Low Key Saturation Dr Alan?

[steve phillipps]

Played about with Alan's BBC settings on the PDW700, and one thing I've found when lining it up beside an HDW750 is that the picture look quite a bit "thinner" with less rich colours. It matches a lot better when Low Key Saturation is set to ON with a value of 40. Am I doing something really stupid here though, just wondering if while it might look good in 1 setup situation it may throw horrible surprises at my in other situations?
Steve

[Alan Roberts]

Bear in mind what I wrote in the settings doc, that it's aimed at a specific natural history programme. That's what I got paid for. They never want the high saturation of LE. The 750 settings are much more aimed at drama, where higher saturation is generally wanted.

[steve phillipps]

But putting a value of 40 in it wouldn't cause elephants to turn pink or grass to glow etc.? What does it do exactly, just boost saturation in the shadow areas below a certain IRE?
Thanks as always.
Steve

[SimonMW]

Yep.

There used to be a technical document about it on the Sonybiz website, but they appear to have taken it down. Send me an email and I'll email it over to you.

[Alan Roberts]

Low-key saturation raises the chroma gain for signals with low luma or chroma values, ie. it makes dark colours more colourful. It also adds some noise, inevitably. Generally, I avoid it, but it can be useful at times.

[steve phillipps]

Thanks Simon, I do already have that document, and there is a link that still works I think for those who'd like to see it http://www.liquidgate.it/freestuff/files/CameraTechnologyBasics.pdf
Steve