[Detroitdit]

Glad I could be of help. When you finaly rent a f900 try to make sure you have a little money for a DIT in your budget. That should help ensure you get a quality product straight away and spend less money in post “fixing it”.

Regards

Don’t panic… it’s only ones and zeros.
Detroit DIT

[Detroitdit]

If the footage you worked with was a little gray ther are a few things that could cause that but it more than likely was because the master pedestal on the camera was not at zero. If you were using a paint box like the RMB-150 or 750 the pedestal knob might have gotten bumped. If not then the camera’s reference file may need adjustment. With the Cinealta even though the menu may show zero at the master ped it could be something quite different. The way to check it is to make sure it has been set to zero. Then cap the camera and do a auto black balance, look at the black level on a waveform monitor. Black should be at zero not above or “crushed” below the zero line. If it is above zero simply lower master pedastal until the line on the scope is at zero take care to not pull it too low or crush the blacks. Usually the numeric value is around -3 to -4 but you may have to go lower I have seen needing to be as much as -6 to -8. Once you are happy with the black level save the new setting in the camera’s reference file. Once saved when you go back to master pedestal menu page the value will read zero. Now your camera will be calibrated correctly for black levels.
A common reaction is to suspect the camera’s settings but the playback deck you were using may have it’s pedastal setting incorrect. I’ve seen that before as well.
The answer to your other question is no the overall gray tonal quality is not normal for this camera or format. The footage should be as rich and as contrasty as you would like right out of the camera. I hope this was helpful this is my first post to creative cow let me know if I was helpful. Regards.

Don’t panic it’s only ones and zeros.
Detroit DIT