Rolemodel@earthlink.net

Represented by Jacob & Kole
Agent Steve Jacob
323 460 4767

Image Adjustments On Set I just Finished a Commercial yesterday. I had the opportunity to share with the other members of the Camera Dept the best ways to affect the parts of the image we wanted changed. I thought I would pass along these simple points of reference. The shot was a simple interior where we saw out 2 large windows on 2 walls. Lady standing surrounded by Flowers and wood crafts. Windows covered with Double net to knock down the brightness from the sky and parking lot behind her shot was lit with a Large HMI from the back edge to rim the plants and crafts. Lady lit from inside for a soft key with China Ball and Kino. The plants and crafts really sucked up the small amount of light working Key and Fill so since we didn't want to Nuke the Lady we had a dilemma how to expose the over exposed elements of the BG and the under exposed elements of the FG properly. First and always work this issue with Lighting and Grip as much as possible After that the Camera can be used to massage the image into a more pleasing ratio. To Affect the Highlights and the over exposed Background 1) F-STOP-- Use this first to set the highlights where they are acceptable (Whatever you decide this to be) I prefer just under blown out or having lost all information. The highlights should NOT read as proper or they are not highlights. Give it 1.5 stops over but you be the judge. Bottom line this is done with F STOP. 2) DCC ON--the other very Handy Tool I regularly use is the DCC or AUTO KNEE switch. Works great in containing the highlights and bringing them into a managable range giving you more room to open up the stop more to get the Mids up closer to proper. With this ON you can put highlights at 2.5 stops over and they look like they are 1.5 stops over. Great Tool. To Affect the Mids or Gamma (All that is not Highlights and Blacks) You have 3 places where this can be adjusted Giving Course and Fine control. Imagine a Weight scale in a Dr. office. the big Weight moves in 50lb increments and the lil weight moves in the 1lb increments. Thats the premise behind Course Gamma and Master Gamma. 1) Course ranges from .35, .40, .45, .50, .55, .60, .65, .70, .75, .80, .85, .90, .95 .35 lifts the Gamma all the way UP to brighten the Mids .95 pulls the Gamma all the way DOWN to darken the Mids. Normally this is set to .45 so there is room to move both directions. 2) Master Gamma will drive a smaller increment of adjustment to fine tune where the gamma gets set. 3) Black Gamma when the range is set to 35% or 50% will reach up into the lower end if the Gamma and affect how information at this brightness level is handled. Once the range is set the master number at the end can be taken up (Positive number) also known as streached or down (Negative number) also known as Pressed. This will, with a greater degree of precision, allow you to control the information and the brightness levels of the parts of the scene in relationship to one another. To affect the Blacks. Blacks are the Anchor of the image and where this is set affects everything else. First look at the scene with your eyes and determine is there anything in the Shot that is Black ??? if Nothing in the scene is Black your wave form will not and should not display anything there. CAP the Lens turn any Gain OFF and do a Black Balance then SET the MASTER BLACK resting gently on the Bottom of the scope at ZERO. Now that you have set the Blacks with a Good Black Source you should not need to adjust this any more. But if you do decide to adjust the Blacks after you do a Black Balance you can use "Master black" or the "Pedistal" to LIFT the blacks or CRUSH the blacks. If there is nothing black in the shot and you decide to drive the master black down this will effectively pull everything else down and make it darker. If there are elements that are very dark or black you will be loosing this information. If not this will take dark gray and make it black increasing the contrast. If you want instead to LIFT the blacks this will decrease the contrast and make blacks more milky, It will lift overall the Level of the image but with a diminished dynamic range. Better to use Black Gamma stretch to accomplish this. When setting Master Black I recommend looking at the Video Page in while you do this so you can see the numbers as well as the WFM. I usually set the master black once balanced to -3 then don't touch it after that but instead prefer to use Black Gamma to make my changes as this is much more precise and I can limit the area that this affects using the "Range". This technique will insure that you NEVER CRUSH THE BLACKS. Set them properly and don't change them. Understand that Proper blacks are not affected by the shot at all but are set with the Lens Capped. Practice these skills and you will have more control and be able to make much better more beautiful images. As always Test it x3. So back to the Shot we set the Stop to put the Highlights with the DCC ON to just under blooming about 1 stop over. We set the Course Gamma to .35 and lifted it to +20 to raise the mids up which were too Low after setting the stop for the Highlights. Used the Black Gamma at a range of 35% stretched this by +15 and pulled the dark end of the information up Left the Master Black proper at -3. This helped greatly to contain the bright and dark elements into a much more pleasant working range. I hope this helps some of you doing this work. Do not be frightened into thinking that adjusting the camera should be left to post. Diligently test these things until you have a complete understanding of how and when to use them and use them, thats why the adjustments are there in the first place.

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