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Question about using 'picture styles'.

H

harmonica44

Do you people behind the camera, use one 'picture style' for a whole movie, or do you switch them up, depending on the scene?

I have done quite a few tests, and showed them to friends for opinions and it seems that the best looking picture styles in my Canon T2i, are Landscape, and Faithful.

However, they don't look good possibly in every situation, depending on the light source, and contrast in the environment of course. I could switch styles as I go from scene to scene for what is appopriate, based on lighting sources. However, is this a bad idea, cause it may cause the audience to get pulled out of the movie, cause of inconsistency?

The feature I helped on last year, had that problem, the look of the movie was too different from scene to scene, and viewers found it distracting. I would like to keep a consistent look so would I have to choose the best profile for all environments therefore? I can do that, I just have to pick between those two if that's the case.

Also I tried turning the contrast all the way up in camera in both and it looks good, and has more detail. However, it may have too much detail as you can see more wrinkles and freckles and what not in actor's faces. But perhaps a good make up artist can cover that up, and its worth turning all the way up to make the scene look real good, as long as you got the make up artist. Or is too much detail a bad thing, and contrast shouldn't be that high in the shooting stage?

Thanks!
 
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I am in production for a short and deciding on what look I want. And I wasn't doing focus tests, I was testing out the cameras picture styles at various settings.
 
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Use Technicolor's CineStyle preset (google it!). It records everything in flat, unsharpened format that allows you to more easily color correct and grade in post, and gives you a lot more room in post than using any of the other Canon picture styles.

Seriously, it's a great preset, I use it for everything, even just casual home videos because you can pretty much adjust things to look however you want them!
 
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Okay thanks. I tried out Cinestyle before but it looks really plain. Even with grading it looks more plain than the others, because the others are going for certain looks in mind, where as Cinestyle is just trying to be as plain as possible it seems. I am not boycotting it entirely, and can use it more. I just don't see it as goodlooking as other profiles, even if you bring the sharpness, contrast, and saturation back up in post later.

So far I am kind of weary on neutral too, because neutral brings out more wrinkles and freckles, and details in the faces. I tried it on a couple of friends, and it literally makes them look five years older cause of the wrinkly detail it brings out in the faces. This can be a good thing if you want that look for people, but I am not so sure. Perhaps neutral is meant to be used with actors wearing make up?
 
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Even though it's HD, it still shows more detail compared to other profiles like faithful. I tried turning down the sharpness and contrast as well, but if you turn the contrast all the way down, then try to bring it up in post, it doesn't look as good as adding contrast into the camera to begin with. For some reason, the camera contrast just looks a little better. But if neutral with the contrast all the way down, is better than faithful with the contrast up, then I can use that.

I guess I just don't like the neutral look as much and even flat, it doesn't seem to look as nice as faithful, but if there is an advantage to it, I will use it.
 
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harmonica44 said:
Okay thanks. I tried out Cinestyle before but it looks really plain. Even with grading it looks more plain than the others, because the others are going for certain looks in mind, where as Cinestyle is just trying to be as plain as possible it seems. I am not boycotting it entirely, and can use it more. I just don't see it as goodlooking as other profiles, even if you bring the sharpness, contrast, and saturation back up in post later.
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This shows that you don't understand the REASON for shooting a flat image. If you want the best image you can get out of your camera, you should NEVER be using any of those in-camera picture styles. Always shoot as flat as possible to get the most to work with later. If you're not able to get a good image from Cinestyle, you need to either learn more about how to color videos, or hire someone who does. If you don't care about quality and you just want to produce a quick short with less time in post, then maybe those picture styles are you you after all.
 
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Okay thanks I will work with Cinestyle and try more with that. It's just it people keep saying the reason why flat does not look as good cause of the 8 bit cameras, and that Cinestyle is more appropriate for a 16 or 32 bit camera. But I will keep trying with cinestyle.

I also found this article which says not to shoot with the settings turned down, because you loose information in the saturation. Not sure if this is true with cinestyle, but I assume it is, since the camera works the same way still, data wise.

http://www.steveoakley.net/template_permalink.asp?id=172
 
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harmonica44 said:
Okay thanks. I tried out Cinestyle before but it looks really plain. Even with grading it looks more plain than the others, because the others are going for certain looks in mind, where as Cinestyle is just trying to be as plain as possible it seems.
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The purpose is to shoot with as flat an image as possible, thereby retaining as much detail in as wide a range of the image as possible, from the darks to the highlights.

That way, when it comes to grading (not just slapping some 'look' on it, actually grading, with the proper tools) you can push it further, and have more information to work with to match shots.
 
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Okay thanks. I understand that but I was told that by shooting flat you go from 8 bit of information to 6 bit of information, and therefore you should not shoot flat cause you are loosing more than you are gaining in post. That's what that article I posted said anyway. I will try shooting more with cinestyle and post a result.

As far as matching shots goes, so far there hasn't been a problem. The first short film I posted on here, all the shots matched even though I shot it not flat on the standard picture profile. The only ones that did not is when the DP decided to zoom out on the lens, resulting in the aperture changing. But it seems if you keep the aperture, shutter, and ISO the same, the shots will match and you don't have to worry about shooting flat. But there is probably other reasons besides exposure settings as to why the shots wouldn't match right?

Well I will try more tests with cinestyle.
 
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