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Recommendations for cine-like settings


Tammo van Hoorn

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Hi

 

I'm not one ever to take short cuts and pride myself in preparing my jobs thoroughly beforehand. Unfortunately, an HVX200 has unexpectedly landed on my lap today and having never worked with one before I urgently need someone to reel off some standard settings / configurations which would best emulate a cine-like commercial shoot (will be for broadcast). The following would need to be taken into consideration:

 

1. Shooting on tape and not P2 :angry: . I guess i'm limited to 576i/50i or 576i/25P. What is the strobing danger when panning at 25P. Should I compensate with a shutter adjustment?

 

2. Need to set camera to 16x9. In Aspect Conv should I have it set to Letterbox?

 

3. In Scene File>Gamma should I set Cinelike D or V or other?

 

4. Any helpful hints. I'm shooting day ints and exts. Mainly landscapes. No artists ie skintones etc. A little bit of low light moody interior. We have a limited lighting package.

 

I realise that this is totally NOT the way to go about things but this is a no budget showreel gig which has gone from 16mm to HD to DV in less than 24hrs....you know the deal. We're shooting day after tomorrow!

 

Any suggestions would be warmly welcomed.

 

Many thanks

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Hi

 

I'm not one ever to take short cuts and pride myself in preparing my jobs thoroughly beforehand. Unfortunately, an HVX200 has unexpectedly landed on my lap today and having never worked with one before I urgently need someone to reel off some standard settings / configurations which would best emulate a cine-like commercial shoot (will be for broadcast). The following would need to be taken into consideration:

 

1. Shooting on tape and not P2 :angry: . I guess i'm limited to 576i/50i or 576i/25P. What is the strobing danger when panning at 25P. Should I compensate with a shutter adjustment?

 

2. Need to set camera to 16x9. In Aspect Conv should I have it set to Letterbox?

 

3. In Scene File>Gamma should I set Cinelike D or V or other?

 

4. Any helpful hints. I'm shooting day ints and exts. Mainly landscapes. No artists ie skintones etc. A little bit of low light moody interior. We have a limited lighting package.

 

I realise that this is totally NOT the way to go about things but this is a no budget showreel gig which has gone from 16mm to HD to DV in less than 24hrs....you know the deal. We're shooting day after tomorrow!

 

Any suggestions would be warmly welcomed.

 

Many thanks

 

 

I'll take a stab at a few of your concerns.

 

As far as aspect ratio I understand you get the full resolution out of the chip set in "Squeezed" mode. Letterbox simply overlays black bars on top and bottom but Squeeze takes advantage of the 16:9 chips. And it doesn't squeeze anything, that's a misnomer, it just shoots in 16:9.

 

Scene files: Cinelike D is designed to give you the most exposure latitude preserving highlights and shadow detail. Probably best for your low light scenes.

 

If you need to use gain I find that I can minimize the effects by going into the Camera Menu under 1. SCENE FILE and selecting OPERATION TYPE : "VIDEO CAM" then going down and lowering "Detail Level", and "Vertical Detail Level", as well as lowering "Master Ped". Increase "Detail Coring" while lowering "Auto Iris Level". Try using GAMMA: "B. Press" (Black Press), KNEE: "Mid", Matrix: "Norm" and keep V. Detail Freq on "Thin". Save this as a scene file so you can access it in the field. If you don't you'll lose your settings when you swap batt's.

 

Cinelike V is the camera's strong point and is usually the desired setting to go with, overall. Of course this is a subjective statement but you can't go wrong with it.

 

Bring the manual with you as, with any camera, there are a few quirks particular to this model.

 

Good luck,

 

Bill

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Hi Bill

 

Thankyou so much for your response. Very helpful indeed. I noticed that you mentioned to have the camera in VIDEO CAM. Any reason / advantage to go to FILM / CAM? Also, i'm a bit worried that when i'm on 25P my pans look strobey. For panning shots if I set the shutter to 1/120 is that common practice?

 

Many thanks again for your advice.

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Hi Bill

 

Thankyou so much for your response. Very helpful indeed. I noticed that you mentioned to have the camera in VIDEO CAM. Any reason / advantage to go to FILM / CAM? Also, i'm a bit worried that when i'm on 25P my pans look strobey. For panning shots if I set the shutter to 1/120 is that common practice?

 

Many thanks again for your advice.

 

 

Yeah, in film mode it emulates a film shutter so be very careful with your pans, that's been a much discussed topic among HVX owners.

 

For the setting I use to reduce gain I recomended Video Cam because it "turns on" options that are not available when you are in "film" mode. You can toggle between the two to see what is available with each option.

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Also, i'm a bit worried that when i'm on 25P my pans look strobey. For panning shots if I set the shutter to 1/120 is that common practice?

 

Treat the camera like a film camera if you want the footage to look like film. In other words, shoot 25fps with a 180 degree shutter (1/50 when in VIDEO CAM mode), and treat your pans the same way you would film. It's the same motion sampling. If you use a faster shutterspeed like 1/120, that's equivalent to a film camera with about a 72 degree shutter and motion WILL look very stroby, like that Saving Private Ryan or Gladiator type choppiness. If you use a longer shutterspeed the footage will start to look "smeary" in a video-like way.

 

I find "CineLike D" has a softer and more natural film-like curve than any of the other presets, and offers the most room for post correction. But it's a matter of taste, and the look you're going for. When using the CineLike gammas, be sure to switch the color matrix to "Cinelike" as well -- it's there (in part) to compensate for the loss in color saturation you get with the flatter Cinelike gamma curves (it also gives a more film-like palette). You can always pull color saturation out in post, but it's hard to put it back in without it looking artificial.

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