Diffusion, "Film look", and the Epic

[Karim D. Ghantous]

Every movie is a fake. The clarity,color, flatness,dimentionality, it's all a rectangular window big fat fake. So the style of fakeness is changing. Get used to it.

This answer is fallacious - in fact there are at least two implicit fallacies but they are so intermingled it's hard to tell them apart.

to add a shadow or knock down a highlight

Like dodging and burning? The most useful tool in Aperture (we're talking stills here) would be the highlight recovery slider. You do have to add some exposure compensation in proportion to the amount of recovery used, but it's easy, simple and doesn't add to or detract from the image.

Ideally, all we do in the final color-correction process is just to put the icing on the cake, rather than put stitches and tourniquets on a dying patient.

You are so getting quoted. ;-)

 

[Florian Stadler]

If you want diffusion in post - add it in production. Cheaper, better, more effective. (Personally not a huge fan of diffusion -takes away the immediacy of undiffused exposure)
You are paid to make decisions. Make them. If you keep deferring decisions to post, you will justifiably not get hired and paid to make decisions anymore. Don't shoot yourself in the foot - recording media has plenty of flexibility built in - but DO MAKE DECISIONS.

 

[Ignacio Aguilar]

It may sound old-fashioned, but I still like to use a 1/8 or 1/4 Double Fog from time to time.

 

[Timur Civan]

a 1/8th HollyWood BM is in front of my lens 70% of the time.

 

[Karim D. Ghantous]

Behold, Jon, I bring new light! I just started watching the BBC series, Apparitions. I cannot recommend it highly enough - it's superb.

Anyway, it was no doubt shot with digital cameras (obvious in at least a few scenes, distracting in one). But the image looks great most of the time, especially in low-light scenes. Perhaps a mild diffuser was used for this show. I suspect so, based on an out-of-focus rendering of some candles. I haven't found any information about the equipment used, but I'm sure you can find out somehow.

 

[francisco santos]

cant say how much i love my black magic 1/8th and my other scheider filters really helps with the overly sharp image.

 

[Brandon Kelly]

I have been using an 1/8th bpm and 1/8 low con quite a bit the past month and love the look. Adds something a little bit special to a lot of scenes.

 

[francisco santos]

I have been using an 1/8th bpm and 1/8 low con quite a bit the past month and love the look. Adds something a little bit special to a lot of scenes.

yeah i hear so many people say "do it in post" Im sorry but what it does I cant do in post! lol

 

[Dennis Hingsberg]

You can try to put in black Dior stocking at the back of the lens.
http://www.hurlbutvisuals.com/blog/2012/05/diffusion-for-the-digital-age-part-2/

That looks really great.

 

[Jake Wilganowski]

a little haze, Lowlight Dragon, Hollywood Blackmagic 1/4, and Contax zeiss 50mm 1.4

 

[Dennis Hingsberg]

Sure you guys have seen this series of tests, but thought I'd post it anyways. Lots tested here; smoque, satin, hd tvfx, warm soft fx, digital diffusion fx, soft fx, warm black mist pro, warm pro mist, bronze glimmer glass, black net, pearlescent, black pro mist, gold diffusion fx, pro mist, glimmerglass…

https://vimeo.com/channels/281191/page:2

 

[Naim Sutherland]

When I can, I do it in camera:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPRMjTXcOvs&feature=youtu.be

And I continue in post: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoQxKnI1qBw

https://vimeo.com/90196599

What kinds of results are people seeing mimicking these kinds of effects in post? I have a shoot coming up which will be entirely on greenscreen, so I will have to avoid lens filtration. Ideally I would like to see some softening and subtle halation of highlights. Ideally I'd shoot on vintage 1970s anamorphics, but they are outside the budget and I worry about the extra thin DOF causing keying issues on out of focus elements. Instead I'll shoot on my vintage Leica Rs... Anything I can do to reduce the clean, sharp digital feel in post on this show would be great.

What are some of your best post production created results for adding more character to a necessarily clean acquisition image?

 

[Marc Wielage]

What are some of your best post production created results for adding more character to a necessarily clean acquisition image?

Tiffin has some good plug-ins that approximate the look of their filters. I use their DFX package with Resolve and it does a pretty good job:

http://software.tiffen.com/products/dfx-products

It's fair to say a digital plug-in is not as "organic" as an actual glass filter, but it is infinitely more controllable, plus you can adjust the filtration only to the parts of the image that need it the most: for example, on skies but not faces, or on faces but not the background.

 

[Arthur Woo]

a little haze, Lowlight Dragon, Hollywood Blackmagic 1/4, and Contax zeiss 50mm 1.4

Love it