JeremyC wrote:The RED's flesh tones looked pink almost as though it needed a white balance and I noticed it couldn't handle the highlights on the lounge/ocean background set up. The Alex looked slightly plasticly in its flesh tones and I was surprised at the lack of grain in the 500T example.
However, I am looking at these images on a lap top - not anywhere near a critical viewing device and with both the Alex and the RED I would have to know how each of them have been set up/adjusted, something I am very familiar with broadcast cameras but not with sensors set up for cine work.
But heartening to know I could just throw my 20 year old S16 camera at these set ups and not have to worry about tweaking anything once the lighting is set up.
Not worry about tweaking?
One needs to tweak film for colour balance just as much as one does in digital. Be it in the lighting (such as the use of filters) and/or the filmstock used and/or colour correction filters in the camera, and/or in the grading done during printing, or in digital post. One has to tweak for exposure, using a light meter and the camera's aperture. And one might need to tweak one's light meter to accommodate particulars in the camera, or just an old meter. There are a whole range of tweaks both required and happily pursued in both domains.
The digital domain provides for far more tweaking (for better or worse), but in both domains, without any tweaking, all one can hope to demonstrate is one's own lack of tweaking skills. This is the reason behind the saying that goes that "a good artist never blames their tools". You can blame your tools, but all you'll be really demonstrating is your lack of tweaking skills. Or just lack of tweaking full stop.
If anything in the universe is neutral it's the materials. Not us nor our tests. The materials are what they are. But what we do with such materials and expect from them is something else. Be that early in the pipeline (such as tool manufacturing) or later (such as on location on a filmshoot). Even the projectionist is making adjustments. When your light meter no longer works as expected it's not due to the laws of physics failing. They are working the way they always were. It's due to not taking into account the laws of physics responsible for the mismatch between a meter and what it should be reading, and for which tests are required to re-establish how the materials that make up a light meter are behaving with respect to what is required of it. And making the requisite adjustment. In the case of a meter crushed under the wheel of a car, the requisite adjustment might very well involve buying a new light meter. Or making your own.
Calibration, or "tweaking", or just expected parameter adjustment. Call it what you will. The entire system is a system of adjustment towards some result, and for which there are any manner of results one might be aiming at (or hoping will occur).
Now we might complain that digital has too much scope but that is it's philosophy, which the good artist in digital happily pursues - the more tweak-ability or adjustability the better. There is no "correct" state in which the system sits. But each to their own and happily doing so. Be it testing some new chip design or testing some new filmstock design. And updating print grading techniques of HDR toning algorithms. Testing some new firmware upgrade or even a new camera. But each test, at each point (such as a light meter reading), is only a precursor to the calibration/tweak/adjustment it foreshadows and requires (such as an aperture adjustment).
The auto-magical camera is a myth but certainly a strong one. For example, it informs the invention of the auto-exposure camera, be it in it's early incarnation on Super8 cameras, or subsequent digital ones. It even informs filmstock. But even here, where seemingly calibration might be ruled out, it isn't. Some Super8 cameras provide for manual override in terms of a +/- adjustment, or even full control of the aperture. And the orange 85 filter in S8 cameras - what is this if not an adjustment (in or out) required for filmstock in the days of tungsten film and light. The calibration/tweak/adjustment ,in these cases, is just whatever decision you make following a test, which might very well be to use a different camera. Or use a different filmstock. That is the adjustment made. Such big picture adjustments will tend to occur more in relation to those systems posed as auto-magical systems, ie. where the fine local adjustability has been black boxed or locked in behind an auto-magic interface. But the adjustment, local or global, is just as necessary, (even if the requisite adjustment is no adjustment at all) and without which one might very well end up blaming the tools. But then you won't be a good artist.
C
