Jump to content

If a film person goes to digital ...


Jon O'Brien

Recommended Posts

 

Well it's just that there's this weird grey look to it, similar to that Marvista thing called ANABELLE HOOPER which was shot with the FS7.

I don't know what you mean by a 'weird grey look', but why are you so convinced that this is some way due to the camera? Shows are lit and graded to look the way they look. It's not some accident, or unavoidable by-product of the equipment used.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't know what you mean by a 'weird grey look', but why are you so convinced that this is some way due to the camera? Shows are lit and graded to look the way they look. It's not some accident, or unavoidable by-product of the equipment used.

 

I just noticed it's more prevalent on shows shot with a Sony, that's all. It's also the only time I ever liked a Sony image.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's also the only time I ever liked a Sony image.

I read an article recently on one of the big Photography websites about a blind test between Canon, Nikon, Sony and Fuji. People were asked to judge what camera was used to take a selection of pictures. The results were no statistically no better than if everyone had just guessed. People like to say they can tell one camera's images from another, but it seems they really can't.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I read an article recently on one of the big Photography websites about a blind test between Canon, Nikon, Sony and Fuji. People were asked to judge what camera was used to take a selection of pictures. The results were no statistically no better than if everyone had just guessed. People like to say they can tell one camera's images from another, but it seems they really can't.

 

Thanks Stuart. So that whole thing about a higher level of magenta in Sony cameras is psychosomatic?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

Thanks Stuart. So that whole thing about a higher level of magenta in Sony cameras is psychosomatic?

There is a slight magenta tint to SOME early red cameras, but that's the only camera I know of that actually has an odd tint to it. Most cameras do have a "look" but it's not a detractor usually.

 

Sony's if anything are pretty balanced, that's the one thing they're good at.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is a slight magenta tint to SOME early red cameras, but that's the only camera I know of that actually has an odd tint to it. Most cameras do have a "look" but it's not a detractor usually.

 

Sony's if anything are pretty balanced, that's the one thing they're good at.

 

But how do you get a usable image from a Sony?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

But how do you get a usable image from a Sony?

 

 

Point at subject.. focus (if needed).. set exposure.. record.. :).. shoot Slog if you want a full grade and or apply a LUT.. easy ... even I have made a living out of it.. Sony REC709 is very accurate colors .. thats the problem.. their engineers worked off charts to re create very accurate results .. trouble is that isn't always the the "nicest" picture.. this is what Arri got right presumably due to the companies film background or just a less "engineer /chart" mind set.. At last Sony have been persuaded to move with the times ..and with the development of the Venice have come up with a new 709 color science ..which at the moment is only in the Venice and the fs5II.. but presumably will be in any new models.. it does look better.. most people with a budget will always shoot Slog.. Slog3.cine being the popular one as its pretty much the same as Cineon.. and there fore Arri Log..and the later Canon Log curves and all the same LUT,s can be used..and colourists are familiar with it..then you can pretty much get it to look anyway you want.. within reason..

 

Edit.. people with a real budget shoot 16 bit Raw.. but you need the R5 or R7 recorder.. thats 16bit .. Raw.. can do anything with that.. eg The Crown..

Edited by Robin R Probyn
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

But how do you get a usable image from a Sony?

 

 

 

What? I certainly hope you are joking.

 

You mean that this is actually a serious question? You do have a history of denigrating Sony cameras, apparently without having used them, choosing instead to base your judgements on YouTube videos. I, and others, have attempted to explain that this may not be be the best approach to take, but you seem determined to find fault with Sony cameras no matter what. Hence my speculation that you are trolling.

 

Sony cameras have a huge market share, helped originally by the 4k origination rule of Netflix and Amazon, which disqualified Alexas. There is so much material, both movie and TV, that is shot with them. Are you seriously suggesting that it all looks bad?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is it okay to find the F55 ugly looking in everything I saw that was shot on it? I find it looks very videoey for some reason most of the time. Vinyl looked good but they used that special LiveGrain sauce to make it feel better. Ah and yes The Homesman's night sequences were F55 too, Prieto using it here before Vinyl. The F65 though, same deal, the only films that made it look really good are Cafe Society and Miranda's work with Joe Kosinski on Oblivion and Only The Brave. The F35 on Tron Legacy (Miranda and Kosinski once again) looked great, I think it had actually more flavor to it than most digital cameras these days. Miranda and Kosinski are working with the Venice on Top Gun 2, I don't know what it is but Miranda really does wonder with Sony cameras just like he did with the Viper on The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button or the Alexa on Life Of Pi.

Edited by Manu Delpech
  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

Is it okay to find the F55 ugly looking in everything I saw that was shot on it? I find it looks very videoey for some reason most of the time.

It's the way the CMOS imager deals with motion blur and sharpness (I forgot the technical term for this). If you watch ANY of the Sony demo footage, it's more clearly visible. I honestly don't think people who shoot with these cameras see these bothersome issues. They keep arguing about how we're wrong for seeing them and pointing out how egregious they look, but who is actually wrong here? The people who see the issues and don't like it, or the people who either can't see the issues or simply ignore them because they've invested time and energy into these cameras so "they must be the best".

 

How people get away with the Sony CMOS cameras is quite simple; their style of lighting/cinematography is one that benefits the Sony package or they're shooting for TV when mostly everything looks like crap anyway. Watch ANY of the Sony movies, you won't see anything very flashy at all. I'm always quoted how "amazing" shows like 'The Queen' look and when I watch them, it looks dull and horribly uninteresting. All I see is a colorist throwing the black level to blue or green in order to get some sort of "look" to the image. I even did my due diligence and watched a few episodes, great story but yea... way clearly manhandled in post.

 

If anything, the F65 shows for some odd reason, tend to be not as flashy. 'Oblivion' is dry and dull most of the time, but the woods scenes looked fine. 'Cafe Society' looks fine, for sure nothing like his film movies, but still. I get the desire to muck around with digital, hey it's easier!

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is it okay to find the F55 ugly looking in everything I saw that was shot on it? I find it looks very videoey for some reason most of the time. Vinyl looked good but they used that special LiveGrain sauce to make it feel better. Ah and yes The Homesman's night sequences were F55 too, Prieto using it here before Vinyl. The F65 though, same deal, the only films that made it look really good are Cafe Society and Miranda's work with Joe Kosinski on Oblivion and Only The Brave. The F35 on Tron Legacy (Miranda and Kosinski once again) looked great, I think it had actually more flavor to it than most digital cameras these days. Miranda and Kosinski are working with the Venice on Top Gun 2, I don't know what it is but Miranda really does wonder with Sony cameras just like he did with the Viper on The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button or the Alexa on Life Of Pi.

 

 

I, too, like the F35's look a lot. On CML there are some camera tests and the Venice looks great to me, but I haven't worked with it.

 

I wasn't enamored with the FX5 image, either. The first time I used an F5 I struggled a lot with the chroma clipping in SLOG 2, which looked very "video" to me, and I found the noise texture unpleasant (blue/yellow/blotchy) to the extent that it all-but required overexposing by a stop. It didn't feel like true 2000 ISO to me. In subsequent F55 shows I've worked on (generally in post) I've noticed some similar issues with the image, but with the Kodak emulation LUT for the F5 and with F55 raw it's not nearly as bad; the color rolls off more like the Alexa than it did with the original SLOG 2, saturation looks good again. I think they've gotten better... the studio tests Sony posts online sure look a lot like the Alexa. I couldn't them apart:

 

 

Of course, the lighting is suspiciously high key but it still looks good to me.

 

Imo, if you don't like it, don't shoot with it. There's no use arguing, just use what you like. I loved how Girl with the Dragon Tattoo looked, but around that time I was not so happy with the Red MX, preferring the Alexa significantly. But Dragon Tattoo looked better to me than most contemporaneous Alexa shows, so what do I know.

Edited by M Joel W
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

Are you seriously suggesting that it all looks bad?

 

Although my feelings were hurt by your original post saying I was trolling, I overcame the initial pain of betrayal and its burning sensation, and started thinking introspectively about this question. After giving it much thought I have concluded that the problem is not that I think it's all "bad", but rather, that I cannot find anything that looks good. The yardstick for "good" is film.

I like the way HATERS BACK OFF looks even though it was shot with a Sony F55, because it was part of the art direction. The show was meant to look awkward and unsettling. So I actually liked it there.

But I can't find anything done on a Sony that looks "good" to the standards I posted above.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I didn't like the look of the Hobbit films. Perhaps it was the mood I was in when I was at the cinema. But no, there was more to it than that. I disliked the look very much actually. Was it just me or did others find these films somehow looking like tv just enlarged by a huge projector? That, and seeing The Force Awakens shot on film, propelled me back into real film. A force awakened. Real film.

 

The thought occurred to me that I could get something like an Ursa Mini Pro and set myself up as some sort of cameraman with it but I think I'm reliably informed that there is no shortage of people with digital cameras around. I think I will stick with film ... put my pennies into film stock etc.

Edited by Jon O'Brien
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

I, too, like the F35's look a lot. On CML there are some camera tests and the Venice looks great to me, but I haven't worked with it.

 

I wasn't enamored with the FX5 image, either. The first time I used an F5 I struggled a lot with the chroma clipping in SLOG 2, which looked very "video" to me, and I found the noise texture unpleasant (blue/yellow/blotchy) to the extent that it all-but required overexposing by a stop. It didn't feel like true 2000 ISO to me. In subsequent F55 shows I've worked on (generally in post) I've noticed some similar issues with the image, but with the Kodak emulation LUT for the F5 and with F55 raw it's not nearly as bad; the color rolls off more like the Alexa than it did with the original SLOG 2, saturation looks good again. I think they've gotten better... the studio tests Sony posts online sure look a lot like the Alexa. I couldn't them apart:

 

 

Of course, the lighting is suspiciously high key but it still looks good to me.

 

Imo, if you don't like it, don't shoot with it. There's no use arguing, just use what you like. I loved how Girl with the Dragon Tattoo looked, but around that time I was not so happy with the Red MX, preferring the Alexa significantly. But Dragon Tattoo looked better to me than most contemporaneous Alexa shows, so what do I know.

 

 

 

This isn't a Kodak emulsion LUT its the LC709A.. "look" ( in Sony speak LUT) its been around for many years and is built into the camera.LUT options . you can actually burn in this LUT as you shoot if you want..its a LUT specifically designed to ape the Arri look.. Slog2 is notoriously hard to grade. its a massive color gamut that's spikes off to the left ...and forgive me for saying but I doubt your colorist was up to it.. its not even in the Venice.. stick to Slog3.cine. as per these tests.. which is the Cineon Curve /LogC ..I mean I hate to say it.. but here is yet again..a good example of people not really knowing what they are talking about.. you say student and far go but I would advise you and some others in this thread to actually really study the camera /Log curves before judging with little actually in the knowledge bank.. :) ..

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

 

This isn't a Kodak emulsion LUT its the LC709A.. "look" ( in Sony speak LUT) its been around for many years and is built into the camera.LUT options . you can actually burn in this LUT as you shoot if you want..its a LUT specifically designed to ape the Arri look.. Slog2 is notoriously hard to grade. its a massive color gamut that's spikes off to the left ...and forgive me for saying but I doubt your colorist was up to it.. its not even in the Venice.. stick to Slog3.cine. as per these tests.. which is the Cineon Curve /LogC ..I mean I hate to say it.. but here is yet again..a good example of people not really knowing what they are talking about.. you say student and far go but I would advise you and some others in this thread to actually really study the camera /Log curves before judging with little actually in the knowledge bank.. :) ..

 

My apologies. I'll do more research before posting in the future.

However, I think the bigger issue is I was inarticulate, and posted in a hurry, because you're significantly misreading the intent, though perhaps not the letter of my post. All the same, I apologize for both. I attempted to do my research first, and always do when posting online, but wrote in a hurry and perhaps conflated a number of my talking points. I will work to write more clearly and do more research in the future.
I was referring separately to a Kodak Vision LUT (which may have just been a preview LUT, so I could be totally wrong about that), F55 RAW, and Sony's Arri LUT, but citing all three as examples of settings that I think look good on the F5 and F55 because they handle highlight saturation differently from the default SLOG 2 setting. I could be totally wrong about the Kodak LUT–the DP loaded it and I forget if it was a recording or preview setting on top of the Alexa LUT now that I think back, and I apologize for the mistake.
One area where I thought was clear was in citing my specific issue with SLOG 2 (at least in its original incarnation in the F5–I haven't used that camera in years), that the highlights clip to saturated colors, whereas with the Alexa, saturation rolls off around 30 IRE and clips to white. I was referring to the Kodak LUT, Arri LUT, and default raw F55 settings (I believe, I could be wrong there) as examples of settings where blown colors clip gradually to white like the Alexa and like color negative film, and imo look better and are easier to work with than with SLOG 2.
I forget the exact article where I first read about this, and I'm sure I'm getting the semantics wrong, but I think it was here:
"Several years ago, at an NAB focus group, I showed Sony the difference in how Alexa saturates color with overexposure vs. an F55. Or, maybe I should say I showed them how Alexa desaturates color with overexposure: once a hue passes a point at or near middle gray in brightness, its saturation locks and it only gets brighter. Traditional video cameras continue to saturate color as exposure increases until color channels clip, at which point they focus on damage control to prevent highlights from shifting hues.
Arri emulates film, a subtractive color process where maximum color saturation is found in shadows and mid-tones. Sony works with video’s inherent additive color properties and allows saturation to increase with brightness until a color channel fails."
Chroma clipping is an issue I've heard discussed as a particular bugaboo by some of the top colorists in the industry, so it's not just journeyman colorists who struggle with that aspect of SLOG 2. Filming a red torch in SLOG 2 (at least as implemented in the F5 when I used it) would result in increasingly saturated and bright shades of red, ending in hard clipping from deeply saturated red to white; with an Alexa (or the three other FX5 settings I mentioned above), the saturation rolloff would be smooth and go more from pink to white. My friend worked with Stephen Sonnenfeld on a project shot on prosumer video cameras, and even he cited chroma clipping as an issue with certain video cameras that can be particularly troublesome for colorists, so I think it's not just amateurs who struggle with it.
Or perhaps I'm misunderstanding something, in which case I apologize but I would appreciate any helpful knowledge, particularly advice with grading clipped color channels in the highlights. I'm sure I'm just doubling down on incorrect terminology in trying to articulate my point, but I was referring specifically to the relationship between saturation and luminance in SLOG 2 versus certain other settings. (If those are the right terms.)
Anyhow, I apologize. I'm ashamed to admit I'm no longer a student, simply an amateur shooter who works in another area in the industry entirely. I've had a lot of experience working with F55 footage on Netflix shows in post and shooting with the F5 so I wanted to chime in with my experience, but that was years back and I should have done more research first. I might have mentioned the wrong LUT with the Kodak Emulation thing. When I posted I thought it was a LUT that handled highlight saturation like the Arri LUT, but it's totally possible it was just a preview LUT on top of that. And then I went and conflated three unrelated formats, making things even less clear. I hadn't posted here in years and forgot the seriousness of the website and am ashamed to have lowered the level of discourse. So my bad, I will stop posting opinions or advice and stick to questions. I'm still a student at heart, at least.
Edited by M Joel W
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I forgot to add that this was from before SLOG 3 and the Arri LUT were available.

 

All I was trying to say was that I found SLOG 2 didn't look great and was difficult to grade (based on my experience using an F5 shortly after launch), but that settings Sony introduced later look much better to me.

Edited by M Joel W
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

My apologies. I'll do more research before posting in the future.

However, I think the bigger issue is I was inarticulate, and posted in a hurry, because you're significantly misreading the intent, though perhaps not the letter of my post. All the same, I apologize for both. I attempted to do my research first, and always do when posting online, but wrote in a hurry and perhaps conflated a number of my talking points. I will work to write more clearly and do more research in the future.
I was referring separately to a Kodak Vision LUT (which may have just been a preview LUT, so I could be totally wrong about that), F55 RAW, and Sony's Arri LUT, but citing all three as examples of settings that I think look good on the F5 and F55 because they handle highlight saturation differently from the default SLOG 2 setting. I could be totally wrong about the Kodak LUT–the DP loaded it and I forget if it was a recording or preview setting on top of the Alexa LUT now that I think back, and I apologize for the mistake.
One area where I thought was clear was in citing my specific issue with SLOG 2 (at least in its original incarnation in the F5–I haven't used that camera in years), that the highlights clip to saturated colors, whereas with the Alexa, saturation rolls off around 30 IRE and clips to white. I was referring to the Kodak LUT, Arri LUT, and default raw F55 settings (I believe, I could be wrong there) as examples of settings where blown colors clip gradually to white like the Alexa and like color negative film, and imo look better and are easier to work with than with SLOG 2.
I forget the exact article where I first read about this, and I'm sure I'm getting the semantics wrong, but I think it was here:
"Several years ago, at an NAB focus group, I showed Sony the difference in how Alexa saturates color with overexposure vs. an F55. Or, maybe I should say I showed them how Alexa desaturates color with overexposure: once a hue passes a point at or near middle gray in brightness, its saturation locks and it only gets brighter. Traditional video cameras continue to saturate color as exposure increases until color channels clip, at which point they focus on damage control to prevent highlights from shifting hues.
Arri emulates film, a subtractive color process where maximum color saturation is found in shadows and mid-tones. Sony works with video’s inherent additive color properties and allows saturation to increase with brightness until a color channel fails."
Chroma clipping is an issue I've heard discussed as a particular bugaboo by some of the top colorists in the industry, so it's not just journeyman colorists who struggle with that aspect of SLOG 2. Filming a red torch in SLOG 2 (at least as implemented in the F5 when I used it) would result in increasingly saturated and bright shades of red, ending in hard clipping from deeply saturated red to white; with an Alexa (or the three other FX5 settings I mentioned above), the saturation rolloff would be smooth and go more from pink to white. My friend worked with Stephen Sonnenfeld on a project shot on prosumer video cameras, and even he cited chroma clipping as an issue with certain video cameras that can be particularly troublesome for colorists, so I think it's not just amateurs who struggle with it.
Or perhaps I'm misunderstanding something, in which case I apologize but I would appreciate any helpful knowledge, particularly advice with grading clipped color channels in the highlights. I'm sure I'm just doubling down on incorrect terminology in trying to articulate my point, but I was referring specifically to the relationship between saturation and luminance. (If those are the right terms.)
Anyhow, I apologize. I'm ashamed to admit I'm no longer a student, simply an amateur shooter who works in another area in the industry entirely. I've had a lot of experience working with F55 footage on Netflix shows and shooting with the F5 so I wanted to chime in with my experience, but that was years back and I should have done more research first. I might have mentioned the wrong LUT with the Kodak Emulation thing. When I posted I thought it was a LUT that handled highlight saturation like the Arri LUT, but it's totally possible it was just a preview LUT on top of that. And then I went and conflated three unrelated formats, making things even less clear. I hadn't posted here in years and forgot the seriousness of the website and am ashamed to have lowered the level of discourse. So my bad, I will stop posting opinions or advice and stick to questions. I'm still a student at heart, at least.

 

 

 

haha no need to apologize .. !! its just an inter web forum.. not a scholarly tome.. this funny thread has been rumbling on for years..

 

Sony Rec709 isnt as "nice" as Arri... pretty much any Sony owner will tell you that.. but its not a magenta .. Yellow.. Orange .. etc depending on the person who has a monitor set wrong or set the custom levels wrong.. its actually very accurate color reproduction .. and this its its problem really.. Arri saw this mistake.. and even Sony how now been nudged into the more cinema realm than TV.. with the new Lucent 709 color space.. BUT Sony f55 even 5 in Slog3.. can make very nice pictures .. i and if you can't get a good picture out of Raw 16 bit.. there is something very wrong with your work flow..

 

Its been proven quite a few times on this forum the perennial Sony haters actually don't have even near a good understanding of their EI system .. how even the menus work.. which is not hard as they are a nightmare ! also vastly improved with the Venice..

 

Edit.. Yes slog2 is a nightmare .. look at the color triangle.. its very hard to get right.. and its pretty much dead.. its not in the Venice at all..

Edited by Robin R Probyn
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Seems we agree on that, at least. All I meant to say was I didn't like SLOG 2 but I found later settings I used better. I just don't remember those settings well, it seems. I'm not sure if the Kodak LUT was a preview LUT or something in-camera now, so that was dumb of me.

 

I spent some time on other forums that are more amateur-oriented and picked up some bad posting habits. I'll stick mostly to asking questions here from now on, and I do value the expertise on this forum.

Edited by M Joel W
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Seems we agree on that, at least. All I meant to say was I didn't like SLOG 2 but I found later settings I used better. I just don't remember those settings well, it seems. I'm not sure if the Kodak LUT was a preview LUT or something in-camera now, so that was dumb of me.

 

I spent some time on other forums that are more amateur-oriented and picked up some bad posting habits. I'll stick mostly to asking questions here from now on, and I do value the expertise on this forum.

 

 

Im no expert.. Ive just had Sony Camera,s for a long time..and the f5 for 5 years now..and have shot with the f55 quite bit too.. it did take quite a few firmware up dates to get these camera,s up to speed.. as it seems with a lot of camera,s .. well everything these days.. buy anything new and you are a Beta tester really.. I would stick to Slog3 in the .cine color gamut.. its very easy to grade.. Arri LUTs will work.. its the Cineon curve basically..the same as Arri,s LogC there is no Kodak emulsion LUT built into the camera,s..which Sony Call LOOKS in the LUT menus.. but you can load your own of course I dont think Sony have officially ever produced them.. could be wrong.. but 3rd party they are available.. Im pretty sure Sony guru Allister Chapman has put some out..

 

Sorry if I came as grumpy old fart.. although that is pretty much what Iam.. every time it comes up I feel I have to just mention the obvious ..even sitting here in my hotel room on a tiny Island in the Pacific !! its empirically proven you can get good images from a Sony camera..there is a huge amount of evidence. but yes you do need to know something about the camera if you shoot Slog.. and EI mode on the Sony.. the menus are tricky .. when you own one you set up the user menu and its easy.. and even some AC,s will make mistakes with Sony menus.. Tyler had this on a shoot that was talked about years ago..to say Sony or X camera cannot make a good image is just nuts .. especially these days.. there is very little between mid to high range pro camera,s.. as Stuart alluded to.. I saw some blind test thing years ago with big time DP,s and the clip most liked the most was from a Canon 5D and had no grade at all !!. .. this idea that shooting with an Arri inherently magically your footage will"look good" is as crazy as shooting with a Sony will make your footage bad.. there are plenty of reasons footage can look bad.. but using a camera name starting with S or A will have very little bearing ..

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...