In Camera Image Settings vs. Post

[Cory Dross]

Is it better to achieve whatever look I am going for in camera settings or to shoot flat and do everything in post?

[David Auner aac]

Is it better to achieve whatever look I am going for in camera settings or to shoot flat and do everything in post?

 

Hi Cory,

 

It depends. Do you want to keep others from changing the look of your picture? Then do everything in camera.

 

Do you post it yourself and are you unsure of the way you want it to look? Then shoot a clean negative/video and create your look in post.

 

Be aware of format limitations though. For example, DV doesn't capture much color information so you can't really tune color very well as it'll start falling apart quickly.

 

Regards, Dave

[Cory Dross]

Thanks,

 

The director and I have a pretty clear idea of how we want the colors to look and I can achieve it trough manipulating the scene files on a DVX100B with a Letus 35Extreme as well as how I light the set, but I don't think when it goes to color correction anything will be able to be done beside general fixes. Where as if I shoot everything flat and have someone in post try to achieve the same look, probably in Color or After Effects, will it be of similar quality or less because of the compression of NTSC DV? The answer to that question will bring me to two more questions,. Is it more common to get what you want in camera and set lighting and limit your latitude to change things in post, or to shoot flat and sacrifice quality for the ability to fix the unexpected or change everything if so desired. Also, if you do lose quality in post do to 4:1:1, when I am shooting on a camera that does 4:4:4 or 4:2:2 is it then better to leave everything to post because of my increased information within the files?

[Dory Breaux DP]

My experience with the DVX is that it is best to get as much color and dynamic range out of it as possible if you want to CC in post. But you want to keep it as realistic looking as possible. What I've been doing is ramping my chroma level up as high as it will go, using the cinelike_D gama curve and cinelike color matrix and leaving everything else at 0. then in post i can desaturate it a bit, and there is plenty of color to work with without worrying too much about the bad compression.

[Adrian Sierkowski]

With the DVX or anything video I try to do a bit in camera but i also tend to do some post on it. IN the case of my DVX stuff, that's normally a desaturation.

That being said, I would vote that if you can do it in camera economically, both in terms of time and real money, then by all means do it in camera. If you can't do it economically, or rather you can more economically do it in post, then do it in post. but that's just my opinion.

[Cory Dross]

Just what I was looking for, thanks!