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Color Profiles/Film Modes
  • thepalaliasthepalalias

    I noticed that there was a lot of discussion about film modes/color profiles in the Sedna thread, so I thought it might be time to give them one of their own.

    In the wake of recent testing, the standard profile has been held in much higher regard than before. Vibrant has also received a boost in popularity. Nostalgic continues to be popular as does Smooth (the two profiles previously viewed as having the widest dynamic range). Most of the other ones are not viewed as kindly.

    This thread is meant to focus the discussion a little more.

  • 4 Replies sorted by
  • thepalaliasthepalalias

    To get the ball rolling, here is my two cents.

    I understand people wanting really vibrant colors, etc. but (if we are not talking about post but just what you can actually see without correction) the dynamic range advantage of modes like smooth and nostalgic do have an advantage over vibrant. I was shooting some shots before sunset over the weekend and in it was apparent even on the LCD how there was a wider range contained between the darkest shadows and the blown out highlights. Vibrant did not keep up and I do not use in scenes where I want to preserve a wide dynamic range.

    Now, I am perfectly open to there being more information there to pull out in post, but I tend to shoot situations where the lighting gives VERY strong colors naturally and I often want the less saturated elements recessed in terms of viewer attention anyway. In other words, vibrant operates almost opposite to what I want: the bright colors in the sky start to clip too early and I start to lose dynamic range.

    If you are shooting a scene where the colors are less bright to begin or there is a narrower dynamic range, I totally understand. And maybe there are advantages in post. But just in terms of what I see when I am looking at un-graded footage, I would choose standard or smooth to get closer to the look I wanted, without tweaking, in those situations. There is a simplicity to the workflow with that for me, but to each their own.

    That is why almost everything I have shot for the last month has been done in either the standard or smooth profiles.

    Once again: I am not saying that these hold up the best to grading. I have not been testing that. I am saying, if you are shooting things where you are already bringing saturation down to -2 in smooth or standard to keep the colors from clipping or are already getting the saturation level you want (or more) without boosting in other modes, you don't gain anything by using vibrant and you seem to lose dynamic range (at least before grading).

  • thepalaliasthepalalias

    There were some great tests done in an earlier thread comparing the color profiles. I will try to find them but if someone else gets there first, please post them. :)

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/461/gh2-film-modes#Item_84

  • thepalaliasthepalalias

    @VK That did not show up when I searched for Color Profiles - in fact the list was too long for me to even get through April before the search results ended. :)

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