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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Shooting monochrome on my non-monochrome Dragon

K

Kyle Wright

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I shot a couple very different projects the past two weeks with my new Dragon, but this one was probably my favorite. The Dragon is a whole new beast and I'm still learning how the sensor responds to different scenarios. The thing that really blew me away was how the Dragon handles highlights. There is so much more dynamic range and when the highlights do start clipping, the rolloff is very attractive. I know, I know, nothing you haven't heard a hundred times already. But it's true.

It's not too often that I have clients ask for black and white, so I always love it when I get the chance to do something monochromatic. Since I don't have a Monochrome Dragon (though I'd love to get one!), I shot everything with the saturation turned down to 0. We used EF mount lenses and I lived mostly on a 50 or 85mm (usually at a F1.8 or faster). We had a 1200 HMI (but the ballast died on the first shot), a couple 2K pars, a basic Arri lighting kit (1K, two 650s, and a 300), and whatever practicals the location had built in. I tried to keep the camera rated at ISO 320-500, though I don't mind shooting higher ISO as I love the texture of grain in b/w. Shot in 6K WS at 7:1 compression.

Having crazy photogenic talent doesn't hurt either. :thumbsup:

A001_C016_0611JY.0000582.jpg


A001_C031_06128A.0000429.jpg


A001_C047_0612PS.0000219.jpg


Images are almost exactly what came out of camera. I bumped the S-Curve around for a couple seconds, but that's really all the post processing I did.
 
Nice
 
Is that Alayna? I swear she is from Seattle.
 
Looks great man.
 
Domenic Barbero said:
Is that Alayna? I swear she is from Seattle.
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Why yes, it is her and yes, she is from the Seattle area (I asked when I heard she was from Washington, as I grew up in Spokane).
 
Fun. I pray for the resurrection of B/W cinematography, at least on certain projects. Fincher as renowned champion of digital cinema really did good with JT's Suit & Tie music video and Rooney Mara perfume ad. Of course there's a lot more great examples of talented guys shooting for B/W on RGB sensor or native monochrome one. I especially love infrared photography (yes, yes, yes, please more).
 
>>I shot everything with the saturation turned down to 0.

Why don't you do that in post (unless speed is an issue) so you can have the option to have it in color and also the option to have 3 black and white layers (1 for red 1 for green and 1 for blue) so you can intermix them for a lot more options. I personally feel that you have a lot more creative options black and white talking when you shoot color and changing it over to black and white than just black and white because them you are stuck. If you know exactly what you want then you can play with filters like red/orange etc for dramatic skies blah blah blah no?
 
Lakis Amarantithis said:
Why don't you do that in post (unless speed is an issue)
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As far as I know, he is just affecting the screen output, not the RAW footage. By turning the saturation down, it at least allows him to see what lighting adjustments and such to make. The power of RAW.
 
Small world. I've worked with her a few times.
 
Mark L. Pederson said:
Very nice. What lens?
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Nothing special. 85mm Rokinon and 50mm Canon f1.8 for these shots, as well as the Sigma 20mm f1.8 for a couple others.

Lakis Amarantithis said:
>>I shot everything with the saturation turned down to 0.

Why don't you do that in post (unless speed is an issue) so you can have the option to have it in color and also the option to have 3 black and white layers (1 for red 1 for green and 1 for blue) so you can intermix them for a lot more options. I personally feel that you have a lot more creative options black and white talking when you shoot color and changing it over to black and white than just black and white because them you are stuck. If you know exactly what you want then you can play with filters like red/orange etc for dramatic skies blah blah blah no?
Click to expand...

The reasoning was that I could get a better idea of how the lighting would affect the final image by monitoring in b/w. As Andy noted, it's just metadata and I can just turn the RAW saturation back up in REDCine and have the colored version to fine-tune the grade as you suggest.
 
Great shots.

Regarding why shoot in Black n White, we recently did the same thing for a shoot (shot on Epic). And our main reason for shooting bw in camera, rather than in post, was because we were using colored filters to bring out more separation and definition.
 
great shots, i also love shooting in b&w as much as possible!

im also in north hollywood- would love to lend a hand if you ever need it and would be curious to hear about your rental rates!
 
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