A cool hack on any camera would be an adjustable cutoff highlight. So you could set 90% or 80% zebras up top, and a purple highlight at either 20% or 10% at the bottom.

False Color is awesome for this, but one could do rather well with just those 2 upper and lower indicators and the above reference.

So, I finally got a definitive answer as to why DSLRs place +/- 0 below 50%:

DSLRs tend to read at the bottom of Zone V, and not the center. So I asked a couple of DSLR manufacturers if this was on purpose to have even stop readings? And the response I got was essentially, "yes" -

"...So you'd know where the bottom of the zone is, and then the next stop indicator gets you to VI and is easier to read. So when you hit 1 stop over you are at the bottom of VI and so on."<

So NOW you know why it's not dead center at 50%

Depends on the lightness or darkness of the skin tone which is why we have gray cards. Put the gray card at 50% and everything else will fall into line. Then from there you can move things into their proper zone with light, or you can get creative. But knowing where you are within the system, and within your cam's DR allows you to break the rules in really creative ways using gels, flags, bounces, cookies, etc...

Because of this.

Jay's explanation is an introduction to the zone system. This map is step 2.

Learning to manipulate the zones for your own ends is the tricky part. That's the part I'll teach in part 2 of the Zone system tutorials. It takes some very careful thought at first, but like everything else it becomes 2nd nature over time. the hardest part for me is finding a way of explaining the whole thing in such a way that people don't get confused, and that's why it's not finished yet. My first 2 attempts were way too complex.

Since I am slammed with work on all fronts, and I know you GHearHeads have been wanting the zone system tutorial, which I've yet to complete - here's my buddy Cinematographer, Jay Holben over at Panavision giving a great introductory talk about the Zone System and dynamic range.

My tutorial will be much more in depth, but for those still struggling with it, this is a good starting point. Also there's a Zone Map in the film school section showing where different subjects fall when exposing for middle gray.

Yes. That's why I couldn't port AE's grain killer. You can save it as a powergrade and reuse it in Resolve, but can't export it externally to other platforms.

@shian this luminance sharpening method seems to be a nice and simple. I think it would also fit for a LUT system - maybe two or three LUTs with different intensities:

http://liftgammagain.com/forum/index.php?threads/building-a-better-sharpen-in-resolve.278/

As it it mentioned, maybe BMD will intigrate this into Resolve.

In the event of a crash, a partial .mov (due to crash, or monster) can be joined with a continuation .mov in exactly the same way marrying sound to picture after render works. Cue: QuickTime Pro Player

I do essentially this when I've done a big render only to later discover some glitch in an individual frame, a scene where an effect or layer might have been accidentally left off (or on), etc. Anything that's maybe a few minutes or an hour of rendering versus many hours, or days, for the main project. I render "patches" and cut these into larger .mov renders very easily thanks to the QTPro Player.

It's totally lossless and totally awesome to be able to do so quickly and easily, with a tiny app rather than have to fire up a full-on editor and create a new project, etc.

I've already got the 2 strip working - 3 strip should be easy - BUT their example looks close to a grade I did on the same footage using the cyan Tone Monster - that look they demonstrate is not extraordinarily special. If I could find time, I'd probably knock it out I a few minutes using the GHears that already exist and save it as a LUT.

GH2 + Nikkor 24mm + Century Optics 1.33X Anamorphic 5DtoRGB transcode (rain killer) CS6: PPro + AE Kuler ColorGHear

Does the ColorGHear film school/ tutorials give you instructions on how to use resolve? Would a novice at color editing be able to learn how to color edit/resolve, in addition to the instruction sets that are included?

I didn't get one for that reason. I don't really like the way it looks. But that's just me.