So in this encoded dynamic range of 8-9 stops there is good detail in, say, 5-6 stops in the mids. Most of the coding space is reserved for midtones. This is mostly achieved by rolling off the highlights and pressing down the shadows. Digital cameras now routinely output between 8 and 9 stops of dynamic range in 8-bit video and jpegs. Encode more range, and you start getting banding issues in the grading process. The digitized data was 10-bit and the guys at Kodak actually came to the conclusion that 8-bit was good for representing around 6 2/3 stops, or less than 7 stops of dynamic range. Back in the 90′s Kodak made the Cineon system for scanning and digital intermediate of film.
#Picture style cinema how to#
The picture style tells the camera how to put all that RAW dynamic range into 8 bits (with gamma encoding on top of it). And that’s where picture styles come into play.
![picture style cinema picture style cinema](https://aws.vdkimg.com/vk_list/1/1/9/4/1194980_photo_scale_740x172.jpg)
Blu-ray discs, for example, have 8-bit video. Unsurprisingly, consumer level video is 8-bit too. Consumer displays are almost universally 8-bit displays, with some of them actually having 6-bit panels and dithering colors up to 8-bit. By design, video from DSLRs is not meant to be tinkered with but displayed directly on consumer displays. See, Canon DSLRs (and all DSLRs, for that matter) capture consumer grade video. And these additional curves are what we are interested in here. Custom Canon picture styles further enhance this behaviour by allowing curves to be applied on top of the default curve.
![picture style cinema picture style cinema](https://5metrosdepoemas.com/images/Magazine/Traducciones/figures-style.jpg)
This is usually some sort of S-shaped curve to make the image more contrasty: shadows and highlights are compressed. The picture style specifies a curve which is applied to this input image in order to make it presentable. Which means image pixels record luminosity in a linear fashion. The raw image of the camera is in linear space. But in this article we are more interested in another property of custom picture styles. The picture style defines some parameters for the image, most notably color handling. These are sometimes called picture profiles or creative styles (on some Sony cameras). Most digital cameras feature settings for picture styles. This is all nice and good, but unfortunately for videographers that’s not the signal we get out of the camera. This is enough to represent accurately dynamic range spanning 12 stops when encoding it linearly. This means that the analog-to-digital conversion on the sensor yields 14-bit values (between 3). The RAW data of a Canon DSLR camera is 14-bit.
#Picture style cinema full#
The dynamic range of the APS-C sized Canon 550D/t2i sensor is about 11.5 stops and the dynamic range of the full frame Canon 5D mark II is around 12 stops. The ARRI Alexa and Red MX sensors capture dynamic range well in excess of 13 stops. So a dynamic range of 10 stops means a contrast ratio of 2 10:1 or 1024:1.Ĭurrent digital sensors have some pretty good dynamic range capabilities.
![picture style cinema picture style cinema](https://www.jouerauboulot.fr/56666-thickbox_default/boite-lumineuse-style-cinema-100-caracteres-idee-deco.jpg)
Each successive stop is double the light. In photography this range is usually measured in f-stops (or exposure values, EV) which is a logarithmic measure (with base 2). Similarly, camera dynamic range specifies the ratio between the luminance of the brightest whites and the darkest blacks that the camera can capture. Scene dynamic range specifies the ratio between the luminance of the brightest whites and the darkest blacks in a scene. Also, we are focused here on Canon picture styles but the principles apply to any DSLR or video camera with 8-bit video. This article talks about dynamic range and picture styles, and attempts to explain the Why’s behind the previous statement.
![picture style cinema picture style cinema](https://www.asdecarreaux.com/84455-large_default/carrelage-style-ciment-20x20-cm-art-nouveau-cinema-grey-24414-1m.jpg)
The thing is, unless you know exactly why you are using CineStyle, then chances are you will get better results by not using it. So after this introduction the following may come as a surprise to you. These folks have extensive experience in color science, image processing and digital intermediate. When Technicolor released the CineStyle picture profile last year it immediately became a hit amongst Canon DSLR videographers.