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Contrast and crappy footage

A

AlexJones

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Hey everyone. Is there any pre-made look out there that gives you a little more contrast than the regular red gamma3? I shoot wildlife and it's frustrating to have to grade the milky image before sending it off. I just want something simple and good (like the log you'd get on the 5d or the Varicam. They have a good out of the cam contrast.) What can I do to get this?

Also, I don't know what's going on but I feel like every time I shoot, the footage doesn't look that amazing or sharp. Today I shot pelicans and seaguls feeding and honestly, it looks like sh..i.tt.. Here are a few r3d's to show you. What am I doing wrong? Is it the light, my settings? I'm new to RAW and I don't fully understand how to shoot it yet.

http://we.tl/0Fl2gZSdxM
 
Alex,
Take one of your R3D's into Redcine X, put a slight curve on it to your liking and then save the look and drop it onto the Redmag. Or, raise the contrast slider and save as a look. You can then import that look to the camera. Or you can adjust the picture settings in camera to add contrast as well.
 
Why are you shooting at 2k? This will give you soft images.
 
Here are some tips:

1. Do not shoot 2K (with RED it's just a zoom in on the center of the sensor, so you lose a lot of resolution and sharpness isn't optimal)
2. Do not shoot below 320ISO, ever. It will cause you to clip your highlights faster and underexpose when trying to protect your highlights. The sensor is native 320ISO and uses a LUT to go up to 800ISO with no noise. Going under 320 causes severe underexposure and highlight clipping and reduces the effective dynamic range.
3. Up your shutter speed for these moving subjects. There seems to be too much motion blur which will also cause a loss of apparent sharpness.
4. Check your flange focal distance from your lens mount to the sensor. Your images are either out of focus due to operator error or you need to a) have your lenses serviced b) adjust flange distance of the mount using a probe or scope to get precise results.
5. Do not go higher than 5:1 compression in high detail scenes.
6. Add a bit of post sharpening to your images. It's a RAW image and has no sharpening added. Use the Unsharp Mask tool in Redcine X.
7. First thing you should do when coloring RED footage is make sure color temp is correct before making any other adjustments.
8. Avoid shooting lenses closed down past f8. This is where lens flaws really start to appear again and softness usually occurs.
9. Personally I always set the "post saturation" to 1.2, just to bring out the colors a bit more.
 
Hey Alex I did very quick grade in RCX, see if this helps. I did notice that the meta data seemed to say you were shooting on a 300mm prime at F28. If you were in fact shooting that stopped down that may have also led to some "softness". But I thought this shot was pretty great! I may have gone overboard with the saturation forgive me, still getting used to RCX.

9561948060_a3e67816fa_c.jpg



FYI to all. Alex was shooting 4K (not 2k), on Scarlet, at ISO 250 (a bit low, but seems to be ok).
 
Nick Morrison said:
FYI to all. Alex was shooting 4K (not 2k), on Scarlet, at ISO 250 (a bit low, but seems to be ok).
Click to expand...

There was 2 2k shots as well. The close up's of the pelicans.
 
Hi everyone! Thanks for the great feedback and tips! I didn't know about going below 320iso so is that my prime ISO or is 800? Meaning less noise and better look overall. I find 800 is way too bright for outside so that's why I bump it to 250 and open up iris. I shoot at 2k for 2 reasons. Slow mo and to get closer. My 300 just doesn't get close enough sometimes. I also need to invest in some nd filters. This is why I always stop to f20 or f32 even! I Ddnt know it effected sharpness. Anything else I need to know as far as sharpness is concerned? I don't know why but I feel like I've gotten much prettier images with varicam than my scarlet. What is it? It's a little frustrating. Matt you mentioned adjusting the flange. Are they not set properly out of the box? I'm always worried about adjusting shutter. I just don't want the footage to look jerky like it always does when I go past 1/60. Where do I not want to go past? The last is compression. You said don't go higher than 5:1 do you mean 1:1 being highest and 10:1 being lowest or the opposite because I always keep mine at 6:1 the scarlet won't allow me to go to 5:1 or back.
 
AlexJones said:
Hi everyone! Thanks for the great feedback and tips! I didn't know about going below 320iso so is that my prime ISO or is 800? Meaning less noise and better look overall. I find 800 is way too bright for outside so that's why I bump it to 250 and open up iris. I shoot at 2k for 2 reasons. Slow mo and to get closer. My 300 just doesn't get close enough sometimes. I also need to invest in some nd filters. This is why I always stop to f20 or f32 even! I Ddnt know it effected sharpness. Anything else I need to know as far as sharpness is concerned? I don't know why but I feel like I've gotten much prettier images with varicam than my scarlet. What is it? It's a little frustrating. Matt you mentioned adjusting the flange. Are they not set properly out of the box? I'm always worried about adjusting shutter. I just don't want the footage to look jerky like it always does when I go past 1/60. Where do I not want to go past? The last is compression. You said don't go higher than 5:1 do you mean 1:1 being highest and 10:1 being lowest or the opposite because I always keep mine at 6:1 the scarlet won't allow me to go to 5:1 or back.
Click to expand...

320 will give you the least noise, but 800 ISO will give you the most highlight headroom to prevent clipping. You will clip faster at 320ISO. Definitely invest in some ND's and 800 wont be a problem in daylight. What lenses did you use on your varicam? Also, remember that the varicam is a smaller sensor so it has a deeper depth of field and more room for focus errors to still get a sharp image. The varicam also adds sharpness, saturation, and contrast to your files so they will look more polished out of the box. They are typically accurate on flange distance out of the box, but hanging a heavy lens off of it or banging it around will cause it to get off. At 24fps I shoot up to 1/92nd shutter speed without really seeing any jerky looking footage. Try it out and see if you like the look. It will also give you more apparent sharpness. 3:1 is the highest compression available. For Scarlet stay at 6:1 as often as possible. The higher the ratio, the more compression and the more you will lose detail in shots.

I'd suggest you get a doubler for your lens so you don't need to drop to 2K to get in tighter. For slow mo I personally don't go higher than 48fps in 3K on Scarlet because I avoid 2K like the plague. Just my personal opinion.
 
What Matt said.

Certainly some diffraction softness happening due to the deep aperture and a bit of overexposure which is clipping your highlights.

ND or HDRx a stop or two would have helped here.

alexJonesBirds.jpg
 
Stopping down more than F8 @ 4k will lead to softer images. At 2k the drop off point is probably about F4,
 
And Alex, two more suggestions. Your ND filtration MUST be Hot Mirror NDs at .9 and above. I use and highly recommend Formatt brand Hot Mirror ND filters. Keeps that ISO at 800 at least. A lot of folks here may not do this, but if I have a lot of highlights going on in water, etc, I will go up to 1280 ISO, as the highlight protection improves with ISO. There's less shadow detail, but there's already so much detail in shadows it doesn't bother me.
I also put a curve on the top end of the LUT, down through the mids. This dramatically improves color response, and also smooths the highlights. There is slightly less detail at the very top of the highlights this way, but it looks much smoother and film like. Bottom line, adjust your curves and be sure to test the look on a variety of shots. I felt the same way you do until doing these things.
 
AlexJones said:
Hi everyone! Thanks for the great feedback and tips! I didn't know about going below 320iso so is that my prime ISO or is 800? Meaning less noise and better look overall. I find 800 is way too bright for outside so that's why I bump it to 250 and open up iris. I shoot at 2k for 2 reasons. Slow mo and to get closer. My 300 just doesn't get close enough sometimes. I also need to invest in some nd filters. This is why I always stop to f20 or f32 even! I Ddnt know it effected sharpness. Anything else I need to know as far as sharpness is concerned? I don't know why but I feel like I've gotten much prettier images with varicam than my scarlet. What is it? It's a little frustrating. Matt you mentioned adjusting the flange. Are they not set properly out of the box? I'm always worried about adjusting shutter. I just don't want the footage to look jerky like it always does when I go past 1/60. Where do I not want to go past? The last is compression. You said don't go higher than 5:1 do you mean 1:1 being highest and 10:1 being lowest or the opposite because I always keep mine at 6:1 the scarlet won't allow me to go to 5:1 or back.
Click to expand...

You need to buy ND.
 
You might consider picking up a Variable ND filter. I have a 77mm filter for my Canon L lenses, and it is awesome! It really lets you dial in the precise amount of light you want while still maintaining a shallow depth of field.

Heliopan makes some solid options: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/searc...&N=0&InitialSearch=yes&sts=ma&Top+Nav-Search=

Also, you'll notice that these types of filters have a slight softening / low contrast effect, so you will need to compensate with a deeper shadow curve in post, and potentially some unsharp mask work. Also, remember that no matter what ISO you choose, you still must obey the goal posts, histogram, and traffic lights. Those will ensure that you always get a well-exposed image.
 
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