Pete Burger
Forum Replies Created
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[Victor Nguyen] “but wait, you’re saying I should not even plug in an xlr mic to the t2i?”
You know, the T2i doesn’t have XLR-inputs? Of course there are ways to directly attach even XLR-mics to the T2i, but – as Daniel wrote – even then you won’t get good sound because of the bad pre-amps and the auto-gain.
You can switch off auto-gain-control and level sound manually by using the Magic Lantern firmare, but even that won’t give “real good” audio… at least audio that matches the “real good” picture 😉
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“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keaton -
The H.264 compression is far more processor and RAM intensive than the HDV (MPEG2) compression of your FX7.
Depending on your NLE transcoding to a lossless (or near lossless) format will help with editing.
I’m using MPEG Streamclip for transcoding to DNxHD and do my edits in Premiere CS3.
With Premiere CS5 or CS5.5 you’ll be able to edit natively——————————————
“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keaton -
[Casey Petersen] “Here’s a question that goes the other way…have any of you added contrast/saturation/sharpness to a picture profile, rather than reducing it…in effort to do even less grading in post?”
Well, the point in reducing sharpness and contrast is to reduce image artifacts that are created by the the way the sensor “scales” the image down (line skipping instead of real scaling) and by internal camera sharpening and increased contrast (which produces “ringing” and “fringing”). The very heavy H.264 compression boosts these artifacts even more.
Reducing saturation a bit will ensure that no colour-channel is clipped. A clipped colour-channel will give you a hard time in grading.
The goal is to create the cleanest picture possible with those cameras. Sharpening and increasing contrast in post will almost always give you better results due to the better algorithms in your NLEs and the possibility do “just dial in what you need”.
At least that’s what I learned while working with HDV and DSLR cameras the last couple of years.
It’s not, that the pictures those cameras create are bad, but with a clean, neutral picture you’ll almost always have more freedom in post especially when colour-correcting.
Just my two cents.
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“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keaton -
[Errol Lazare] “Anonymous man – ” You have to shoot superflat to be a professional”
Me – “Why is that?”
Anonymous man – “Don’t ask questions. It’s what the professionals do!””I suppose your “anonymus man” would’t call Philip Bloom a professional, would he? 😉 He’s using “neutral”
https://philipbloom.net/2010/12/16/setting-up-your-dslr/
Shane Hurlbut uses (or used?) “self-made” picture styles:
https://www.hurlbutvisuals.com/blog/2010/03/30/color-correction-put-your-best-foot-forward/
I read a lot of interesting posts about using flat profiles, especially “superflat” which is very(!) controversial. You might want to do a cow-search and you’ll find very different opinions.
I stopped using “superflat” as I stumbled upon “Marvels Cinegamma” and stopped using “Marvels Cinegamma” when the “Technicolor Cinestyle” was released. The “Technicolor Cinestyle” is – in my humble opinion – the most handy, most clear of all flat-styles. Not saying I’m using it all the time – just “if neccessary”…
But maybe I’m no professional either 😉
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“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keaton -
[Casey Petersen] “is my time better spent on the technical side — color grading, or is it better spent on the creative side — story telling.”
That’s exactly my thought as well.
We do a lot of corporate video stuff (extremely budgeted). So most of the time we try to get the pictures we need for editing out of camera (no matter *what* camera).
We use flat profiles only on very rare occasions – mostly when being in extreme lighting conditions or if we plan to do something extraordinary with the footage (VFX and stuff like that).With more artistic projects – yeah, you guessed right: no budget and no time pressure 😉 – we do use flat styles (Technicolor Cinestyle) in almost all cases.
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“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keaton -
For my work, I try to avoid using flat profiles (with DSLRs or any other camera) if I have to give away the raw-footage and don’t know who’s editing it… In this case, I try to get footage that needs as few adjustments in post as possible.
IMHO the best way would be to talk to the editor and ask him or her, what he or she wants/needs.
Even if I have to edit myself, I try to figure out how much time I have for postproduction and decide whether to shoot flat (and spend more time in post) for “110%” or shoot “normal” and do just a little tweaking in post to get “95%” – if you know, what I mean 😉
Just my two cents.
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“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keaton -
Glad, it finally works! All the best!
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“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keaton -
What computer do you use? Is it a single ore multiple core CPU? What OS are you working with (Win XP, Win 7, MAC, …)?
If your computer is actually too slow, you could consider proxy editing by using low-res clips for editing and then relinking to the full-res clips.
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“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keaton -
There’s not much you can do about that… At least I don’t know anything. Sorry!
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“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keaton -
[Adam Robert] “I have converted it to .mov but its still choppy”
What codec did you convert your footage to? MOV is just like AVI a container format that can hold many different codecs.
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“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keaton