Member of the Month

KilaTsunami
October, 2024

Online

Welcome to the Newschoolers forums! You may read the forums as a guest, however you must be a registered member to post. Register to become a member today!

Flatlight filming help!

profile picture
B1kessk1s
Posts: 953 - Karma: 691
when shooting on a cloudy day, whats the best setting with a canon t3i/t2i????? my colors suck hard !
Jun 11 2011 12:12PM
0 0
profile picture
S.C
Posts: 3068 - Karma: 2,285
Custom white balance, manual exposure, lens wide open, sharpening and contrast off, saturation down two notches.
Jun 11 2011 12:37PM
0 0
profile picture
B1kessk1s
Posts: 953 - Karma: 691
thx i'll try this. do you have a video example???
Jun 11 2011 12:54PM
0 0
profile picture
S.C
Posts: 3068 - Karma: 2,285
Naw sorry man, I just got my camera
Jun 11 2011 2:10PM
0 0
profile picture
S.C
Posts: 3068 - Karma: 2,285
And also this is a good setup for all conditions, thought you may have to close the lens up a little and adjust the exposure
Jun 11 2011 2:12PM
0 0
profile picture
S.C
Posts: 3068 - Karma: 2,285
Stupid phone, sorry for the triple post, but you may have to do that shooting in brighter conditions
Jun 11 2011 2:13PM
0 0
profile picture
[~_~]
Posts: 20239 - Karma: 1,273
Sorry but I would never ever recommend this unless the lens is slow and only goes to f4.

The ideal aperture is around f/5.6. For skiing, I like it lower, around f/11 or so, but that's just me.

As for scene file, shoot semi-flat, but not too flat. Stop down until the image is bright as possible while still having snow detail.

In post, drop the mids, and bump the highs to compensate. Raise the black pedestal if necessary, because crushed blacks in flat light looks even more awful than it does in good light.
Jun 11 2011 2:19PM
0 0
profile picture
B1kessk1s
Posts: 953 - Karma: 691
thank you sir! but do you have a tutorial or something i could follow step by step because i dont know where to find it on my t3i neither on adobe premiere pro cs5
Jun 11 2011 2:29PM
0 0
profile picture
[~_~]
Posts: 20239 - Karma: 1,273
By "it" you mean...?
Jun 11 2011 2:38PM
0 0
profile picture
B1kessk1s
Posts: 953 - Karma: 691
it i mean do i have to set the colors to neutral mode(it says when i choose this option: good for image editing) but the sharpeness is +7........
Jun 11 2011 2:57PM
0 0
profile picture
[~_~]
Posts: 20239 - Karma: 1,273
Never max out your sharpness on DSLRs. It only creates more moiré and artifacting. I shoot with the sharpness turned all the way down to compensate.

I never was very fond of Neutral mode either; to me it makes unnatural skin tones. I used to shoot everything in Landscape mode, but now Cinestyle works wonders for flat light.

The following was shot in Landscape mode:
sharpness: 0
contrast: -3
Saturation: 0
hue: 0

I normally use curves in Color but I figure this will do...

First I exposed so that the whites weren't clipping (losing detail due to overexposure)
Click for larger image

I started by raising the blacks because I found them too dark in the original file. Unlike normal footage, getting contrast in snow is the product of balancing mids/highs rather than mids/lows. So I dropped the mids to get more snow shadow, then raised the highs to compensate. I also gave the blacks a little more blue because in my mind's eye, I perceive flat light to be colder than sunlight.
Click for larger image

Here's how it looked after:
Click for larger image
Jun 11 2011 3:34PM
0 0
profile picture
[~_~]
Posts: 20239 - Karma: 1,273
wow NS has really bad photo compression... the last photo looks way darker than it really is for some reason.
Jun 11 2011 3:35PM
0 0
profile picture
B1kessk1s
Posts: 953 - Karma: 691
omg !!!! a reallly big thanks to you man !!! will try this next time and i'll post in this thread!!!!!! really useful tip right here!
Jun 11 2011 3:45PM
0 0
profile picture
[~_~]
Posts: 20239 - Karma: 1,273
I uploaded some better samples:

Before
Click for larger image

After
Click for larger image
Jun 11 2011 6:18PM
0 0
profile picture
deleted2
Posts: 958 - Karma: 107
meh the before looks better, and there is no single way to do color correction, everyone has there own opinions on colors.
Jun 11 2011 6:42PM
0 0
profile picture
[~_~]
Posts: 20239 - Karma: 1,273
Color correction ≠ grading. Color correction is generally a very clear-cut process; the colorist neutralizes all the colors and tones, and does so consistently from shot-to-shot before the grading process begins. Grading is indeed very subjective, however.

My main point is that if he wants to get more detail in flat light, he needs to be careful not to clip the darks and highlights, and to balance the mids/highs in post to achieve snow detail. The toning was completely optional; I just love blue. Of course my demonstration was extremely rudimentary since OP clearly is new to this...

OP, another essential piece of advice I forgot: get a polarizer. It will bring out much more snow detail and make your colors pop.
Jun 11 2011 7:07PM
0 0
profile picture
B1kessk1s
Posts: 953 - Karma: 691
well here it is: my video example. look at colors...... it sucks hard !

password: trialbike


Jun 11 2011 7:11PM
0 0
profile picture
[~_~]
Posts: 20239 - Karma: 1,273
Tones looked fine to me...maybe add a little more contrast in the cloud timelapse if you like...

As for colors, they looked good. If you want to escape the neutral look, grading is a much more technical process that requires knowledge of basic color theory at the very least.
Jun 11 2011 7:23PM
0 0
profile picture
WillStart
Posts: 3955 - Karma: 3,192
landis i hate to say it but the colors in the first look quite a bit more accurate to me...
Jun 11 2011 8:23PM
0 0
profile picture
[~_~]
Posts: 20239 - Karma: 1,273
Who said anything about accuracy?
Jun 11 2011 8:27PM
0 0
profile picture
WillStart
Posts: 3955 - Karma: 3,192
"I never was very fond of Neutral mode either; to me it makes unnatural skin tones."

kinda felt like that, along with the rest of that post, implied we were talking about how to get accurate colors and levels in flat light.

i know you said that you like blue tones, but i just thought this thread was more about correction, not grading
Jun 11 2011 8:40PM
0 0
profile picture
[~_~]
Posts: 20239 - Karma: 1,273
I like to start with a "natural" base image. And like I said, my advice was very rudimentary and simplified because I didn't feel like taking the time to explain scopes, histograms, rooms, and the massive topic of color theory. Just a simple way to make the colors look nicer.
Jun 12 2011 9:25PM
0 0
All times are Eastern (-5)