Shoot Flat, Fix Later

Just yesterday I discovered the approach to filming with post in mind.  And by this I mean you film footage to be color graded.  Prior to yesterday my thinking has been to get the shot looking as good as possible in camera so that little to no color correction will be needed in post.  Yet there is something that gets lost with this approach, I have learned.  And that something is dynamic range.  What is dynamic range?  It's the range of luminance within a scene, basically the amount of visible stops within a shot.  When you film a clip with the set color presets of the camera, intending to get the best shot in production, you are limiting yourself to what the camera can produce.  When the goal shouldn't be to acquire a dynamic range on set, but focus on filming as much detail as possible.  By preserving detail in your shots, the dynamic range can easily be pulled out in post.  The end result is more beautiful and aesthetically impressive footage.  Shots with more depth and life, and more wiggle room before the footage begins to deteriorate.

Yesterday, being my first attempt at this new style, was marred with mistakes.  I kept creating a lot of noise in my shots, not necessarily understanding exactly what I was doing.  So I conducted more research today and found a great post on Prolost.com:
http://prolost.com/blog/2010/1/26/color-correcting-canon-7d-footage.html

Using their suggestions of shooting flat, shooting to the right (basically over expose the image without clipping detail) and sharpening the image after applying a color correction, I have been able to create more impressive results than yesterday.  I have found that the preset "Nostalgic" in the GH2 gives the best washed out (flat) look and is on the lighter side of the luminance spectrum.  As you will see in the video it out performs the darker flat picture style and blows the enhanced color preset "Cinema" (intended to get good picture quality ungraded straight from camera) out of the water.

Color Grading Flat Preset

Today I learned an awesome bit of information about how to properly use the picture styles in the camera and how they apply to post production color correction.  And what I learned was that in order to get a greater dynamic range from my camera (visible stops from white to black) I need to shoot flat (low contrast and saturation) and pull apart the footage in post.  How I've been approaching filming recently has been to have the color preset be what I want so that I get the best quality directly out of the camera.  Now I learn that this approach actually limits the capability of potential image quality.  So here's some examples of my first attempt with shooting a flat style and pulling it apart in post.  I noticed a great deal of noise, however.  I had the noise reduction setting on my camera reduced so I will try again with this set all the way up.  Could also be that I'm editing this in FCP7, so I will try again at my home computer on FCP X to see if it makes a difference.

Daniel and Monique McCormick

Filmed last weekend.  Got to break in my GH2 for its first event use.  Filmed at 24fps 24mbps.

Lenses:
Rokkor-X MC 50mm f1.4
Underground MC Auto 135mm f2.8
Pentax 25mm f1.4
SLR Magic 35mm f1.7
Egleet 12mm f1.2

Edited and Color grade applied in FCP X.

Lens Review: Toyo Optics 12.5-75mm 1.8 TV Zoom Lens

So I tested out the Toyo Optics 12.5-75mm f1.8 macro zoom today.  After three arduous days of machining I finally filed it down to fit my adapter and focus to infinity.  I have to say that I think I found a new favorite lens.  It severely vignettes, covers about 40-50% of the sensor, so the ex tele function is mandatory.  However, at f1.8 all the way through, this is not so much a problem (ex tele funciton tends to generate grain at high iso levels).  This lens creates beautiful soft bokeh.  It's incredibly smooth.  From behind the camera I notice amazing contrast and color saturation.  It can focus on objects three to four feet away, which makes it great for rack focusing between subjects.  The zoom, focus, and aperture rings are really smooth.  It catches the aperture at each stop with a click, which is nice, though not as satisfying as my Rokkor 50mm.  It actually has an incredible macro mode.  I've used a zoom/macro lens before and wasn't too impressed with the macro capabilities and expected similar results.  however the range in macro mode is very impressive.  It can focus on objects at least a foot away from and all the way up to the edge of the lens itself.  The depth of field is quite shallow, maybe a centimeter or less.

CCTV Lens Test: Fujinon 4-10mm f1.8

I recieved a Fujinon 4-10mm 1.8 in the mail yesterday.  Really cheap build, all plastic.  Feels like what it is, which is a toy.  It, however, didn't work how I had anticipated.  I was hoping to invest in at best a cheap wide angle zoom or at worst a cheap wide angle.  What I ended up with was a crazy little wide angle macro lens.  There is only one setting at which the focal distance is outside the lens itself, even then it's less than half an inch away from the end of the lens.  Decided to entertain myself while I made several pots of coffee and tested this little lens out.  The lens is displayed at the end of the video.

Better than Professional Grade

We mainly use Canon XH-A1's at Davidson College.  This is a professional grade hdv camera that costs around $2800.  The media department recently went tapeless and ordered harddrives for the cameras.  So now with the harddives we've noticed deeper color saturation and contrast in the picture.  I just recently picked up the GH2 at around $800 for the body.  The lens I'm using is a 50mm Rokkor-X 1.4 that I grabbed off ebay for $55.

How this comparison came about was I got frustrated with the XH-A1.  There are just way too many switches and menus you have to go through just to plug in an external microphone.  Some days it works for me.  Other times I have no clue why I can't get the microphone to work and I have to use the onboard mic.  But with the Lumix, audio is simple; you plug the microphone into the camera.  So I recorded an interview with my camera and upon reviewing the footage was blown away by the difference of quality produced by a consumer camera compared with a professional camcorder.

I suggest watching the video at 1080 and pay attention to the level of detail in the hair.  The sharpness and clarity of detail of the Lumix far exceeds that of the XH-A1.  Really it's not fair to compare them.  I just find it slightly amusing.

CCTV Lens Test

Made this quick mini movie to test out FCPX and a 25mm 1.4 toy lens I picked up from ebay for $30.

New c mount lenses

Fujinon 4-10mm 1.8

Toyo Optics 12.5-75mm 1.8 Macro Zoom

Just purchased both of these lenses off of ebay for under $50 each.  Will post tests soon!

Davidson Portraits

Got a call from my friend Alex.  His dad is running for insurance commissioner and needed some photos for a campaign card.  This was a great time for me to break out my Pentax 25mm 1.4 and really put it to work.  These pictures are straight out of the camera.  I haven't done any corrections in photoshop, just to give you an idea of the contrast and color clarity this little $90 lens provides.

Initial FCPX Review

This weekend I ordered Final Cut Pro X.  Gasp!  Say it isn't so!  What are you thinking!?  I know, I know.  I willingly purchased iMovie Pro.  I realized that much of the initial backlash and continual criticism of FCP X made absolutely no sense to me at all.  The professional community is up in arms about the lack of "pro" features.  No support for xml, edl, omf, omg wtf are these things?  Ha, I have never used, nor been aware of such features.  Yet I don't consider myself by any means an amateur.  I make a living producing video content.  It is my profession.  But alas I do not work in any sort of high-end production house.  And I guess those are the professionals that Apple gave the finger to.  Yet for a guy like myself, a one-manned crew, perhaps this program is what I'm looking for.  So it's with this perspective that I took the plunge into the weary unknown.

My initial reaction...

FCP X does not recognize .mts files.  Fail.

I like the interface.  That's the first thing that jumps out at you.  It's simple and direct.  There are only three windows: Timeline, viewer, and event library.  No second viewer window.  Apple collapsed them into a single viewer.  And here's my first roadblock.  It's buggy.  Sometimes the viewer will get stuck playing only the event clips and it's a struggle to get it to recognize the content in the timeline.  As if it forgets it's supposed to be two viewers and no longer dedicated to a task.  This created a lot of clicking and frustration.  When the viewer works and recognizes what you want to see, it's fine.  Kind-of Fail.

They introduce a new way to view your content without having to actually play through the entire clip.  Apple calls this feature "skimming".  Personally I feel this is something past versions of FCP were seriously lacking.  The event library is laid out as a series of thumbnail/filmstrips.  As you move your mouse (don't even need to click and drag) across the thumbnail you move a red marker along its timeline and it shows you the frames within the event.  This is helpful in ... well... skimming clips for content, something that I would find myself doing often in FCP.  But that would require me to click on each clip, send it to the viewer, then click and drag through the clip to see the content.  Problem solved.

The magnetic timeline is pretty sweet.  Granted it's taking a little getting used to.  My style of editing has been to leave space between clips to give my projects breathing room.  But the initial reason I began editing this way was so if I needed to push a clip between others I would have to move them around to make room for the new clip, then put them back in place.  Now if I wish to insert a clip between two clips it's a simple drag and drop.  The clips automatically move out of the way and pop back into place.  No extra steps required.  The program does all this erroneous action automatically.  Problem solved.

A huge pain from FCP has been the way you have to create titles.  I've despised it.  If I had a title but wanted one section of the text larger than another I would have to make two separate text clips and align them manually and hope that I was eyeing it correctly.  FCP X has a MUCH improved motion graphics interface.  It actually works in a very similar manner to Motion, which I find great.  However this could be annoying to any FCP editor that has never worked with Motion before.  My own experience with Motion is quite basic, but enough to know the gist.  Now you can make a title with multiple text aspects and edit each of them individually without having to create separate text clips and line them on top of each other.  To me this alone is HUGE.  My biggest pita about FCP has finally been laid to rest.   Problem solved.

For some unknown reason, FCP X lacks a filter to sharpen your video footage.  I mean, you can blur your footage.  Can't sharpen it.  Fail.

FCP X actually is integrated with iTunes.  It can natively play .mp4 music files.  I no longer have to convert my music to .mp3 to move it to my editor.  Winning.  Problem solved.

There is no save option.  FCP X automatically saves your actions as you make them.  Still not sure how I feel about this.  I don't know how often it saves.  Several times in the past I've had FCP crash on me and lost hours of work because I neglected to save.  I no longer will face this issue.  Problem solved.

Often when I make videos my immediate step is to upload it to Vimeo, then to Youtube, then link to those videos from Facebook.  I usually render a high-resolution file of my project, compress that file down to Vimeo quality, then login to Vimeo and upload my video.  FCP X allows you the option to export DIRECTLY to Vimeo, Facebook, and Youtube.  This takes out about two steps of my old method.   Problem solved.

Initial reaction wrap-up: FCP X is not a high-end professional product.  It's for a more populated line of professionals: one manned crews that don't have the privilege of working in a high-end studio environment.  I feel this software highly benefits average joe pro and is a delight to prosumers.  You have a simple interface.  The confusing, often intimidating complexity of FCP has been removed.  Things are much more straightforward and to the point.  Content is visible and more easily accessible.  It's much more integrated into the Mac workflow than ever before.  It's faster.  A lot less time is spent waiting for clips to render, which is a joy and thrill.  It's much more intuitive.  Certain actions make more sense logically.  And I personally enjoy the title templates.  The stock animations are great.  You don't have to spend unwarranted time key framing and adding filters just to do a simple blur in title screen.  Overall, big thumbs up.  It basically solves issues I have and is what I need for the projects I have now.  Granted, one of my best assets to my resume has pretty much been tossed in a garbage can, but from my perspective the program is now more helpful and intuitive than it has ever been.

Lumix Lens Test

Hey All,
Just recently purchased the Panasonic Lumix GH2!  Why did I buy a new camera when I just recently bought the Sony a33?  And why move to a micro 4/3 system?

To address the first question, after filming three weddings I realized I need a camera that can do two things, record for an extended period of time and not overheat.  Yet I didn't want to make any sacrifice in image quality.  I began looking at the VG10 by sony, since I already have bought in to the minolta lens system.  However, during my research I found a video comparisson between the vg10 and the Panasonic Lumix GH2 in terms of aliasing and moire.  The GH2 blew the VG10 out of the water.  Add in the factor that the Lumix is anywhere from $500-$1000 cheaper than the Handycam, there was no question what camera I was to buy.

So I said farewell to the APS-C censor and hello to micro four thirds.  Since I work at a college as a contract employee and my salary is around the poverty line, I am always looking to save what I can where I can.  When I purchased the sony in the summer a main factor in this decision was due to the cheaper minolta lenses that were compatible with the alpha mount.  Throughout my research of Micro Four Thirds cameras I was led to discover the benefits of using c-mount lenses.  These lenses are small and inexpensive, designed to be used on cctv (security) cameras and old cine 16mm film cameras.  So why are they important?  Because they're very fast and have a low price point.  If you're smart about it, you may not even spend $100 per lens.  Yet there are a couple downsides to the lenses.  They are not designed to cover a micro four thirds sensor, so you can expect problems of vignetting and fringing near the edges.  How much depends on the lens.

So I have made a video testing out three of my new c-mount lenses on my GH2.  I recorded at 24fps, shutter speed at 50.  The lenses I used are:
Pentax 25mm 1.4
Tamron 12.5-50mm 2
Egleet 12mm 1.2

Overall I'm extremely pleased with my decision to purchase the Pentax 25mm 1.4.  It's quickly becoming my favorite lens.  Covers over 90% of the sensor and is extremely sharp.  Love the contrast and colors.  The aperture and focus rings are just extremely smooth.  I was able to pick it up at bhphotovideo.com for only $90.