Gamma Curve

thefilmgeek

thefilmgeek

I guess I'll kick things off, just for the heck of it.

I believe the first thing you should definitely be doing to get the 'film' look, or as I call it a professional look, is to modify the gamma curve of your existing digital video. Video shoots sort of a straight line gamma curve, while film has more of an S to it. This basically brings out your highlights, and drops down the blacks.

Practically speaking, that means your footage won't have that typical neutral look to it, where it has almost a grey tint, instead of having absolute blacks, and full highlights (not blown out of course).

Here is an example of a straight gamma curve, and an S curve superimposed on top of it I found on a quick google search to help drive the point home: http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~rt6k-okn/its98/fig-1.gif

As you can see on the top and bottom of the line, for 'film' it's curving off, giving it an 'S' shape.
 
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I have to tell you, that an s-shaped gamma curve has nothing to do with the film gamma.
It is just a gamma setting used to enhance the contrast in an image but it is not the same as a film characteristic curve. Btw, video does not have a flat gamma, but a curved gamma.
Film gamma is quite stright over the whole exposure range with a shoulder in the highlights (resulting in nice highlight saturation) an a toe in the shadows (resulting in shadow detail).
Your s-curve just crunches highlights and shadows.
 
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thefilmgeek said:
From my personal experience, the gamma curve on video is pretty flat. Otherwise, it wouldn't need a correction in the first place. :)
Click to expand...

Every video camera has it's own gamma, cameras like the Canon XH-A1 lets you change the gamma curve.
It is very possible to set the Canon to produce contrasty images - just change some settings. The higher the dynamic range the flatter an image looks.
 
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