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ARRI AMIRA in 2019 - Does it hold up?


Fernando Vilanova

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2 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

That's not going to happen with a standard Alexa. That is a "mini" issue (Red's have the same issue) due to the open ports on the side of camera. It's just an inevitable issue, doesn't matter what production you're on. The one place ya never want to put holes that lead directly into your boards, is of course, on the top of your camera. 

Blame the users all you want, but it's akin to having an imager that's so overly sensitive, to run a base ISO outside in broad daylight, requires 7 1.2 ND filters. (Sony A7S) 

Nobody on either design team was thinking about the use of a camera.

Dude, you have no idea what you’re talking about. The fans on a Mini lead to a seperate chamber that has nothing but cooling fins inside. There is no “hole leading directly to the boards”. The electronics are very well sealed and isolated.

Naturally a more compact form will have its design challenges, but I think the designers at Arri have done a very good job, and to accuse them of not thinking about the use of the camera when Alexas have remained the most popular, reliable and user-friendly design series in the digital age is really kind of silly. 

Maybe ask yourself if you actually know what you’re talking about before posting any old random thought that pops into your head and pretending like it’s a fact. I don’t want to seem like I’m picking on you, but if you keep posting misinformation with the air of an expert you’re going to get pulled up.

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24 minutes ago, Dom Jaeger said:

Maybe ask yourself if you actually know what you’re talking about before posting any old random thought that pops into your head and pretending like it’s a fact. I don’t want to seem like I’m picking on you, but if you keep posting misinformation with the air of an expert you’re going to get pulled up

I didn't state any facts. I merely stated I've seen a lot of failed Mini's. You said the one's you've seen are from salt water damage and since Hollywood (and the east coast where I shoot a lot) are on the ocean, I would assume the damage is caused by the same thing. So if the electronics were sealed, how can they be damaged from the ocean breeze? 

I was just at a rental house in LA who has 10 Mini's and he has 4 in the shop for dead SDI boards. I asked if he was ok with being recorded on camera and he didn't have the time. Even if he did, you wouldn't believe him. He's the 2nd guy to tell me, he regrets going mini's due the high failure rate compared to the XT Plus. 

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28 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

I didn't state any facts. 

Among other things, you said: “That’s a mini issue.. due to the open ports on the side of the camera.. it’s just an inevitable issue”. Indeed it’s not a fact but you said it like it was.

32 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

You said the one's you've seen are from salt water damage and since Hollywood (and the east coast where I shoot a lot) are on the ocean, I would assume the damage is caused by the same thing. So if the electronics were sealed, how can they be damaged from the ocean breeze? 

I didn’t say the ones I’ve seen are from salt water damage, I said salt water damage could cause a board failure, among a host of other reasons a camera might go down. There are plenty of things that can and do fail on digital cameras, they’re not invincible. They get dropped, splashed with salt water, exposed to smoke and fumes, sprayed with canned air, their chassis punched in by accessory screws, faulty cables plugged in, the wrong plug shoved into a socket, exposed to extreme temperature variations and vibrations etc. 

The electronics are sealed but not water-proof. Dust and vapour can penetrate into the smallest spaces, I find contamination and residue inside apparently sealed lens cavities all the time. For whatever reason, hardware can just fail sometimes, despite the manufacturer’s best intentions. A lot of rental houses buy extended warranties for a few grand to cover that sort of thing. But our experience is that all Alexas in general are pretty reliable.

I don’t know why your rental contact has 4 out of 10 Minis down for the same cause, but it doesn’t match our larger statistics. If 40% of our Minis were out of action for the same fault we’d be pressing Arri to find a solution. But again, this is your second-hand anecdote. Is it really the SDI board failing on all 4? Could there be faulty SDI sockets causing issues, had the cameras just come from filming volcanoes, have they been dropped or shipped in cases with not enough shock protection, why would 4 boards all fail at the exact same time? I’d be curious to hear what Arri themselves said.

1 hour ago, Tyler Purcell said:

He's the 2nd guy to tell me, he regrets going mini's due the high failure rate compared to the XT Plus. 

I find it hard to believe a rental house regrets buying Minis and wishes they’d stuck with XTs when hardly anybody is renting XTs anymore. Would they really rather not have any work than occasionally have to repair a camera?

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13 hours ago, Dom Jaeger said:

I find it hard to believe a rental house regrets buying Minis and wishes they’d stuck with XTs when hardly anybody is renting XTs anymore. Would they really rather not have any work than occasionally have to repair a camera?

And there lies the problem. Rental houses are constantly forced to upgrade, even if the replacements aren't the same quality as the ones that came before. 

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55 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

And there lies the problem. Rental houses are constantly forced to upgrade, even if the replacements aren't the same quality as the ones that came before. 

You could argue thats also what helps keep rental houses in business. If we didn't need to upgrade so often, there would be more owner operators. But because expensive gear is a riskier investment for individuals if it keeps updating, it helps maintain a market for rentals. We would all be shooting with our Red ones (etc...) but many people avoid purchases and stick to renting in order to have access to the latest stuff. That must be a positive factor for hire firms.

The Mini killing off the rental value previous Alexa's was probably a bit of surprise to Arri.  I wonder it the next generation Arri cameras, will be offered in a Mini form factor in the first instance to avoid obsoleting the shoulder mount ones when the eventual mini arrives. Looking back its a no brainer to want a camera small enough for gimbal and drone work, while offering full A camera quality. 

Running a rental firm is about managing risk and the fast development of digital potentially increases risk. But for every Alexa LF that doesn't recoup quickly you might have 10 minis in the fleet that pay off many times their purchase price in their lifetime.  

Its more of a gamble being an owner operator. I'd be nervous about sinking a big chuck of money on a digital camera only to find out its been replaced by a much better version 3 months later. Thats one of the reason's I've resisted owning any serious camera (beyond my Canon 60D). Also the digital arms race is getting silly when clients only want the latest kit and ignore perfectly good gear thats a couple of years old. Its waistful, I think the RED approach is problematic on that front, with such a fast revision cycle. Arri seems more sensible and have made their cameras more investible by committing to the Alexa sensor for so long. 

 

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Well that's the problem Phil, three of the biggest rental houses in Hollywood, went out of business during this film to digital shift. I became friends with Denny Clairmont before he closed and we talked a long time about the issues and he was very honest in that digital cinema has changed the game. No longer can you keep cameras for 10 - 20 years and have an in-house tech that can fix 90% of the issues. 

Now the cameras last roughly 5 years and since the issues are mostly electronic, you're having to replace boards, which means lots of parts. Most rental houses, can't afford to have a full-time tech to service the cameras, especially one that knows the myriad of different cameras. It's not like in the past where you could be an Arri house and the techs new how to service all of the arri's. Now you've got Red's, Sony, Phantom and Arri cameras at MOST houses, in order to stay current. Now you're sending out cameras in most cases, which means they're down for the count, unless you're the largest house like Panavision.

I'd love to invest in a digital package, but Red's have all sorts of firmware/software and hardware issues that require constant service. The Arri's I can afford aren't 4k and I refuse to own anything with the emblem Sony on it. So I'm stuck waiting for the next generation UMP maybe? Hopefully with an imager that doesn't suck? 

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31 minutes ago, Robin R Probyn said:

"I didn't state any facts "..   its a well known issue Tyler.. and my friends in high places have confirmed it..

Must you and Stuart derail threads for personal attacks?

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4 hours ago, Stuart Brereton said:

This should be pinned on every single one of your posts.

The problem is the mis information that newer members ,who dont know the history of your posts.. to put it politely ..might actually believe the " facts " you put always put forward.. this was my concern re the F55 and Slog3, which you just didn't know either the camera or the gama curve or how to use it..nor did your specialist Sony AC,s..yet stated" known issues "and alot of other totally incorrect information , I would presume this is Dom.s concern with your dictates about the Arri camera ,s that are patently incorrect.. I mean you are arguing with a camera/lens tech !! and with Greg when you try to tell him about a film and the DoP..that he actually worked on.. its not personal attacks.. its just to prevent very obviously wrong information you always couch in terms of being fact..  do you self a favor .. you dig yourself into these holes all the time.. but other forum members cant just sit back and ignore your very often totally wrong dictates .. backed up only by your supposed vast experience in well it seems everything .. and these myriad of illusive "friends" in high places .. from NASA to studio heads ..  it doesn't fly..  people have a right to confront you and dispel the rubbish for the sake of other readers if nothing else .. which you then label a personal attack .. its not its undoing the BS..

Edited by Robin R Probyn
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6 hours ago, Robin R Probyn said:

The problem is the mis information that newer members ,who dont know the history of your posts..

Robin, I don't make up anything, there is no misinformation. 

6 hours ago, Robin R Probyn said:

this was my concern re the F55 and Slog3, which you just didn't know either the camera or the gama curve or how to use it..nor did your specialist Sony AC,s

I DP's three sony shows in recent years and graded another 2 of them shot by pretty decent DP's. The issues I had were on all the shows. The only way to make those cameras look good is to have complete control over your lighting on a sound stage and/or heavily grade the image to the point where it looks nothing like the set. 

6 hours ago, Robin R Probyn said:

its just to prevent very obviously wrong information you always couch in terms of being fact.

Nothing is going to prevent me from giving my point of view on a subject. You don't like it? The "log out" button is right above. 

6 hours ago, Robin R Probyn said:

I would presume this is Dom.s concern with your dictates about the Arri camera ,s that are patently incorrect.. I mean you are arguing with a camera/lens tech !!

I'm simply stating some information that I've gathered over the last few years. Word of mouth and circumstantial as it may sound, it's worth discussing. As someone who goes on productions pretty regularly, I see a different angle then someone sitting at a shop. Many issues with cameras are NOT reported to the rental houses. 

6 hours ago, Robin R Probyn said:

people have a right to confront you and dispel the rubbish for the sake of other readers if nothing else .. which you then label a personal attack .. its not its undoing the BS..

If you call my comments and opinion rubbish, then so be it, thats your opinion. At the same time, there is no reason to constantly make note of it.  Again, I'm merely stating experiences, which is exactly what everyone else says here. I keep saying this over and over again, internet forums are for posting opinions and experiences, they are not for facts. If you want facts about anything, the first thing to do is shut off your computer, walk to the nearest library and start reading professionally produced publications. 

Really it comes down to respect and you don't respect me at all, that's the sad part. 

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OK last post on this thread.. the trouble is its not opinions .. its when you often state as fact, stuff that is just not true.. you had no clue about the f55,its menu's its MLUT features .. or Slog or Cine EI mode . or shooting any LOG for that matter.. even the fundamentals . thats just a cold hard fact .. its not your opinion.. you clearly stated the camera and Slog were deeply flawed.. .. and your laughable "Sony expert AC".. no clue.. this is just a fact.. you were wrong.. can you never admit that.. as a fellow forum member who used that camera for 6 years I called you out ,I had a duty to do that .. as have other members here ..  just don't post about things you don't know about .. and claim you do.. ask for advise on your problems.. don't argue with a lens tech with world wide information about a camera where you didn't even know where the air vent was .. !!! your talking rubbish.. dont tell someone who worked on a film.. how it was or should have been made .. or about the DoP.. who you have never met ..! and the person you are arguing with, spent months working beside .. Im trying to help you here man.. no one is going to respect someone who is being so obviously foolish ..

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8 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Must you and Stuart derail threads for personal attacks?

I’d say you derailed the thread when you started telling fairy tales about broken Arri Minis.

 

1 hour ago, Tyler Purcell said:

I keep saying this over and over again, internet forums are for posting opinions and experiences, they are not for facts.

Tim Tyler regards his forum as being a place for facts and shared knowledge. So do most of the members. It’s apparently only you who sees it as an opportunity for self aggrandizement and make believe.

 

1 hour ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Really it comes down to respect and you don't respect me at all, that's the sad part. 

Respect is earned, not given away.

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What? ?
 

The Panasonic S1H Is Netflix Approved

"Netflix has just announced that the Panasonic S1H is Netflix Approved to shoot Netflix 4k Originals content. That means that the S1H is the first mirrorless camera delivering “good enough” quality for shooting the high-quality programming the video streaming leader demands. Even more impressive is the fact that it can do it internally, without the use of an external video recorder."
 

All text on Cinema 5D:

Panasonic S1H – The First Netflix Approved Mirrorless Camera

 

 

 

 

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On 10/21/2019 at 2:34 AM, Fernando Vilanova said:

So far, I've been thinking about purchasing a used Arri AMIRA.  I like the fact that you can shoot 3.4k RAW, am a huge fan of ARRI's color science and the sensor's dynamic range.

The Amira is a very decent camera. When i didn´t need arri raw and the 4:3 sensor of the Mini, I preferred to use the amira more because I found it ergonomically better. But I'm not sure if it's worth the investment now at the end of 2019. For most daily commercial projects, clients & agencys often ask for 4K and more often refer to Netflix technical specifications as a reference. Also i think the Sony Venice is a very exciting camera for that. For me, it's not worth to buy such a camera, I prefer to work with rental-houses, so I also get the accessories I need, but if the situation requires it I would think about Sony. The new colorscience is really good and not so much worse than Arri's. 

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17 hours ago, Robin R Probyn said:

his was my concern re the F55 and Slog3, which you just didn't know either the camera or the gama curve or how to use it..nor did your specialist Sony AC,s..yet stated" known issues "and alot of other totally incorrect information

That was one shoot Robin, one out of 3 that I was DP on and 2 others that I was AC/Operator on and I Edited/Colored all 5 of them. The Sony expert for that shoot, worked at the rental house, one of the top rental houses in Hollywood. It's not my job to deal with lighting, lensing, composing and how Slog3 works. We hired a guy, we brought in a DIT who has worked with Sony on many shows and they went to town. They nailed the workflow, so they knew something.

With modern CMOS based digital, I've been shooting a lot with blackmagic and red over the last few years, but I also shoot a lot of film. When you shoot with Sony, even on standard SLog mode, always at base ISO if possible, the images can be very difficult to grade. Highlight blooming, color shifts, difficulty getting any color contrast and what I call the "blackmagic" muddy color syndrome. You have to be INCH perfect to get a decent image out of them, which is why you see them on used on broadcast TV shows, which are mostly heavily controlled lighting sets, where there is no way to have mixed color temp lighting. Every show I've seen shot with a Sony that looked OK, was either heavily graded OR had an unnatural color throughout. You have showed me several examples and all I see is a post nightmare. 

Those are my experiences using Sony cameras professionally (paid cinematographer/editor/colorist on industrial/commercial work). I was completely unsatisfied with the results, but had no choice because at least on three of the shows, the production company owned the equipment we used, so it was impossible to switch over. The F5 and F55 shows, were my choice because I wanted to gain experience with the Sony cameras. Since then, I've had tons of playtime with the F55 at the school I worked at. I've gone through the camera dozens of times, shot many short-form projects and hated every one of them.

Why do I keep using it? Because somewhere in that camera is a decent image and finding it is quite a challenge. Eventually, I learned that MOST cinematographers OVER EXPOSE the F5/F55 by at least a stop when using EL mode. That was an unnerving idea because I was struggling to keep highlights from not blooming nearly all the time.

I even tried to do an A/B comparison with the F55 and Red Dragon, but the F55's both stopped working suddenly, some sort of power glitch. The school had to put out some money to fix a firmware issue both cameras SUDDENLY had. Same goes for the Dragons, two of which failed and Red wanted $5k each to service. So those are my experiences with Sony and Red cameras breaking as well. Yet my $998 Blackmagic Pocket cameras are still rolling along at year 7. My film cameras made in the 90's are still perfect as well.  

Edited by Tyler Purcell
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This is a small selection of material that I have shot on Sony F5 and FS7 cameras over the last six years, most of which I have posted here before. None required a complicated color grading session. In fact, many of these frames simply had a LUT applied to the S-Log3. 

There are day exterior/day interior/night interior scenes; different color casts (done with filters, gels, or LUTs); different skin tones; saturated and monochromatic looks; sunny, dappled, overcast, and existing lighting conditions; narrative, doc, commercial, corporate work; all kinds of situations. And many of these are lower budget projects with minimal or no crew.

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These Sony cameras in the right hands can make great images, and are not difficult to grade or to work with - if you know what you are doing. But just like with film, you do have to 'know you stock' - then light, expose, and compose accordingly. That's what we cinematographers get paid to do - know how to work the medium to get the intended result.

Are the FS7/F5/F55 as good as Alexa, Red Monstro/Helium/Gemini, or 35mm film? No. I just shot a project on the Alexa Mini and Cooke 5/i's that the Sony F5 would have struggled with, color and highlight-wise. But that doesn't make Sony cameras 'bad' - you adjust your approach to the 'stock.' Obviously, you don't expose and light reversal film the same way as Vision 3 color neg, at least not if you expect the same end result. Same thing with different sensors and cameras.

I shoot with all kinds of digital cameras, many of them not of my choice. I have to know the strengths and pitfalls of each camera, especially if I have to go into a job with little to no prep. I've learned what ISO settings I like for each system, how far I can push the color, and mixed color temps, what kind of filtration each sensor requires. Even which lenses work best and which to avoid. And I have to say, of the currently available cameras Blackmagic Ursa Minis really are at the bottom of my list, as I find them to be the least flexible and with the most pitfalls. But I've made them look as good as I can when I'm forced to. That's what I'm getting paid to do, after all.

Edited by Satsuki Murashige
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Tyler .. as Sat plainly shows "if you know what you are doing "  yes its just one example.. but you have claimed all sorts of other things since joining this forum.. everything is a" known issue".. and backed up by mythical friends that seem to exist in every possible sphere ..and your own vast knowledge of any said subject.. and have encountered on the numerous features you have shot .. your latest being the Arri Mini "known issues " ,and rental houses chucking out their Alexa,s every 3- 5 years .. and yet again .. someone who actually knows the facts irrefutably.. Dom...has had to come forward and give up their time to correct the rubbish you are putting out there.. its not your opinion .. you are clearly stating facts, and known issues  and you have tried to back them up... you don't apologize or fes up when your inevitably caught out.. you just leave that thread and go onto something else and come out with some other wild Walter Mitty story.. "here in Hollywood "..  give it a break man ..really .. its just too annoying to read .. and new members either believing all this tosh ,or presuming the forum is a joke full of clowns .. and leaving it.. 

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Satsuki, do you ever get to grade your own material? For instance, do you take the cards out of the camera, put it into the computer, download the cards and start grading? That to me was the most revealing learning curve when it comes to what cameras work and what cameras don't. For instance, when I pull up something shot on an Alexa or Red, it generally for better or worse, looks exactly like I anticipated using the base LUT's in Resolve. With Sony, I throw a clip in Resolve and no matter what log mode I use in camera and no matter how good it looks on the viewfinder and external monitor, I'm always scratching my head why the image looks different on the monitor. 

When I look at your samples above and I see different looks generated through lighting, filters, lenses, but also through grading. I also see a lot of "controlled" lighting, which I mentioned was where the Sony cameras seemed to be OK. The exterior shots are practically sunless and many interiors have a muted color pallet. It's pretty easy to make any camera system work well when you have full control AND no extreme's in the color pallet, highlights or black's. It when you hit the extremes, that the camera system falls apart. 

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I shot this proof of concept for a feature back in 2015 on the FS7 and it turned out great! All natural light and I did the color grade myself because the director and I were trying to raise the funds for the full length feature.

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We got the feature funded, shot principle photography on the Alexa Mini with Cooke Anamorphics. However, they decided to use include nearly all of this footage into their final cut and it was easy to get the FS7 footage to match the Alexa.

I also shot this short film recently on the FS5 with a lighting package that could fit in my car. Again, mostly natural light:

http://www.ajyoungdp.com/abitn

In my opinion, the FS7 and FS5 are great cameras. Slog3 is pretty stellar and is a fantastic starting point for a color grade. Plus, the native ISO of 2000 makes shooting indies so much easier!

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1 hour ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Satsuki, do you ever get to grade your own material? For instance, do you take the cards out of the camera, put it into the computer, download the cards and start grading? That to me was the most revealing learning curve when it comes to what cameras work and what cameras don't. For instance, when I pull up something shot on an Alexa or Red, it generally for better or worse, looks exactly like I anticipated using the base LUT's in Resolve. With Sony, I throw a clip in Resolve and no matter what log mode I use in camera and no matter how good it looks on the viewfinder and external monitor, I'm always scratching my head why the image looks different on the monitor. 

When I look at your samples above and I see different looks generated through lighting, filters, lenses, but also through grading. I also see a lot of "controlled" lighting, which I mentioned was where the Sony cameras seemed to be OK. The exterior shots are practically sunless and many interiors have a muted color pallet. It's pretty easy to make any camera system work well when you have full control AND no extreme's in the color pallet, highlights or black's. It when you hit the extremes, that the camera system falls apart. 

Re: Controlled lighting

I mean, how can you get any more ‘uncontrolled’ than shooting extreme wide shots at the beach? For the tighter shots, I throw in a bead-board if possible but that’s as bare bones as it gets!

Also, controlling the light is kinda the definition of the job! I know that sounds snarky, but it’s also the truth. You use all the tricks in the book - I always carry an 85 and 81EF with the Sonys so I can warm up the image to taste. I always carry a Sapphire Blue #2 grad and a Pola. I carry a 36” Floppy (fits in most cars) for negative fill and a silver stipple/white headboard. I often use the matte box eyebrow or tape to create a little vignette at the edge of the frame. Etc, etc.

Re: Grading

Yes, I do often grade my own material of necessity, since in many cases I’m not sure who will be doing post, if anyone. However, since I’m generally not being paid to do this, I try to keep it as simple as possible. Usually three serial nodes - Wheels, Curves, and a Rec709 transform LUT and/or film grain. If I need to do windows or grads, I make parallel nodes for each correction. But I don’t do any weird stuff like channel mixing, node splitting, etc. That’s for real colorists!

If I can get away with just using my own Rec709-ish LUTs and being careful on set with lighting and exposure, then that is my preferred way to go. My LUTs are usually slightly tweaked standard manufacturer LUTs, though I have also used plug-ins like Filmconvert as a starting point in the past. I think grading is a good gateway to making camera-specific LUTs since you will start to see what primary corrections you always make for a particular camera - then just bake that into the LUT. 

Ive found that the aforementioned Sony cameras really do benefit quite a bit from this approach, as the color science and sensors are not quite as dialed in as Red and especially ARRI. You can also optimize those to taste as well (I just make a bunch of ARRI Looks for my shoot last week), but it’s not as big of an improvement.

So you can really optimize the camera to your taste with custom LUTs, but that requires a lot of testing and redoing to get it right. For example, the day exterior scenes with the super-saturated blues and greens above were an early version of an FS7 LUT that I made for a studio beauty shoot on white cyc. We were also shooting with low contrast Cooke Speed Panchros. I didn’t realize how saturated the colors would get used with Zeiss lenses and a Polarizer outside. So I had to make a newer version that dialed the low-midtone saturation back a bit. That’s the version that is on the Opera House exterior (plus an 81EF in-camera).

Also, you can make specific ‘graded’ LUTs per project. In the warm-greenish looking beach exteriors, I took the standard show look (seen in the woman’s CU above + 3200K in-camera), and added a correction in Resolve. Then made a new LUT from that. This was because that particular project required three looks to indicate story location - Cool / Warm / Green. We shot with those viewing LUTs applied to the monitoring path in-camera. Then I took all the SLog3 footage into Resolve, added the green LUT as a Monitoring Output, and rendered out Prores dailies. This still allows flexibility to adjust exposure or white balance a little if necessary to maintain shot-to-shot consistency, but it’s very fast to do. It looks exactly the same in-camera on set and in Resolve. 

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