So if you havent heard yet technicolor released a picture profile at NAB this year that increases the allows you to get the most out of your dslr sensor essentially increasing the dynamic range. It flattens your image picking up all the details in the shadows that are normally not picked up. With the standard dslr profile the shadows become far to crushed giving you little lee way in post. The website has all the details and how to upload it to your camera. This is pretty similar to just making a custom profile with settings reading from top down (-4 . -4 . -3 . 0) which flattens the image. Technicolor basically takes this step further "When the Technicolor CineStyle is selected in the camera it puts the standard H.264 REC709 color space into a log color space. Video images are recorded in log space. Still images are also converted into the same log color space." So if you want more lee way in post and to get the best dynamic range out of your sensor download this.http://www.technicolor.com/en/hi/cinema/filmmaking/digital-printer-lights/cinestyle
Technicolor Cinestyle for DLSRS
- Thread starter jeremy44
- Start date
snowisawesome
Member
could you show an example movie or video of this?
just a random video off of vimeo gives you a ideahttp://vimeo.com/23213199?ab. Best example is the image at bottom of techicolor website under one of the tabs.
KarmaInitiative
Active member
I installed this on my t2i, its really sick
Technicolor gives you a LUT file to essentially fix your luma curves so your image isn't as flat anymore. I believe final cut has native support for LUT files, Adobe products dont. If your want to be able to use these files in premiere or after effects, red giant (they make magic bullet) has a free program called "LUT buddy" to give you support for it, you can get it at http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/downloads/free-products/
Of course you can do the curves yourself, but this is what Technicolor suggests
Technicolor gives you a LUT file to essentially fix your luma curves so your image isn't as flat anymore. I believe final cut has native support for LUT files, Adobe products dont. If your want to be able to use these files in premiere or after effects, red giant (they make magic bullet) has a free program called "LUT buddy" to give you support for it, you can get it at http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/downloads/free-products/
Of course you can do the curves yourself, but this is what Technicolor suggests
It does not give you more dynamic range. If anything, it gives you less.
The way it gives more perceived dynamic range is that it makes the camera process darks as low-mids, and highs as upper-mids. This is because the h.264 codec is most damaging at the extremes of the spectrum.
The way to benefit using this is to expose for the highlights, then raising mids in post. This is called the "black stretch" method, which works very well for formats like ProRes and Cineform, but with 8-bit recording from DSLRs, there are two disadvantages:
1. middle values with smooth gradients will have banding because you are trying to resolve more levels of grey than the camera can capture.
2. More noise in the blacks. This can mostly be fixed however, through denoising, which is often done to DSLR footage anyway.
I suggest shooting contrast/saturation at 0, because you are otherwise asking too much of a still-too-fragile codec. After some tests, I found that the blacks stop at code value 16 regardless of your contrast setting. This means the camera will still process darks in the low-mids without having to shoot extremely flat. As for the colors...there's really no reason to discard color information. As long as you white balance correctly and don't use the in-camera software to increase saturation (0+) then it will only benefit.
The way it gives more perceived dynamic range is that it makes the camera process darks as low-mids, and highs as upper-mids. This is because the h.264 codec is most damaging at the extremes of the spectrum.
The way to benefit using this is to expose for the highlights, then raising mids in post. This is called the "black stretch" method, which works very well for formats like ProRes and Cineform, but with 8-bit recording from DSLRs, there are two disadvantages:
1. middle values with smooth gradients will have banding because you are trying to resolve more levels of grey than the camera can capture.
2. More noise in the blacks. This can mostly be fixed however, through denoising, which is often done to DSLR footage anyway.
I suggest shooting contrast/saturation at 0, because you are otherwise asking too much of a still-too-fragile codec. After some tests, I found that the blacks stop at code value 16 regardless of your contrast setting. This means the camera will still process darks in the low-mids without having to shoot extremely flat. As for the colors...there's really no reason to discard color information. As long as you white balance correctly and don't use the in-camera software to increase saturation (0+) then it will only benefit.
That's for you to decide. I sense that a lot of noobs are going to use this as further justification to not light the shot correctly. Realistically, all this does is make it easier for the colorist to integrate DSLR footage with other types. I still have yet to try this in lowlight, but I have found it useful in shots that have lots if shadow and blown out highs, but I wouldn't bank on this profile to magically reinvent my imagery.
goodiepocket
Member
I am very excited about this, however, one must understand the post work involved to get the true benefits from this Cinestyle.
Galin
Active member
I'm in your boat on this one. I don't see myself using this unless I'm shooting with my hvx and t2i and need to match coloring, or perhaps in lowlight situations (although I haven't loaded this up myself to test yet). H.264 is so fragile as is so I prefer to keep my post color work to a minimum when I shoot DSLR. Either way it seems like a useful profile to have on hand for certain situations. Definitely awesome of them to release it for free as well. That's all just initial reaction, I'll have to load it up sometime and play around for a bit so I can get a better idea of it's usefulness.