GH3 tips and tricks topic

joethepro

Wow, portrait shows less noise than natural? I was unaware of that, Ill have to check that out. @maxr What is the hybrid method you mention?

maxr

Wow, portrait shows less noise than natural?

@joethepro Mmmm yeah bad choosing of words from my side, let me try explain; I was using natural -5 -5 -2/-3sat -5, so it's obvious that NR even if low is eating the cheerios, but what I think's helping more, it is contrast and what Michael defines as not wasting codec's bandwidth or something along those terms. It is very strange I didn't check this before as for more than a year I've been using a high contrast profile for ISO 6400 B&W shooting, always learning.

Where I first read the portrait thing - http://personal-view.com/talks/discussion/10255/gh4-best-video-settings#Item_523

SOURCE (must read)!!! - http://www.supertone.dk/#!GH4-Optimal-Film-Setting-works-in-stills-too/c24o4/8E18836A-F271-4A14-AF0D-C575B9D5F4B6

if I pull shadows up from SOC files in Davinci - there's some-plenty buried info there, same with HL - details would start to surface. After hybrid rinse (great dynamic NR and dither) Davinci starts to understand my pain better, je je, and I don't have to pull anything anywhere, just have fun and FUBAR my little colour friends.
Bout Hybrid - http://personal-view.com/talks/discussion/11420/hybrid-a-great-free-video-converter-win-mac-linux#Item_1

PS
I also preliminarily found that portrait profile offered wider gradeability range - though natural seems to accept and react "easy" with/on(?) LUTs - PORTRA.it holds better the under&over exposed ants' tragedy... but it's all too soon to get drunk and start killing politicians with pliers-pinch technique :P

joethepro

Hm, I tried this a bit last night at +3 contrast, and I didnt notice any noise improvement, other than some of it being pushed into the blacks due to the increased contrast making it a bit less noticeable. I could see this setting working well in daylight, but in lower light situations, it is just far too much contrast. I would probably stick with 0 contrast at that point.

rNeil

I'd found that using the "normal" GH3 settings, Normal with lowered contrast & sat, sharpen & noise bottomed, I needed to keep contrast at -4 and sat at -2 to -3 as going lower with those got me into areas where the recovery induced more problems than shooting "lower" solved.

This ... going to Portrait, then +3 or +5 on contrast & dropping the sat to -5 didn't "drop" saturation nearly as much as it would in Normal. And given that contrast & sat are playing with (in the main) the same original data, this is just working around what the engineers designed in the camera's processing "engine". They clearly made a big change between Portrait & Normal. Portrait with the settings we've used in Normal ... at least for me ... just sucks big time.

With the Overtone settings it's ... odd ... to see at first. But after going into Sg, looking at the scopes, and working with what's in the file, it's a much better file to work on. He's also right about the Hue setting ... though I think I'll test both with -3 and -2, might end up at -3 for most say interview stuff.

Nailing the exposure ... even at +3 on the outdoor stuff I shot in winter mid-day sun ... there was a good half-stop or more of detail in all three channels on the scope. In the indoor lit by a 10 foot high/20 foot wide north window, there's nearly a full stop of stuff above 'normal' that I could dial down in SpeedGrade, and I'm not used to that being up there! It's a very, very different file to grade, but one that graded fast and clean.

Neil

mat33

@rNeil is the hue setting in-camera? Thanks

joethepro

@rNeil Thanks for your input. I also am wondering if you are talking about the hue adjustment in the white balance setting, or somewhere else? It would be quite a pain to have to adjust hue in the white balance all the time (when adjusting white balance, anyway)!

I also dont understand how you can say there is essentially more highlight detail to play with. With the white clipping alert (flashing black and white) on, you can clearly see that the same areas (if not more) are clipped with portrait +3 as opposed to Neutral -3. This shows me that there is less highlight detail with the Overtone settings...

rNeil

I'm referring to the Hue setting in the Portrait style boxes. Where you set contrast, sharp, hue, & sat for that particular "style".

And as to highlights to bring down, I was referring to when brought into SpeedGrade. Un-clamping the scopes showed a LOT of data in all three channels well above the 100IRE grads. Far more than I'm used to seeing in Normal with contrast -3 and same exposure/wb settings from the meter.

In grading, essentially I found it good to expand contrast a bit in the shadow areas (using SpeedGrade's shadow-region control) and set the bottom to just black-out, which lifted the rest of the shadows a bit above the off-the-camera view. Used the Highlight region control to lower contrast in the highlights and pull the 'gain' control down a bit (top area of the highlights region, not the overall-gain). Reduced output sat just a bit.

Then to the Overall tab, using contrast/pivot to bring the top of green to about the 98IRE point, adjusted color temp to balance out red & blue to green, then minor tweaks to taste. Went to the Mids control panel, adjusted pivot so the balance point was about 65 IRE, and raised contrast just a wee bit to get better skin contrast.

The same basic work did just as well on the clips I shot of the mid-day winter clear-sky sunny day here at 45* N. latitude, as it did on the clips in the reception room lit by that 10'x20' north window.

Personally, I've found the clipping flashies mostly sort of show where the upper limits will be a bit past that ... so I don't use that feature a lot. Prefer to meter things. Personal tastes, of course. Many don't use a meter any more, and some times I don't.

Neil

rNeil

As to the question of is it really a wider DR ... maybe, maybe not. Shian say could give a very definitive test as could I if I actually sat down and made one. This setting seems to have three advantages: vastly improved skin, a beautiful and very "natural" fall-off in the highlights, and less noise & blocking in the shadows. I can live with that to be getting on with.

Still working on getting used to a VERY different grade ...

Neil

joethepro

@rNiel I did a test last night and also noticed a very little bit of recoverable highlight data that I wasnt used to seeing. Or maybe its been so long since I looked for it that I just dont remember seeing it.

About the hue setting... Im not sure we're talking about the same camera hahah - The picture style settings have contrast, sharpness, saturation, and noise reduction. Hue is adjusted in the white balance grid. Could you post a pic of the setting you are talking about?

rNeil

@joethepro

You are SO right! My bad ... I'm so used to setting this thing that I do it mostly on auto-pilot anymore ... I'm just so used to quickly setting WB then modifying it, on the fly.

Well, perhaps one should ALWAYS see to it the brain is fully engaged?

Thanks for catching me on this. ;-)

Neil

joethepro

How do you change the PASM shooting mode for C1-C3 settings? Cant figure this out, and I feel like its right under my nose.

Vesku

@joethepro

You can not change exposure mode if it is saved to C-memory. You must start again from creative movie mode and then save to c-memory. I think it is a bug because you can change all other settings when in C-mode.

If I remember right that thing works in GH4 like it should.

joethepro

@Vesku Thanks. I was actually talking about for photos, but I assume if I want to change it to A, I would just go to A mode, set it up as needed, and then save to C2, for example?

Vesku

Yes with photos you must dial back to physical PASM modes and save again to C. I have my photo C-memory always in A so I have not tested that much. I have not used my GH3 for a long time so I may say something wrong.

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