I’m interested to know who much of the footage grade is the camera’s color science itself versus you guys pushing it in post. I’m in love with how all of the sample footage has looked so far and trying to figure out expectations of whenever I come into possession of my Edge 8K!

Actually, after playing with it for a bit in Davinci, how much of it is actually the camera or the combination of the camera with the cooke pancro / zeiss contax?

noir_et_noir That’s a good question, and something I can’t explain simply with a few words, so I much rather like to post small snippets of thoughts which you and others can reply to. lets take the following video as an example, quickly shot on my way home of a other shoot, with a tiny lens, hence the vibrations (really hard to focus, makes me nervous) If this camera would be presented to the crowd like this with this matrix, it wouldnt sell well, because even though everything looks nice lots of translations are happening, and if you prefer a more flatter look in terms of colour luminance response than its hard to grade this back to normal, or probably impossible without destroying this image. Look at a sensor/camera as a data capture box, if its able to capture good data, and record that into a kind of losless codec, and the matrix (color interpretation) is designed like that that is doesnt have gamut clipping (colors that go wecko when they oversaturate),and the response is kind of lineair (no big colour shifts when you under or over expose, than you can reinterpretate that data in post, and present it in a way how you want to see it. So in this case the mavo edge doesnt look like this wit h a simple rec709, not that it cannot but because it’s not neutral, and the goal is to have a some sort of neutral base, and even about that are a lot of philosophic debates, where ARRI has already a slight look to it, and most broadcast tradition cameras are more neutral. This is of course highly subjective, because we capture an image and looking at a monitor is completely different than looking to colours in real life, so I believe a interpretation is necessary and maybe even more ‘ realistic’ . So back to the idea of a data capture machine, Its not very romantic but a look doesnt really exists unless its baked in which isnt a good thing. A Arri has some things baked in which they think is hard to design in post, and is unwanted, but still their cameras are pretty neutral. If you want to become a dop/cinematographer in 2021 I think understanding these technicalities is paramount, and without proper knowledge it will be hard not to be mislead by the markting of all these brands and the populism which exists on about every forum (probably here sooner or later as well). The question you have to ask yourself or me, is how much you understand about colour and about presenting colour and contrast in a rec709 or P3 environment. Clients of Gafpa Gear who will order their Kinefinity MAVO Edge 8k camera through us will get a lot of support in finding the right methods to tune in the look they want, we are also working on technical tools like kinlog to arri log c conversions, which are handy for colorists who dont want to work with other matrixes than ARRI Alexa. We will also sell some of these tools, and for those who are not able to become a client of us (buyers outside the EU), we will keep this forum open to discuss any look. NOw before we continue this conversation maybe its a good thing to talk a bit about yourself, are you a exisiting Kineifnity owner, do you own other cameras? whats your experience like, what do you want to learn? check out the camera on our shop here, including most recent footage we shot on it https://gafpagear.com/shop/kinefinity-mavo-edge-8k/

noir_et_noir on your other question I have to answer a bit conceptual too . ‘ How much of it is actually the camera or the combination of the camera with the cooke pancro / zeiss contax?’ I don’t really believe in the look of a camera, I only believe in flaws of a camera, as long as the camera can record a lot of GOOD data, that data can always be rehoused into other data. The kinefinity camera uses a log curve which is of course not the look of the camera but a way to stall data efficient a lot of good data in a codec, so i dont consider that to be the ‘ look’ The Base lut, Kineneutm, is also not really the look, its just a interpretation of the data, and a way to present the data to you in a way the manufacturer thinks it will serve you. YOu can create your own lut which you can install inside the camera to present the data in such a way that it looks nice to you, thats how most top tier DOP work together with their DIT.

US-based. Not a current Kinefinity owner. Shoot/grade/edit on a mixture of Sony products (FX9 and down) with mix of Arri now. Just based on the sample footage and grading from scratch (wheels / curves / contrast / sat / no use of luts), I feel the sample footage gets me at a much better and easier starting point that from the Sony world. I know this wasn’t a simple question to answer, but there is a quality to the color look that I’ve seen from your own grades and even with what I’ve done now with testing around that just leads me much quicker and easier to where I want to live color wise. I know a lot of this really can’t be answered until I get my hands on camera and run it through my own real life work shoot situations to see how it compares. My end goal looks (when not doing commercial still life product work) tends to lean towards the old film stock look, which so far everything I’ve seen with your sample footage gets me there quicker and easier and I can’t explain why there’s such a stark contrast between this and footage I work with from Sony/Arri/BM (less clinical lenses might also help this / a little more character). Not sure I’m doing the best of explaining this but yeah haha. Thank you for your time of entertaining this discussion.

noir_et_noir A base Matrix is indeed super important, its the foundation of your grade. Especially with lower tier cameras and lower tier codecs, its hard to change the matrix in a non-destructive manner. Sony is deep down in broadcast, and dont talk to filmmakers, they want to serve broadcast and people who like the sony color tradition, it’s weird but their following is big. But lately with the Venice (and ofc f35 and f65) they proofed that they have a tiny independent team who can do truly amazing things. They brought cinetone to fx9 and fx6 etc, but its not the same and is kind of flawed from a color perspective. The color matrix of an image is is a 3d point cloud (hence the name of a 3d lut), and its a big set of calculations, which can easily flaw your image when you start to grade on top of them, with the simple correctors your using for your grade, its not possible to change the matrix, at best you offset the matrix, but the relations in between the math remains the same, so in order to change the collur science of a sony you need 1. a good codec and 2. software like light match or team up with Juan Melara, on his website he has proofed to make a lot of different workflows to match cameras. https://juanmelara.com.au/store . currently he doesnt have sony workflows, I think its too far off and the codecs on lower tier sony cameras (unless you record raw), are not so good, so better just avoid these cams. And yes I agree even though you could possible put a node with some translations before your grade its much more nicer handier and better, to grade on an image thats more towards what your looking for. If Kinefinity ticks that box for you, go for it, for the Edge we will make a lot of nice colour tutorials, and we just started with this camera, so expect a lot of stuff, hope to take you on our journey! And if not you can still follow this forum, because we intend to focus on cinematography in general and not just Kinefinity.

Completely agreed with everything you said about regarding color matrix and especially with Sony as whole.

noir_et_noir not to go off topic but I also highly recommend you to look into https://www.dehancer.com/ Unlike filmconvert, they do the real thing, you need a beefy computer, but if your camera is profiled you can do amazing things with it, since we are working together with them I will do a few tutorials. Basically how I love to use it is to grade before it (doing a netrual grade, exposure, contrast, white balance, and tint) then use a profile you like the most, and change a few paramters here and there, and grade after it. This reminds me of how i loved to work on film scans (arri wetgate), basically the look was baked in because it was shot on Film, but then captured digitally with a wetgate scanner thus lots of information, and like this I was able to grade on top of the filmlook kind of non-destructive because the Arriscan does such an amazing job. With dehancer I just use it as a filmcamera I convert addative colour sceince in a substractive colour science (film, is substractive by nature and digital sensors ar additive by nature), and start to grade on top of that. FIlmconvert looks really gimmicky if you look how well the profiles are made by Dehancer, the MAVO LF is already profiled, and soon we will add the MAVO Edge as well, but we will also make a Edge to arri conversion so you can use the Alexa profile instead. Just to make this a sponsored post 🙂 you can get 10% off Dehancer with the discount code GAFPAGEAR I graded these videos with it you wont get this look out of the box, like I say its important to get the exposure and contrast white balance and tint and contrast in a nice balance so its feeded inside dehancer nicely, and it also helps to do some primary grading afterwards.. BUt generally I think this tool can be gret for those who have a great taste but are less technical, I mean I can customize these profiles into power grades, probably, but to know how that takes years and lots of dedication, and here you get them for free. As long as your camera is supported you will have great succes.

Jerome Looking into them thank you!

This topic wil contain my diary about getting to learn the colours of the Kinefinity MAVO Edge 8k and work with them in post, and working on conversion luts to intercut Edge footage with Alexa footage. I already heard some people complaining about that Luts in general are not good , and that they need power grades from our side, but this is nonsense, because iam not going to clip or clamp data. We are just translating the kinelog curve into the Arri log c curve, and we will use a 65 point 3d cube for that, so completely fine. So boring days, lots of back and forth with different methods between Alexa and the Edge, many boring charts, mapping in nuke etc, but I finally had a few successes, For those who are new to Colour matrix… it’s a rabbit hole! We wont go fully in depth with our methods, because we ourselfes dont even understand them 100% and still puzzled. We first try the custom mode, so we can actually study what colours do, by spending nights and nights with the footage fromt his point of view we can also suggest Kinefnity what they can change in their core matrix, but eventually we will use ‘Light illusions top tier Light match’ program to interpret data from the edge and Arri Alexa. What we basically do is shoot several scenes with lots of rich data (colours specular light, deep shadows, skinttones etc etc) , with both the Arri Alexa and the MAVO Edge from the exact same spot and same lens, we will denoise the footage so there’s no inteference of chroma noise, and we will match them pixel to pixel so that both images can be exactly overlayed, we will make a few different images which will then be feeded into Lightmatch and will output a high grade 65 point cube. As long as the Edge captures good data, which means enough latitude, wide colour gamut etc. we can match both cameras, but this is always hard because in the base matrix of the camera no gammut clipping should happen. Cameras are data capturing boxes.. the more and better data they capture the better, as long as this data is not dirty, but healthy we can transform it into anything we want it to be. Ironically my gf was painting a bit as well, so quickly made a few images with both cameras. The more you shoot with both cameras in different scenarios and study the images in post the better we can understand how to to grade MAVO Edge footage. For ourself e goal is not to match the Edge with the Alexa completely but understand the nature of it’s matrix and get the moste beautiful footage out there with this camera, and inspire our clients to do the same. Whatever style you prefer (subtractive additive colour science), we will try to make as much tools and blog posts to inspire upcoming MAVO Edge shooters how to treat their footage in post. Now the clickbait question.. Can you guess which camera is which (half of the images are shot with the alexa) And NO the different aspect ratios or lens aov doesnt reveil which camera is which. Dont feel pressured to participate in the which is which game, please dont, its utterly stupid. https://gafpagear.com/shop/kinefinity-mavo-edge-8k/

As a reply to myself, but also as a future comment for those that are utterly confused if they have to guess which camera is guess, please dont. The grades are all about the same, but skintones can highly differ in different light (angle, diffusion, colour, complexity) , and light and shape of light is highly depended on its environment. So differences in skintones are not caused by difference in colour matrix. I will now reveil which is which, a big moment for this youngh forum! Exiting. Please bear in mind that if we do our work good there will only be neglectable differences, the differences you will see here are based on difference of compositions, and light, if you like one shot over the other, its because you like the composition more than the other, dont blame the camera! the camera is always the victim while its just a tool, and yes if we start to do stress tests, and upload very high res images with technical charts we can point out a few differences . BUT NOT based on the following images. this is the ALEXA with a Kodak 250d profile by Dehancer (really love what these people are doing!) This is the MAVO Edge 8K with the same KODAK 250D profile (dehancer)

Kinefinity MAVO Edge 8k colors

iiiNelson

zachwolfe IMO I think the preference for some for the LF comes down to how easy and nice the colors are without having to do much. The Edge is capable of nice colors too but at present I don’t feel they’re as nice SOOC. They come across as being much warmer but they grade pretty easily and you can tweak them without too much fuss. The Mavo LF just looks really really nice with the baseline transform to Rec. 709 and provides a look most people work hard to get on many cameras without even trying hard.

As a newer Edge owner myself, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed with it either and I mulled back and forth about which camera to get. It was the pricing on the Edge and the maturation of the body that ultimately pushed me towards it. I do think if there was an Edge 6K at the time I would’ve chosen it because I don’t need the 8K and frankly I would benefit more from better lowlight (not that the Edge is bad.)

Jerome

iiiNelson I certianly disagree here. yes when the edge was released it took until october to dial in the right colors, after that it was basically the same as mavo lf but with better seperation in the reds (reds on mavo lf tend to skew to orange), for the rest you simply get about the same image with just a bit more dr and better seperation especially in the reds. It just takes a while until the mavo edge lands in the righ hands and with [eople who are willing to share. the tendency in the higher end scene is not to share footae and promote it on fb, it more or less a lower tier cultural thing to share tons of footage in fb groups, but iam sure we will soon see great footage, the edge is being used on a lot of bigger production as b cam to the alexa lf currently, and with our lut we got great feedback, that the edge is indistinguishable from the alexa lf, and the only thing you notice it from is higher perceived resolution due, to higher sample rate and thus less dense olpf. hope this helps

iiiNelson

Jerome just speaking towards unscientific results between trying provided footage prior to buying the Edge. I agree that the Edge will get better through firmware refinements but I picked up on the warmer tones using the KINE NEUT LUT pretty quickly. Admittedly I haven’t been able to shoot as much with the camera as I’d like because life keeps getting in the way (holidays, spending quality time with family after a lot of business travel before the holidays, and my daughter having her heart surgery after waiting for months to have it done). In my limited testing it seemed like the Mavo LF was a bit easier to get to a refined place but I also think this is subjective… also it matter that Kinefinity seems to have gotten the LF more nailed down by comparison. Also many cameras with increased DR have a bit of a learning curve to get it right so it’s no surprise that the LF gets to a more usable image more quickly for many.

I was able to shoot more demo footage and try some of the different sensor crops and frame rates to see how it holds up over the weekend but I’ve only transferred it to my edit drive so far. I hope to do some trial and error this week… and I’ll pick up the Gafpa KINE->Arri LUTs as well to see how they work out. I have the beta firmware for 7.0 but hadn’t installed it yet on my Edge but I have no regrets about the purchase so I don’t mean to give that impression if people took it that way. It’s the best camera I’ve ever owned for its purpose and that’s saying a lot because I’ve had some great cameras for photo.

Jerome

The LUT to match the MAVO Edge 8K with the ARRI ALEXA is finally done, you can now PURCHASE it from our website and in any case that Kinefinity changes the matrix, we will re-profile the camera and get a new conversion lut out there as soon as possible!
We already gave the lut to some shooters to beta test, and we really love the results

zachwolfe

Appreciate all the info here. It looks like the edge is the move for long term. Im guessing with the new alexa lut its only a matter of time till this blows up. Question about the log c lut you have created: what about using Color Space Transform in davinci resolve? Do we know the input color space and input gamma? I use this to transform many cameras into the log c color space.

Jerome

zachwolfe color space and color matrix are two completely different things. By using a idt alexa you don’t transform the matrix of the edge into arri like matrix. However you transpose the color space into that of arri alexa etc. In normal yrgb mode in resolve you use a color space transform to get the much wider gamut translated to the less wide rec709 space. The edge and arri alexa differ quite a lot in terms of matrix. But the edge has enough separation to be recalculated and match with alexa. However the colourspace is about the same so if you like the edge how it sees the world you can simply use alexa as an idt. However if you like the alexa matrix better or need to match an alexa there’s currently no other way than adding our log transform 65 cube lut. What we are discussing currently with Kinefinity is to add a advanced mode in calibration mode where you can implement a 65 cube lut so you could load our lut and there’s no need in post to use this out and you can use alexa idt straight away. Eventually having a idt for edge would be great. The dream of aces was to mix and kitchen all different cameras ny setting a different idt. However this still doesn’t work as it should sadly. Making an idt is quite a thing and we are pushing Kinefinity but right now we are even thinking to copy alexa colour matrix completely and just get over it. There’s no real patent on color matrix. Only downside is that some people might not like alexa matrix, but i think this is a very marginal group. Would love to hear your input

zachwolfe Do we know the input color space and input gamma? I use this to transform many cameras into the log c color space.

so this is not changing the inherent matrix of a camera, and wont give you a match, but only translate the gamut thus space into that one of Arri.

Moralesm

@zachwolfe , You will not be disappointed with the edge. The form factor update, in my opinion, is what Kine needed to really start showing up in larger markets. I just shot a project for NYC Pride on the edge using the CST method for grading. A very simple 3 node grade yielded excellent results. I am not doing the final grade so I stopped once I saw what I needed to see (that it was pretty fast to get a solid image in post).

Here is what I did: CST(Arri, arrilog C -> Aces, aces cct), then a light contrast curve/WB off color card, then another CST (aces, aces cct -> rec 709, rec709-a).

Total grade took about 30 seconds to throw together. I don’t think there is much more one could ask for, even when blanket copy pasted to all the clips in the timeline results were great (to be fair we were in the same setup all day). Here are some screenshots. . I also tried using the Kine Neutral LUT that comes in the camera, but I would not advise. I lost the gradient in the colored background completely, everything went to a solid color. Not sure why that is.

Maybe in the future DR will support Kine natively, or someone will release an IDT/ODT that you can install yourself for Aces/CST workflow. For now Alexa presets work great. Red channel needs some work, but easy enough to tweak in post.

Side note: Are you in the ATL area? I think we may have met years ago through Malissa S, though I’ve since moved to New York.

Jerome

Moralesm Great hearing about your experience. with the gafpa transform lut, you can simply follow the same image pipeline as with an Alexa, yes red colors need work, and its not easy to fix in a grade, it s quite a thing, but this lut 65 cube will do the work nicely!

Jerome

iiiNelson If you like the MAVO LF more in terms of color matrix we can make a custom lut for you 100% matching the edge 8k to the MAVO LF, the other way around is not possible in a 100% accurate manner, because mavo lf lacks a bit of color seperationin red tones. Let us know, and we will definwetly make you a lut, which you can load into your camera and your camera wil behave exactly the same, with ofc added dynamic range.

iiiNelson

Jerome sure I’d take that as well but you’re misunderstanding.

I’m saying that from a baseline standpoint the colors standout more without any work besides dropping the KINE NEUT LUT on it. It’s not to say the Edge can’t be matched or aren’t technically better. I was explaining why many have preferred the LF results off the bat when compared to the Edge. There’s usually an instant love affair with the LF while the Edge needs to be refined a bit more IMO to get an equally great result.

in any case. Bought the Arri conversion LUT last night so look forward to trying it.

zachwolfe

@Moralesm, Thanks for sharing all of that. I just had a light bulb moment, i get that there isnt an IDT/ODT available, really need that to come out. I would much prefer to do a cst in resolve vs using luts to get the edge into arri log c space. Ive been using look designer 2 for FPE and its amazing IMO. Honestly as it is now you can just drop kinefinity into LD2 as an arri clip and its just fine. Love your Pride screengrabs, that color is pretty incredible! And yes I am in ATL and know Malissa S! Not sure when we met but nice to hear from you again!

Jerome

MAVO Edge 8K mixed light
Lets do something crazy, outside its 6800 kelvin, and we put a light at 2200 kelvin on our talent.

image 1 log,
image 2 gafpa rec709 arri
image 3 gafpa rec709 and powermask on the talent to correct back to 4000 kelvin.
image 4 image creative grade.
image 5 creative grade girl corrected back to 5600 kelvin

obviously you can never correct an image back because in this case also 6800 kelvin is hitting her etc. but I like these kind of examples because, the talent is underexposed by quite a margin, and still I can do so much with this image.

Moralesm

@zachwolfe would have been back in 2014/15, so no worries! Haven’t checked out designer 2 yet, but upon first glance looks interesting!

@Jerome these examples look really nice. Seems color fidelity holds throughout the range. There is texture and gradation in the tungsten skin tones, not just “orange,” even in your more creative grade. As a lover of tungsten lighting, I remember the first mixed lighting test you posted was one of the things that got me to pull the trigger on the edge.

I hope they one day do release an IDT, I would assume it would be top priority if they want their cameras to be more widely adopted. Stubborn DPs and Producers will want to see the camera is flexible enough to “match” cameras in their existing workflow before they invest, even if it isn’t the best way to judge the footage or capabilities of the edge. Unfair? Maybe, but… I get it.

Jerome

Moralesm I agree about the the necessity of an idt. However since there is a workaround that 100% gives you the same results it’d not a concern for those who already bought am edge. But I agree it would help to give the edge more momentum to have an idt, right now it remains a niche camera. That’s why I am working with kinefinity on a new concept to change the base matrix in calibration mode, so the colors are mapped and matched before the prores encoding and you get the highest quality out of the transform and can simply use Alexa as idt and call it a day. That would be my preference. Resolve is kind of annoying when it comes to adding new idts.. so this would be the best possible workaround

Jerome

Aditya Sharma used our Gafpa log c transform workflow and we love his images! He will post his images high res as an answer to this one.

Aditya

Jerome

Aditya thank-you!

Moralesm

Aditya these look excellent! Thanks for sharing.

iiiNelson

Nice. I’m gonna try it out with some of my test footage.

zachwolfe

Jerome, When i use CST in Resolve im not transforming into REC 709, im always converting one log space into Log C and grade from there. Despite the difficulties in making an IDT I agree with others that it should be done just like Sony, Arri etc… Does the Edge still not display any info on SDI output? Thats really my last sticking point with this camera. I have an AC pull focus for me and if they dont know whats going on with the camera I cannot put it on a job.

Jerome

zachwolfe even though converting one log space in another it won’t lead to a perfect color matrix and contrast match. Hence many production houses have their own custom workflow when matching camera’s. Light illusion and matchlight on combination with back-lit dsc charts is the way to go. This is also how we made our transform. And yes we will push for an idt for aces! About sdi. With upcoming fw menu is accessible through sdi.

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