FEATURE THEHOT LIST
7. INSTANT HDR IS THE NEXT HIGH-DEF
One alternative that’s becoming increasingly popular is Hybrid Log Gamma (HLG) as found on many Sony camera such as the FS5 and A7R Mark III. HLG is a hybrid between Rec.709 and Log and is designed to work on both standard and HDR monitors. HLG footage on a regular monitor looks pretty good and is very useable, especially if you just increase the exposure slightly. If the same HLG footage is viewed on an HDR monitor, the colours are much more vivid as you will be seeing more stops between the lightest and darkest parts of the image, skin tones will look the same but the shadow areas will be much deeper. If you don’t want to spend hours in post and really working out grading for HDR and non-HDR footage, then HLG is a good option right now. If you know what you’re doing, then HLG doesn’t offer the grading capabilities of something like S-Log3 but is a quick fix. And many more editing programs are now able to use it, such as the latest version of FCPX 10.4 which now has HDR support. If you want to get ahead, get on the High Dynamic Range bandwagon.
High Definition 1080 televisions revolutionised the way the world watched TV, in a way that the newer brand of 4K TV sets didn’t. While High Definition was very obviously a big step up in sharpness from Standard Definition, the move to 4K was nowhere near as visible to the general viewer. And it needed four times the bandwidth to transmit it and store it. That’s why 4K hasn’t had people chucking out their HD sets for new ones. But the new thing is HDR, High Dynamic Range – and you only need one look at a picture on an HDR set to see a vast difference to HD or 4K. It looks brighter – up to ten times brighter than a conventional set, colours are punchier and there is more shadow detail with around 11 stops of dynamic range versus six on a standard TV in the usual Rec.709 colour space. That doesn’t mean everything actually looks brighter. A white piece
of paper on a standard TV looks just as bright as a flash of lightning. On an HDR TV, there is a vast difference. And once people get used to HDR, anything shot in Rec.709 will look very ordinary. Your clients are soon going to be wanting footage in HDR, if they aren’t asking for it already. So you should be prepared. The good news is, that for years, cameras have been capable of capturing for HDR. A Log profile usually captures around 14 stops, but our usual monitors and TVs squash that down to the six of a standard Rec.709 image so the Log footage looks flat and washed out as each shade of colour is very close to the next one. But as HDR TV sets and monitors can show up to 11 stops, the image has more colours and looks vivid and contrasty. But it’s not as simple as just delivering everything in Log as there is some post work needed.
“The good news is, that for years, cameras have been capable of capturing for HDR”
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PRO MOVIEMAKER AUTUMN 2018
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