Gamma vs. Brightness

[JohnKleban]

If I wanted to slightly tweak a scene that had a touch bit of noise to it (not horrific, but you can see the movement slightly), would you adjust the gamma setting over adjusting brightness? Gamma has more to do with over-all black levels I think, thus, would make the image look a bit cleaner, although a touch darker, right?

Thanks.

[TimKennelly]

I always tended to tweak both and judged the settings by visual taste.

Hardly scientific, but . . .

I would Split off a five second portion of the Scene and use that as my test piece for full screen resolution testing the results to save rendering time until the results were as good as I could make them to my tastes and then apply those settings to the entire piece.

As long as I was doing that I usually involved Contrast and Saturation as well all in Control Image, Special.

[JohnKleban]

Thanks Tim; I kind of do the same thing. Right now, footage is loading in, so I haven't tried anything yet. Irks me slightly, as I shot two eulogies and two songs in a chapel earlier today for a client; the darkest chapel I've ever stepped into. The alter was smaller and dark, with a tiny bit of light coming through some stain-glass window in the background - but, that was quickly covered like a shade when they pulled down a screen for playing a slideshow, which didn't happen until the tail end. The podium had no light above or around it; the brightest light came from the podium light that is used so readers can see their material on the stand. So, I filmed the stuff at the podium wider and more distant to let as much light in as possible, and shot at 15db, which on the Sony FX1s looks ok, but the image isn't razor sharp like other coverage when you have at least decent light. So, I have an ok image - I just worry it will look like crap on a cheap widescreen or something. The audio is A+, as I tapped off the podium's xlr itself; the framing and use of tripods of course, give a great quality about the way things were shot, but the image quality in this dark place isn't that thrilling to me. Thus, tempted to see if I can putz with it a bit, without degrading it. I'd rather keep things a tad darker as they already are, just make things look smoother a bit - if I look close at a face, I can see some camera noise movement; but again, it was so darn dark. In hindsight, I wish I would have taken my reception light, I would have thrown that on to light up the dark podium area...

John

[LouBruno]

The latest "fad" among our video group, especialy those using HDSLRs) is to crush blacks. Crushing blacks allows grain to be less pronounced and at the same time allowing the colors to "pop" a little more. Luckily, the FX-1 you are using has a FINE GRAIN much like the Z-1.

I do this method twofold:

I just picked up my new camera a few days ago... Canon XF-100. In the menu I can now adjust GAMMA, BLACK LEVEL, BLACK PEDESTAL, COLOR MATRIX etc. This is a more refined method than using just the gamma and contrast in the Control Color software. The menu also allows the black colors to be pure black and NOT grey/black which, in turn, will expose grain

It is important to keep in mind that lighting conditions change and change rapidly. This is where our software comes into play.

Control color does allow good adjustments for gamma and color saturation PROVIDED the monitor you are using is calibrated. I also use this to adjust shadows. If you are lucky enough, CB PAINT 2 allows precise adjustments to a scene. Even a slight Gaussian Blur in CB PAINT will cover the grain albeit introducing a little softness. I never had luck with any of our filters to reduce grain.

I hope, in the future, we can get DENOISER software to lower the grain.

[TimKennelly]

I thought the same people who created DeShaker were supposed to be created a DeNoiser software for MS a couple of years ago?

[LouBruno]

Yep.....so we were told.

I thought the same people who created DeShaker were supposed to be created a DeNoiser software for MS a couple of years ago?

[TimKennelly]

Three years ago I believe?

Ah, the best laid plans of mice and men. . .

[JohnKleban]

Thanks for the info Lou and the message Craig; much appreciated.