Sony Z5U: Looking for detailed settings to get better film look
by John Green
on
Oct 22, 2009 at 7:20:29 pm
I have owned my Sony HVR-Z5U since the beginning of April this year. So far I am mainly shooting events, legal depos and web videos, but I want to start getting closer to using its advanced features to try to get a better "film look."
What I was hoping for this post is that someone who owns a Z5U and uses it to make indie films, or has a very good understanding of how to tweak the deep menus in the picture profiles can give me some suggestions on building a setting that works well for professional film-like results.
I use Sony Vegas Pro 8.0 and 8.1 for editing, and I recently got Red Giant's Magic Bullet Looks 1.2 for color grading. My goal is to follow the advice of a film maker and shoot rather flat in camera and preserve a lot of detail in the shadows, and then get the actual "film look" in post. So I'm not so much interested in trying to create the "film look" in the camera, but I do want to know more about the "cinema gamma" settings in the camera so I can get those as close as possible to what I will need in post-production.
I have been a professional broadcast news videographer for 10 years but went freelance a year ago, so I use all manual controls and have a decent kit of gear, and I shoot pretty steady already. I realize that a good bit of the "film look" is shooting in 24p, correct camera movement, lighting properly, steady shots, and avoiding zooms. Mainly what I am going for now is, how do I shoot for the film look with my Z5U with a workflow that assumes half of it is in-camera, and the other half in post?
Cinematone 1 and 2 are nice, but I am afraid they do too much in camera, crushing details that I might need later in the NLE. Should I just shoot with PP3 or one of the others? Or is there a really good custom preset recipe that is well suited to shooting video that looks a lot like film when you run it through Magic Bullet Looks?
Thanks so much in advance for any advice, whether personal or if you could point me to a link, chart, thread, book, website, etc., where I might be able to get this answered.
Re: Sony Z5U: Looking for detailed settings to get better film look by John Green on Oct 27, 2009 at 5:39:34 am
Okay, after waiting a few days without a response, I continued searching on the web and actually found the information I was looking for, so I'm posting this link and hope it stays active.
Apparently at the NAB 2009 convention, Sony hosted a bunch of seminars with experts in their cameras and a nice gentleman named Juan Martinez did one on this very subject, and I found out some amazing information. Basically, he explained that the Sony HDV cameras have exactly the same depth of menu settings as the EX-1 and EX-3 as well as their Broadcast line of flagship cameras. He even said the HDV cameras can make pictures that are "much better than they ought to be." I think its possible that they included these deep menu settings to whet the appetites of professionals to want to upgrade to cameras with optics and sensors that can get even better images with the wide range of internal picture settings available.
Long story short, if you own a Sony HVR Z7U or Z5U, watch this lecture to get a professional explanation of the beast lurking in your camera. Combining a knowledge and skill of these internal settings with some of the awesome post-production software out now like Magic Bullet Looks 1.2 (Which is now compatible with Sony Vegas 8.0 -- HA!) means you can get some really extraordinary results from even the stock lenses on these cameras.
Here's the link, and I would try to download them or watch them before they take them down (hopefully they won't but you never know):
Re: Sony Z5U: Looking for detailed settings to get better film look by John Green on Nov 10, 2009 at 10:41:24 pm
Since my original post, I have done a lot of reading and research on the web. Basically there are two approaches to getting more of a film look: try to tweak the camera settings or shoot a good, flat (low contrast, high detail) image and then get the look you want in post-production. I am tending toward the latter.
If you use Cinegamma 1 with it's film like gamma curve and Cinematone 1 for colors, you will get more of a film look, but it tends to wipe out some of the detail in the blacks, and if you crush blacks in the camera, you can't get that detail back in post. If you are pushed for time and have to get something into the client's hands that day or the day after, you might want to do that if you're on a tight budget.
But I found this great tool for manipulating your post-production images called Magic Bullet Looks 1.2 that works in my NLE of choice, Sony Vegas Pro. Not all of the MBL suite currently works in Vegas, but Looks is amazing and has most of what you would want to do, combined with the tools Vegas Pro gives you. It has some neat filter effects and presets that can give you a cinematic look instantly if it's shot properly. Shooting a little darker and a little flatter will ensure that when you go to tweak it in post, you won't blow out the highlights when you increase the contrast and will still have some details in the shadows if you need them. Do too much in the camera and you're stuck making chicken salad out of chicken shinola.
Magic Bullet Looks is expensive, about $400 by itself normally, but Philip Bloom the British filmmaker (http://www.philipbloom.co.uk) promotes their products and he has a coupon code available at his website (I think it's "Bloom20" and it gives you 20% off when you buy the software. It's download only by the way. Also, right now I saw at Best Buy you can get Pinnacle Studio Ultimate and it comes with a version of Magic Bullet Looks (probably not the full version, but still) as well as a graphics program and a green screen plus a converter box for importing video in different codecs. I would look into either one depending on your needs. I can tell you the full version is worth every penny you spend on it, whatever you pay. There is just no way to get that amount of image versatility without some powerful software or a million dollar production budget. There is also plenty of training available for using MBL tools on the Red Giant website, as well as on Philip Bloom's website. You should check that out if for no other reason than just to see what cool things he does with MBL. He edits with Final Cut Pro studio, but still, you can get the idea of what it can do.
Finally, I have found that getting a "film look" is more about achieving a shallow Depth of Field, which as you know the Z5U was designed to do in the first place. I have gotten some really shallow DOF using my built in ND filters at 1/60 shutter speed, opening up the iris and zooming in a little and backing away from the subject. Wide angle=NOT shallow DOF. Love the macro feature with the Z5. Combine that with the diffusion filters in MBL and you can get some really magical close-ups.
Also, I've learned that small, portable dollies and small jib cranes are better for getting cinematic motion into your shots than panning or zooming. Most cinema lenses are fixed lenses, so if they want to get motion in a shot they have to move the camera. The indieSLIDER, Glidetrack, or Kessler Pocket Dolly are all based on the same sturdy IGUS rail and carriage you can buy direct from the manufacturer for about $170 and just drill a hole and put in screw threads with a cheap tap set. Search the web for "ZazaSlider" and you'll find a host of do-it-yourself solutions. You end up with a 3-foot dolly that mounts on top of a tripod or on the ground and you can get some great cinematic motion with it. Also there's the CobraCrane Backpacker and the Kessler Pocket Jib for getting those great sweeping floor-to-ceiling shots or wide sweeping pans that really make your production look like a movie. As long as you're moving the camera, rather than the lens, you're in film country, basically. Caveat, that's steady moves, not hand-held stuff, unless you have a good camera support like a Steadicam or a Fig Rig. There's a really good cheap shoulder support by Opteka right now on amazon.com for $25, also. I have one and you can use it to turn the Z5 into basically a shoulder mounted ENG type configuration. It's not cinematic, but it's light, cheap, and it works if you move right.
Hopefully these observations are helpful. I am planning to put all this in document format on my website in the near future. Please check it out and bookmark me!
