Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Monday, September 10, 2012

Prores Film (Log Mode) on BMCC with and Without Ultracon

Here are some Prores (FILM) Log mode samples for you from the #BMCC.

 Sunset with Ultracon 1/2
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B7MFaN1VTm4mMkR0ZzRzRWxMc0k

 Sunset without Ultracon 1/2
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B7MFaN1VTm4mVVluRThrdFI4S28

 Dark To Light Pan with no Iris Pull (sunset)
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B7MFaN1VTm4mQkwxN1A3VnJMVWM

 Enjoy!

 Try grading them and see what you come up with. Definitely try the Alexa Curve if you haven't tried that in Resolve 9 yet.

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Monday, September 3, 2012

Using Raw

Raw is not meant for shooting your images underexposed and then pulling them up to find your black level.

Unless noise is what you are looking for.

Everyone tends to shoot differently, and people shoot differently in different scenarios.

When I shoot something as "black" I tend to want it to be black. If I wanted it Grey I would:

a. Put a light on it
or
b. Expose brighter

Of course this can be dangerous if you don't know where you want your mids. I don't want noise in my mids and I don't want my highlights to blow out, So I make sure the subject of interest is:
a. Lit
or
b. Lit enough that they aren't noisy - if this means opening the lens then that's what I do.
I'm not a big fan of shooting at super high ISO.

When you do that you are just telling yourself a Lie.

Because I used gain on this then I exposed it correctly.

It doesn't mean I won't underexpose and use a high iso intentionally EVER, but it does mean generally speaking.

As John Brawley said - this camera doesn't do noise reduction. It's an HONEST Camera. This is true.

LITERALLY THE MOST IMPORTANT FIRST STEP AFTER SHOOTING YOUR SHOT IS TO MAKE SURE WHITE BALANCE IN THE RAW IMAGE IS EXACTLY WHERE YOU WANT IT. THIS IS

 !!!!!________IMPORTANT_______!!!!

The other thing is - I would rate this camera at 400 under tungsten Light, and 800 under daylight.
You won't be convinced you are exposing correctly when you aren't if you don't expect to be running at iso 800 in the dark and then LIFTING things without White Balancing first.

I took a frame that someone was VERY worried about because it showed noise in the DARK AREAS when LIFTED and showed how it should be viewed here:







Now, this not exactly a masterpiece of cinema shot, but It's not meant to be lifted. Everything in the room is black. 
Black is black. 
The carpet in front of the camera is Dark Grey. And it's not lit.
You aren't supposed to be seeing anything because I didn't lift anything.

Thoughts? Questions?