Picture seems very flat, why ?

[Damien_Sousa_de_Gouveia]

Hi All!

So firstly I'm new to the site , I'm an amateur hobbyist of DSLR film , I have a D5100 with unlocked firmware ( simply had to be able to correctly expose). With that said...

Often when I compare my own work to that of professionals I just can't seem to to get the same depth and dynamic range . I am fully aware of the skill and equipment difference between myself and a professional but is there anything I can do to improve myself?

Currently I shoot with lowered contrast and brightness so as to prevent crushed black's and whites but in post I don't know how to regain that rich dynamic range. What often happens is that I over compensate on the contrast and I get a grainy , highly contrasted picture with a disgusting tint that closely resembles a 14 year old girls Instagram feed!

Please help! Any advice , be it to do with capturing the image or editing it, would be greatly appreciated !

 

[The_Traveler]

I don't understand how you shoot with 'lowered contrast and brightness.'
I imagine that you are shooting jpegs and using picture controls to lower contrast and brightness.
Since a jpeg throws away data I imagine you are losing everything between the content of a RAW file and the contents of a low contrast, underexposed jpeg.

Shoot a few in raw and stop foreclosing on the future of every shot by fiddling with it before you see it.

 

[GDHLEWIS]

If you were to post a photo as an example you will get plenty of tips Im sure

 

[Damien_Sousa_de_Gouveia]

@The_Traveler , by shoot I was implying record video , my apologies for the ambiguity, but the video is compressed. You are also correct with the picture control . My reason for decreasing the contrast and brightness is that I read an article stating once highlights are blow you loose all that info and to prevent this you decrease the contrast. ( almost imposing an s curve to the picture control bit not as intense)

I'm starting to film with a neutral picture control but still decreasing the contrast a tad.

@GDHLEWIS , thanks , I tried to initially but it wouldn't upload ... Fixed the problem.

 

[Designer]

Please help! Any advice , be it to do with capturing the image or editing it, would be greatly appreciated !

Hi, and welcome!

I think you should change the camera settings to the factory default settings.

 

[Dave442]

In video it is similar to photos, when you first start doing post processing it is easy to go overboard on the controls. Also, in the two scenes you gave the poor lighting on the main subject is going to make it difficult to bring it out in post without affecting the rest of the scene. The professionals have good lighting so I would start there.

 

[ClaptonsGhost]

Wow, this is called the DSLR video forum and yet people think you're talking about photos and don't know the reason for shooting flat? Sheesh...

Like Dave said, the scene you're shooting should have good lighting and look pretty much what you want the recording to look like. You shoot flat so that you have details in the dark areas to work with in post production. Like you I always messed up post production because, in my case, too many choices confuses me! But I started getting much better results when I made sure the scene I was recording looked good to begin with, and also that I made sure to set my exposure and white balance properly.

When you start on your post production always adjust the black levels first and go from there. Get the video to look as good as possible, correct color temp, contrast, etc, before you even think about color grading. This is my first post on this forum, so I'm exhausted. Think I'll go lay down for a bit.

 

[runnah]

I turn off all "picture styles" when shooting video. This does deliver a flatter looking image but allows for better dynamic range. Then as part of my work flow I will adjust the various levels and colors in post. Adding effects after the fact is alot easier than removing them.

 

[ClaptonsGhost]

I have the four major pic profiles on my 5500. Cineflat, Flaat 11, Tassinflat and Yaro something or other. I use all of them but I find tassenflat the easiest to do post work on. Not sure what you mean by turning all picture styles "off".

 

[KmH]

The issue is the lighting.

You need to add supplemental lighting to create depth, highlight your subject, and to take control of the dynamic range.

 

[runnah]

I have the four major pic profiles on my 5500. Cineflat, Flaat 11, Tassinflat and Yaro something or other. I use all of them but I find tassenflat the easiest to do post work on. Not sure what you mean by turning all picture styles "off".

by off i mean everything turned down to zero.

 

[runnah]

The issue is the lighting.

You need to add supplemental lighting to create depth, highlight your subject, and to take control of the dynamic range.

Yeah i think there are two different conversations going on here.

Shooting flat means turning off the in camera helpers.
The image being flat is due to a badly lit scene, not the camera's fault.