’t tested it) that by shooting in anamorphic mode in the camera that you may see smaller compression artifacts though if the resizing is done before the compression takes place in the camera.

Good luck with your film!

-bruce