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t2i technicolor

dlevanchuk

dlevanchuk

Yesterday I installed technicolor cinestyle on my t2i, and noticed that as I decrease the arpeture, all blacks are now .. grays..
Is that normal?

(Or should I go see a doctor? Lol)
 
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What it attempts to do is maximize the amount of information you're capturing... so only the TRUEST black will hit that 0 mark and only the truest white will hit the 100. That way, none of the blacks or whites clip and although the whole thing looks a bit gray in camera, the data is preserved for the post production workflow. There, you can bring those mids down a bit "crushing the blacks" and stretching the whites.

If you imagine a rubber band with a gradient on it from one end to the other, black to white. When you grab the middle, you can "stretch" one side while "crushing" the other side by moving the gray point toward it.
 
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It's become a little more controversial as it's been out longer.

You are still only dealing with a 4:2:0 color space and 8 bits. The way it get's more detail in the shadows and highlights (does it's job better at the shadows end by the way) is by tricking camera into taking some of it's detail info from the mids and giving it to the highlights/shadows. That has side effects not all of which I remember, but it has caused some people to stop using it.

That being said, I use it for most stuff. being able to control at what point the shadows start to crush out is very very nice. Those gray blacks you see are the same way it would look if you applied 7.5 IRE broadcast standards to it ("black being 7.5 IRE instead of 0 IRE), it looks very similar.

When you use it, create a custom profile (I like saturated and fairly crushed, so I use a faux Kodachrome profile). Use THAT profile (which is close to the final look you want) for exposure and focus, THEN switch to cinestyle right before you roll. If you don't you'll tend to underexpose everything.
 
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Oh that's a great advice, gonzo! I ll definitely do some excessive testing this weekend, see what I'm working with. I did notice the footage being a bit too dark, during the first quick test. Custom profile route it is!
 
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I've really liked using Cinestyle on the t2i and 7D so far.

You can get a good idea of the latitude when you go to adjust Levels in post. You'll notice you have quite a bit of space on the black side to slide upward before you start to crush blacks.
 
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Gonzo_Entertainment said:
When you use it, create a custom profile (I like saturated and fairly crushed, so I use a faux Kodachrome profile). Use THAT profile (which is close to the final look you want) for exposure and focus, THEN switch to cinestyle right before you roll. If you don't you'll tend to underexpose everything.
Click to expand...

Good advice.

I toggle between Canon's standard and the custom preset, especially for focusing purposes. But it makes sense for a quick exposure check.
 
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FrankLad said:
Good advice.

I toggle between Canon's standard and the custom preset, especially for focusing purposes. But it makes sense for a quick exposure check.
Click to expand...

It's just tempting when what you see looks overexposed (cinestyle) for your brain to tell your hand to stop it down a little. Also, gives you a better idea (for lighting) what it will look like when you process it.
 
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Took some test video with technicolor profile. Looks pretty damn good!

I did some quick color correction. Going for the "Seattle" look of blues and gray :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TdXv2j4IKo
 
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One thing I learnt off a pro photographer (which should be very relevant to HDSLR shooters) is that information is recorded in such a way (logarythmic?) that there are far more data values in the lighter areas than the darker areas. As such he (and many pros) over expose as much as they can to take advantage of this as much as possible and reduce exposure in post. Pulling detail out of highs causes less artefacts than pulling detail out of shadows.
If you are grading in FCP there are correction curves available on the technicolor site to pull the image back to how it should be quickly and easily. I find that with this profile shadowed colours are less muted and far more vibrant. Have heard from a few sources that when using this profile you should set your ISO to multiples of 160 which probably means the Magic Lantern hack or similar.
 
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With DSLR I expose for the highlights. They are the place DSLR (and digital in general) falls flat on it's face. So as I'm setting up a shot the most important thing is making sure nothing blows out, especially a source I can't control (like a window or strong practical) then work back from there.
 
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Chrisk said:
One thing I learnt off a pro photographer (which should be very relevant to HDSLR shooters) is that information is recorded in such a way (logarythmic?) that there are far more data values in the lighter areas than the darker areas. As such he (and many pros) over expose as much as they can to take advantage of this as much as possible and reduce exposure in post. Pulling detail out of highs causes less artefacts than pulling detail out of shadows.
Click to expand...

On a RAW Still that might be pretty great advice in some situations, but if you overexpose the video, it's overexposed. You can't lower the brightness in post on something that's blown out.

I've been pretty happy with CineStyle so far.
 
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You're not dealing with enough info to "pull the detail" out of either area really on a DSLR in video mode. Cinestyle helps, but 4:2:0 8 bit color space is what it is.

The consensus (I think) is you expose for the highlights. Blown out digital highlights are pretty much the ugliest thing in the universe. When I shoot interiors with practicals the first thing I do is run around and replace every bulb that might be in the shot with a 15 watt. Then you either throw some light on the shadow areas to bring them up or you let the chips fall where they may on the shadows. Noisey shadows I can crush to black, a blown out highlight is forever.
 
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Yes, highlights as the shadows will hide their clippy ugliness a bit in the logarithmic curve at the bottom of the image (as your eye perceives it). The highlights, however, to our light eating eyes, is completely noticeable, even if it happens just a little. In the film world, this would be the same for slide film or reversal film. Defend the upper reaches gentlemen (and gentlewomen). Light the beneathy bits to bring it up into the camera's range. The images you get will love you more :)

The other option is to light the scene, expose for that, then wrangle the bright bits hyou don't control down with scrims and flags to fend off the demons of brightly.

I have no idea where any of that came from ... sorry, not enough sleep -- too much editing.
 
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