Achieving more pleasing, less digital looking stills???

[Glen David Miller]

I decided to take a chance on workflow and pulled out the Epic to shoot some headshots for a friend.

Now, if you're in the industry, you know the hardest thing, probably, is to get an agent/manager to like a headshot from any other photographer than they one they like. Shooting headshots suck! I'm more of an editorial/ artistic shooter anyway. That said....

I set up a shot using a Cooke 100mm lens (oddly, epic tells me it's a 48mm). The shots look okay. It's a strange aspect ratio, but I'm getting used to it, knowing I can crop. Wish the "stills" side of the camera had a little more height to go with the width.

But, the real questions: First, the images are looking a bit TOO sharp. So, in RedCineX, I exported several stills adjusting "Sharpness, Denoise, and Detail," mainly leaving denoise set to zero. Looking at the images all up at the same time at 1:1, I don't see a difference. Looks like the same settings.

So, for stills, outside of the normal make-up and hair, the 100mm lens, etc, what are some tips for more pleasing, less digital looking images you guys have discovered? Filters? I shot both Kino lights, and bounced natural light.

My motion work rocks. Seems people are, as they should be, more critical of stills. Oddly, the 5D, with more MPx, didn't seem to produce images this crisp.

Thanks in advance!

-Glen

[Tehben Dean]

You could try using older less perfect glass and I find the epic grain structure is very organic feeling so you could try less light to add more grain.

EDIT: Check out this thread: http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?82914-Epic-amp-old-glass

[Jaakko Rinne]

I've used just the tiniest bit of the skin slider under Alchemy Group to get a bit of the harshness out if needed.

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Personally I think shooting uncompressed has far more pleasing noise. The blue channel in skin tones gets all digital and splotchy if you go above 5 or 6:1 compression.

[Yousuf Abbasi]

You could try using older less perfect glass and I find the epic grain structure is very organic feeling so you could try less light to add more grain.

EDIT: Check out this thread: http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?82914-Epic-amp-old-glass

A good option is something like an older glass as Tehben says, and personally I really like SUPER BALTARS for portraits because they seem to bloom, and give a nice un-even halo while still keeping the right amount of sharpness. Contrast is also less digital looking. It's an organic and artistic portrait, but its not too art-house either.

If you wanted to stick to your Cooke 100mm for the portraits, there are a lot of filters out there such as Schneider's HOLLYWOOD BLACK MAGIC, thatll diffuse some of the sharpness.

[Yousuf Abbasi]

Personally I think shooting uncompressed has far more pleasing noise. The blue channel in skin tones gets all digital and splotchy if you go above 5 or 6:1 compression.

I can't stand the splotchy blue channel. This is where the CTB filters come in !!

[BRANDON JAMESON]

Film is always the best option if you want your images to look like film.

[Kevin Marshall]

I second the Skin (or Clarity) slider recommendation. Also you could pull the R3D into Photoshop for more traditional photo editing - either directly or through a TIFF.

[Mike P.]

I second the Skin (or Clarity) slider recommendation. Also you could pull the R3D into Photoshop for more traditional photo editing - either directly or through a TIFF.

I'm guessing this is Photoshop CS6, right?

But yeah, I find reverse clarity takes the edge off well... you have to be really fine with your adjustments though as sometimes it seems like 0.01 change can make the difference between pleasing non-digitalness and blooming/glowing/cloudness.

[Vadim Bobkovsky]

Film is always the best option if you want your images to look like film.

The point is to get filmic look on the image from a digital source. Of course if you want real film, shoot real film. Though, seeing it slowly going away, some of us are concerned about preserving (and emulating) the "legacy look" for various, not only nostalgic reasons. Thank you very much.

[Rob Ruffo]

Lighting, processing, filters, lens choice - I have no idea what you mean by "digital look" - that can mean so many things - but we get stills that look more like 35mm from our Reds than from our 5D, and seem to have more actual resolution. There's a lot to it, though, all those things are involved, there's no single trick.

[Russ Fill]

Don't forget there is the unsharpen mask setting in alchemy along with the skin slider you might find a pleasing setting, a little goes a long way.