False Color Pipeline

[gx42]

I can’t remember if this has been asked here before, but I figured I would re-visit in a different light.

I respect that Roger puts an emphasis on exposing by eye, and at times also by meter. I think we should keep that in mind and work to learn it with practice. Yet practically, until we are at that point, having tools like false color really helps if you’re questioning some light levels on the day. I think it can also be a tool to expedite the learning process on exposing by eye, and also find the limitations of your camera’s dynamic range, giving you feedback right there on set. This can also be useful if you’re relying on a monitor that perhaps wasn’t calibrated, these things happen.

I say all this just to recognize that false color, like many other things, is just a tool. Something that can be useful, but presents its own issues and complications.

My question involves the dilemma between pipelines. You have EL Zone false color, which is reading the LOG or RAW image data and providing feedback on that. And then you have Arri False Color, which can read the image with your basic monitoring LUT applied, and provides lighting feedback on an image that is crushed a bit into rec709, etc.

Aside from shooting I have also used it to study. Sometimes I’ll plug my SmallHD into the laptop and turned on false color to see what some ratios look like in a scene that caught my attention. This is obviously reading the levels of a converted and graded image, not a log or raw file. I guess you could also do this with screen grabs and importing to Resolve, same idea.

This is kind of an open ended question on workflow preference, accuracy, and potential drawbacks. Is there a correct or preferred pipeline? And drawbacks of one versus the other? I’m curious what Roger and David think of of these 2 different approaches, even if they don’t use it themselves.

Thank you!

 

 

 

Topic

[trevorpendleton]

Ditto I would love more insight into this. I use a basic rec 709 transform and monitor the false color through that. My problem is personally I want the cleanest image possible to go to post. Least amount of noise possible. It would be helpful to have tools or a process to double check to make sure I’m feeding the sensor enough light. I know some people use ETTR but I don’t believe Deakins uses this and his images are so clean. Even in dark silouhetted scenes, there’s no noise, it has so much information still there in the darker parts of the image, for example in Skyfall in the church scene. Usually there’s also bright highlights as well, but also the darker parts are so healthy with information. It feels dark while also giving the camera clearly enough photons to be perfectly clean (and feel rich). That’s something I want to learn how to do, and a way to think about doing that.

[Stip]

I’m not sure if you’re asking for exposure or also contrast ratios ect.

I think there are two aspects of getting exposure right, a technical and a creative one. They kinda go hand in hand but with the quality of today’s cameras I believe the latter has more weight. I think sacrificing the benefits of a final in-camera look only to get a quarter stop more in the shadows or highlights isn’t a worthy trade off in most situations (unless your pipeline allows for visual compensation). Simply not screwing up the technical part is enough imo. Distributing a stop (or even two) of DR below middle grey for low light scenes or one above middle grey if you really need to protect some highlights should be sufficient for almost all scenarios with today’s technologies, both in production and post.

Afaik both Roger and David nail the look in camera and that has many benefits, e.g. all decisions on set can be made in context of the final vision or that there’s an unmistaken reference when it goes into post.

As for the dilemma with False Color pipeline, I think there’s no right or wrong or correct way. The more time you spent with tools the better your understanding of whether they’re actually benefitial to your personal way of working or not. That can vastly differ from person to person in my experience. E.g. personally I get confused by False Color (even more so since there are so many different versions out there).

[Author]

Replies