Re: Filters & Luts

[Luisa Madrid]

Hey There,

Nice to meet ya'll! Cinematography student here at Brooklyn College's Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema. (Approaching year 3 of 3.)

Quick question: Is it worth investing or using filters that help establish looks- For example: Coral, Tobacco, Antique Suede? Or should one just keep it simple with NDS, Haze, Contrast etc and use LUTS more for looks? I mean, I understand that it depends on what one is filming and how filters can work- but if looks can be made via LUTS, are these type of filters (coral/tobacco/antique suede) still relevant, especially with digital cameras? 

Thank you! 

-Luisa

 

[Dan Finlayson]

Hi Luisa!  Those sorts of color modifying filters like coral, tobacco, etc have definitely fallen out of use with the prevalence of digital color correction.  You can either completely recreate those looks or get very close in Davinci resolve.

LUTs are really a different category of tool.  You could make a "coral" LUT of course, but LUTs are so much more powerful than anything you could with a glass filter.  With a LUT you can target specific hues or saturation level or exposure level to really fine tune the image.

But what LUTs are really used for is to preview your final image on set.  People sell LUTs these days as if they're filters - or worse, as a shortcut to a final image.  I'd recommend staying clear of paid LUTs for now and instead try making your own looks in Davinci Resolve.  I also wouldn't spend money on those old school filters - but play around with them if you access to them through your school.

What camera or cameras do you usually work with?

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Most warming filters are more or less orange with some shift along the green-magenta axis, so could be done using the color temperature and tint controls on a digital camera.  Brown is really just an orange-toned image with some desaturation, but again, with variations in the green-magenta axis to create gold versus sepia, for example.

[Luisa Madrid]

Thank you so much for the replies. Definitely helped me save money as I was eyeing a set on Ebay. Dan - I honestly still need to learn how to make my own LUTs. I'lll try to do that before I start filming my thesises. (if you happen to know of any good resource on creating professional LUTS, I'll gladly accept!)

At school, we started with the Sony FS7, then Red Dragon 6k, and our final year will be on Arri cams. Arri LT & XT. 

@David- TY for that. Would these type of filters be more suitable for when shooting on film? Is that still a thing? I just have found it so interesting to see over hundreds of different types of filters that I just can't help but wonder how and when would they be used. 

[David Mullen ASC]

Heavy warming filters like Chocolate, Sepia, etc. are useful IF you want to be locked into that look because they subtract a lot of blue information, somewhat desaturating the image. 

But I stopped using light warming filters even on film because the amount they shift the image can easily be done in color-correction in video or color timing in a film print.

I learned that because when I shot a feature with light warming filters like a 1/4 Coral or something similar, when we started the final color-correction session in digital or when I saw the first answer print, the first thing that happens is that the image is neutralized as a starting point -- and then you warm it up to whatever you want.

So in film printing, I was spending time just adding the warmth back in by adjusting the printer lights, so what was the point of having extra glass in front of the lens with all of the potential problems that creates with double reflections, ghosting, flare, etc.?

So instead, with film, I started using pale cooling filters instead just to shoot the grey scale at the head of the roll (or if indoors, I added something like 1/4 CTO to the light for the grey scale).  Then I pulled the filter for the scene and told the dailies colorist to time the whole scene to the grey scale at the head of the roll. So they took the blue out of the grey scale to make it neutral, which shifted the following unfiltered scene to the warm side. So my dailies came back warm -- as I wanted -- and I didn't have to shoot the scene with a warming filter in front of the lens.