Author Topic: I am a professional colorist & would like to try improving your raw footage  (Read 32210 times)

Nikon1

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@Patrickrebstock & @NiNeff:
Please also post what settings you are using for those clips, especialy things like Gain (ISO) and Apperture /Focal length /What lens was used.
Would be realy helpfull.

Pritchboxer

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https://vimeo.com/285466957/e2e79a02af

So I had a go at working with the raw. It's hard to conclude anything since the image is very under exposed which will create noise, the lense and/or sensor is dirty and not in focus properly. Also a lot of infra red polution i.e green, which you can remove somewhat in raw fairly easily but the thing needs an IR filter. Thanks for posting it though but yes... more light, clean your lense and sensor ;)

I pushed the image in post to something close to how I think it should look so it's got even noisier due to being quite under exposed compared to this. I think the camera is fairly ok... just low resolution as Nikon previously mentioned. Plenty of small sensors give out good hd quality, I mean just look at the quality of edgertonic or even the arri sensor is little over 2k in size but thats dual gain. You actually don't want too big a sensor, I believe 2x the resolution is fine for a clean conversion or 1x1. In this case I find it very weird that there doesn't seem to be any testing done by a professional cinematographer. Wouldn't cost much to have them put this camera into a studio situation, use canon glass with an ef to c mount adapter and see what is possible. Really cant understand it :S


Nikon1

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Its a kickstarter, thats why i guess... :)
No big marketing campain here, just a guy building his own highspeed-Camera in his garage and starting up with a company selling a nice camera.
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The Color work you did on the RAW looks realy good. that is kind of the look i would expect out of an normal camera in that scene.
First pice of footage of the Chronos i´ve seen so far, where i wouldnt have known that it was shot on the chronos just by looking at the Color and overall Look of th image. Great work from you!
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I dont think it is just limited to Canon Glass, any reputable brand /Lens with known and prooven good performance will do for testing. Just might aswell use Newer Nikon glass, Zeiss, or High-Res/ High-Performance C-Mount Lenses.
Most good Lenses come at a price.
Though i would want to mention that this is not an cinema camera, it wouldnt hurt for sure, to let an cinematographer test the camera and take his advice for further developement (not only for Color-Stuff).
I double on that, sensor size is realy good the way it is, and if any bigger, then 1" but not more.
This size and Mount is perfect for using old Lenses From 16mm Film-Cameras and makes even the Standard 16mm-Lenses usable again, which are somewhat useless on an Nikon1 or alike (1" Sensors).
but again, the arri sensor is focused on Quality, whereas this Sensor is about Framerate and Speed!
Or have you ever seen readout rates of 30+kfps out of that arri-Sensor bevore...
I also would guess the Arri would blow the Chronos away in terms of dynamic range without any problems.
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Maybe post /share whatever exactly you did to that footage so other people could also benefit from your knowledge and skill. Also maybe the Developers at Kontech could improve their in-camera color science, so the out of camera- compressed Footage would allready look a lot closer to what you did here with the raw. That could save a lot of time and also up the general Image Quality for people wo are not familiar with grading and co.
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Also @ NiNeff: Your Sensor and/ or Lens is realy dirty AF! You should absolutely clean it bevore filming anything important next time.

Pritchboxer

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There's no point in making a process for this cause it was basically repairing badly under exposed footage. If I can get some properly exposed footage  with a decent lense I'll see what I can do. I didn't do anything special in this case, just used the python raw2dng tool on this website and it gives decent results. I then grade in Blackmagic Resolve.

Yes the sensor size is perfect, just the resolution is not... I'm fairly sure quality canon glass or nikon can be mounted to the cmount. Even a nifty 50 1.8 by canon is very cheap and sharp, with great low light gathering ability. Also its light for the small cmount. I get that it's a kickstarter campaign but I just think if they had spent say 500 bucks on a videographer to do some studio shots or even found one willing to test the camera, they would get so many more sales.

Nikon1

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Im absolutely with you on that one, image Quality can be improved. but resolution is actually quite good for the price of the camera and the package size and mostly for that Framerate!
For my Nikon1 we are talking about 400x144px for 1200fps and 800x288px at 400fps. Now that is a small resolution... But the Chronos is HD, that is quite reasonable for the most stuff, even when mixed with FullHD Footage.
Nikon F-Mount and Canon FD- and EOS- Mount-Lenses could be mounted to the Camera with no problem. Adapters are widely available for sale.
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You could even Adapt quite crazy stuff, like Lenses with native mounts for Mirrorless Sysems such as Nikon1 Lenses, MFT Lenses, or Sony E-Mount Lenses (including Every lens you would be able to adapt to an Sony E-Mount...) to the camera due to its tiny flange distance.
But for those Mirrorless-Lenses you would most likely need to make the adapter Yourself. Never seen one for sale yet.

Pritchboxer

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Hey its a cool project. I'm interested to see if it can fit in with professional timelines but it's not looking like it can. The same sensor company has released 2 new, improved sensors in the years since this camera has been released so hopefully thats something in the works... The thing is a camera such as the sony rx 10 gives practically as good 1000 frames per second now at 3x cheaper price. Also a very usable cam for 240 fps or 4k shooting. So I think Chronos is pretty dated for the pricing and cost of the sensors.

NiNeff

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the underexposing was actually on purpose, I wanted the iris to be as closed as possible to get an somewhat sharp image.
Focusing at the moment is really hard, especially outside in the sunlight. The screen is somewhat reflective and even with the focusing tools the camera provides I'm having trouble to dial it in reasonably well. I'm by no means a professional and still learning to use the camera. I cant wait for HDMI out which should make focusing a lot easier.

Also I'm pretty sure the lens was clean but I'm going to check again.

@Patrickrebstock & @NiNeff:
Please also post what settings you are using for those clips, especialy things like Gain (ISO) and Apperture /Focal length /What lens was used.
Would be realy helpfull.
All my footage is shot using the stock zoom lens: https://www.krontech.ca/store.html#!/Computar-12-5-75mm-f-1-2-zoom-lens/p/77244261/category=21981409
as far as I know there's no ISO setting, but an analog gain feature, which was set at the minimum.
Aperture for the coins was about f10

Pritchboxer

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NiNeff it was a much appreciated effort, no need to explain yourself! I know it's not easy with a high speed camera especially. Id recommend using soft diffusion with sunlight. For example:
https://www.slrlounge.com/make-diy-scrim-50/

So you wait till noon when the sun is directly above and you place what you're filming inside a sort of lightbox with the diffusion. A thin material would be best as you want as much light as possible. On a sunny day I regularly use 4000 or 8000 even shutterspeeds when shooting wide open so this should be enough light. An IR filter to go on the end of the lense would help take away the green tint also.

Nikon1

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Hey its a cool project. I'm interested to see if it can fit in with professional timelines but it's not looking like it can. The same sensor company has released 2 new, improved sensors in the years since this camera has been released so hopefully thats something in the works... The thing is a camera such as the sony rx 10 gives practically as good 1000 frames per second now at 3x cheaper price. Also a very usable cam for 240 fps or 4k shooting. So I think Chronos is pretty dated for the pricing and cost of the sensors.
If you look for a camera with realy high resolution like FullHD /4k or even higher and /or a few hundred fps at a low Resolution, the chronos is not ideal for you.
If you have the money, get a highspeedcamera for 20+k€ or an cinema-Camera (most of them do quite high framerates).
If you just want framerate and could sacrifice Resolution for lower price, go with an Sony RX100 (which Version ever you want/ could afford) or go with the Nikon1 System, if you want interchangeable Lenses and the ability to use C-Mount and other Glass.
The Chronos fills a spot in the market between the 300 to 600€ Cameras like those Sonys and the Nikon1-Series and alike and those 30.000€ Highspeedcameras.
It is far from being dated in terms of performance in my opinion.
I went to an other company selling highspeedcameras and you would never think how much such cameras could cost if you get into highspeed-Cameras.
Around 10.000 are the cheapest and we talk about FullHD @ 300 or 500fps and alike. nothing very impressive there. if you go for lower Resolution, you are still around 20 or 30k€ for similar performance than the Chronos in terms of Framerate.
Go and Try find a camera somewhere that has:
-A built in Screen
-A built in Battery
-User Adjustable Resolution and framerate in very fine increments
-An Post-Trigger with Ring-Memory
-Long Recording Time
-Kind of high Resolution around HD in 16:9
-Well above 1000fps at that Resolution
-Over 30000fps at lower Resolution.
-An interchangeable Lens
-And it should be Portable
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Good Luck finding one that is affordable. only one that comes kind of close is that Edgetronic which i dont like for multiple reasons...
Next Realy Portable one with decent image Quality and some solide features is an Phantom Miro, but that costs WAY to much.
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No hate, it just seems you dont know how much those kind of cameras could cost...

Pritchboxer

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I just wrote a huge post and the site didnt load.... blahhh
The sensors etc are much cheaper now, normally a manufacturer would lower prices in this case and/or release a new improved version using new tech.I hope the prior comes along for broadcast quality! I agree though it's great value but if things got competitive, could get a lot lower based on the cost of technology in china.

Nikon1

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i always copy my text into the clipboard bevore posting, cause this is annoying and i had this happen to me bevore.
So if it doesnt load i will just paste it from the Clipboard and post it again...
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Back to the topic:
I completely get what you are saying, but keep in mind the development team at krontech is just a handfull of dudes not a huge company.
They are still improving on the chronos 1.4 (i think if they planed to never do a follow-Up model they would not have named it that way just btw.) and it slowly becomes somewhat mature and an complete Camera.
I dont know if the Team of people has the resources to develop an follow-Up model on the side at the same time but would seriously hope and whish they did.
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If the chronos would become even cheaper at some point in time that would be more than nice, but i wouldnt mind either if all that aditional money went into developement of the next model in the series.
Also, if there are people, that pay that much, you could ask that much... and apparently quite a lot of people buy the camera at that price point.
You are right, it is a Lot of money to be clear, i just bought a realy nice car for less than half that price two weeks ago!
But for a highspeedcamera it is an ok price.
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I feel like at that point in time there should allready be way better cameras in general.
There is a need for someone to do the same thing, which Panasonic and Sony did to the Videocamera- and DSLR-Market.
Their GH4 and GH5 and the A6000 and A7 Series brought some serious movement into the whole Market with some serious "overkill" Performance in a small Body at a reasonable price.
Now i hope Someone like Krontech goes on and does that same thing in the Highspeed Market.
But be remembered, even Panasonic started up with an GH1 and got much hate from everyone!
When that kind of race starts in the Highspeed-Market, then you could realy get some nice Cameras for dirt cheap and the Chronos 1.4 might actually be dated at that point.
But at the moment, Developement in the whole Highspeed-Camera-Market seems to be extremely slow and almost stuck. Not much new things coming up. Hope that developement gets much faster.
« Last Edit: August 17, 2018, 07:04:01 AM by Nikon1 »

slowbro

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I'm not a professional colorist. But here is one I shot using RAW. Used Lightroom to make adjustments. Youtube compression does make it lesser quality though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0nmYEUXhrY

Nikon1

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Thats a good shot from you sharpness looks ok for me, especialy considering that it is only 1280px x ?px original image data from the sensor and all the upscaling and compression going on here.
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(Just btw.: i dont get why people would upload something shot in 720p HD in an 1080p HD Format. I see this done so often. If you are mixing the chronos footage with other Footage Shot on an FullHD (=1080p) or 4K- Camera, then that is something else. Then i Would also use Upscaling to 1080p to preserve the quality of the better camera. But if the whole Video ist JUST from the chronos, which does just 720p anyways, why use Upscaling? You will Loose Quality. Just do this test yourself if you dont belive me and export any chronos clip in 1080p in your editing software, re-import it and export it again as a 720p video. Then export an other one directly from the original footage as 720p video. Even if you used an lossless compression Container like a PNG-Sequence, the 720p Export would still be sharper from what i´ve seen from any testing i have done so far. Just think about it: if you convert 1280x720 to 1920x1080 you will always have to interpolate your pixels heavily to get to that resolution, so that means you loose Quality in that interpolation-process and that means also a loss in Sharpness. If you (or anyone else here) is using the 1080p format because of the better Bandwith of Youtube at that resolution, then just use Vimeo, if you are serious about quality. Never done the research myself, but from what i have heard, the allow way more bitrate for lower resolution. *Just my opinion on that whole 1080p thing*)
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But color-wise it still looks somewhat Wrong to me.
I am also not an professional colorist and i am not even watching this on an calibrated monitor, but something about those somewhat faded redtones and the vivid Green... cant realy tell why, but it just seems a bit off in terms of color or something.
I cant realy tell what it is, if it is shifted colors or something about contrast or saturation... Maybe the topic starter Pritchboxer can say more about this as an pro.
But absolutely some of the best footage i´ve seen untill now from this cam in terms of cinematic stuff. And has allready way less of that weired Look, which most of the footage here has.
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Can you maybe share what lens was used and what settings, most interresting one would be apperture and Focal Lenght.
Thanks for sharing your Footage here!
If Pritchboxer would be interrested, maybe even upload the actual RAW Files of this clip somewhere, because it looks realy exposed well and seems to be sharp and also has lots of different colors. Would wonder what he could do to the color of that bit of Footage here.
« Last Edit: August 21, 2018, 01:34:10 PM by Nikon1 »

slowbro

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Yes, thank you. I did upscale it from 720P to 1080P using the smart Vegas pro plugin in my NLE. It seems to be decent. RAW 720P from the Chronos is very similar to 1080P handycams from the past. I have the original RAW file sequence so I can upload it. I'm not too great at color grading. Although, I didn't spend too much time coloring it in Lightroom. I'm sure I can do a better job. Let me know Pritch if interested. I can upload the RAW files and shoot some more RAW stuff.

Lens wise, I used the C-Mount 12-75 at like f8. I will shoot more stuff though and color it better to make it look more natural looking. I just wanted to push the RAW file as much as I could.
« Last Edit: August 22, 2018, 08:58:24 AM by slowbro »

Nikon1

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Yes, you are right, like i wrote, seems surprisingly sharp for all that upscaling and compression going on there. You did a great Job of upscaling that footage (or rather your software did...), but it is still not the best or "propper" way in my opinion. Like i said for example, if i had a reason, like mixing different resolutions, i would also upscale, but otherwise, i dont see any reason in doing so.
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Was that clip shot on the Kit lens 12,5-75 btw.? Still curios what lens was used. If it was shot on the kit lens, then you got some seriously surpising good Quality out of it here!
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#EDIT: Never Mind, just saw you added the Lens info. Thanks.
« Last Edit: August 22, 2018, 09:01:51 AM by Nikon1 »