While there are exceptionally few examples of actual living, breathing human beings in HDR YouTube videos, of the negligible number that do exist, too many suffer from one or more of the following: bizarre colors, excessive noise, outrageously intense specular highlights in teeth, eyes or jewelry and an obnoxious lack of tonality, hues, texture and... Continue Reading →
Great Skin Tones With DaVinci Resolve & Leeming LUT Pro
Shot with the Sony a7 III and S-log2. https://youtu.be/BLngo0vEX3w
Achieve Perfect Color and Skin Tones in FCP X, Part I
In a previous post, we looked at how to expose for skin tones, and now we deal with how to turn those properly exposed clips into beautiful looking footage through color correction. This is an abbreviated version of Caleb Pike's wonderful tutorial on YouTube in which he explains how to get perfect color every time... Continue Reading →
Nonsense About Sony Skin Tones
We keep hearing the same old rubbish about Sony colors being shiite. Screen grab, no color correction, shadows pulled down a bit in post.
Sony a7 III: Lousy Skin Tones?
Sony a7 III, Sony 85mm f/1.8, ISO 400, Mixed daylight/fluorescent, no color correction in post People used to say, yeah, but what about Caucasian skin tones? Now they're saying, yeah, but how about under a mix of daylight, fluorescent and tungsten? Oh, I almost forgot - I've heard that skin tones suffer at ISO 100,000!... Continue Reading →
Sony a7 III: What About the Skin Tones?
We keep hearing in the online community how awful Sony's skin tones are. Yet when I share images, the usual response is, yeah, Sony's fine for Asians, but Caucasian skin tones are still atrocious. However, when custom white balancing, they're really not all that bad. What I am noticing when watching YouTube videos are abrupt... Continue Reading →
Sony a7 III: Skin Tones
More skin tone samples from the Sony a7 III, this time shot with the Voigtlander 65mm f/2 lens. Mixed lighting daylight/fluorescent, ISO 800. No color correction in post: I just pulled the shadows down a bit. To be quite honest, I'm very satisfied with both Caucasian and Asian skin tones straight out of the camera. I shot... Continue Reading →
Sony a7 III Skin Tones
My biggest fear before purchasing the a7 III were the skin tones. I half dreaded they'd be a nightmare to work with. But having shot with the camera a bit, I must say the skin tones aren't bad at all, especially since I hardly did any color correction in post. Sorry, the screen grabs aren't... Continue Reading →
Four Steps to Good Skin Tones
Custom white balance with the X-Rite Colorchecker.Calibrate your grading monitor.Be sure to use Leeming LUT Pro.Adjust color temperature, tint and saturation before adding any looks.
Coming Soon – Vol. II: Best Cinema Lenses for GH5s, X-H1, a6500 & Pocket 4K
Below are some screen grabs from a series of videos shot with the Veydra Mini Primes.Camera: Lumix GH5Lens: Veydra Mini Prime 85mm T2.2Settings: HLG, ISO 400, ALL-Intra, 400Mbps, T2.2Leeming LUT Pro Beta v602
Comparison: With and Without the Leeming LUT
I shot a short clip this morning using Cinelike D, exposed normally, imported it into Final Cut, and added the Leeming LUT with a -4 reduction in highlights. Which image has more accurate skin tones, in your opinion? Let me know! (1) SOOC (2) + Leeming LUT
ETTR: Noise, Dynamic Range and Skin Tones
I just did a very quick test with the Lumix G85 in natural light which leaves little doubt that there is greater dynamic range and less noise in the shadows when exposing to the right. Colors are a little trickier, first of all, because I'm not a professional colorist, so I couldn't exactly match the ETTR... Continue Reading →
How Safari and Chrome are Damaging Your Colors and a Very Brief Discussion of Skin Tones
I'd been using MPEG Streamclip for years in order to reduce file sizes and upload times, but apparently, that's not such a great idea. Original Master File It came to my attention recently that the videos I'd been converting with MPEG Streamclip and uploading to YouTube have an unmistakably crimson appearance when viewed in Safari.... Continue Reading →