New Koji Advance

What do you guys think?
vimeo.com/131260267

I'm looking to get something like this. I was hoping to get FilmConvert but this at the launch price of $99 seems like a good deal, no?

I guess I'm almost more interested in film grain than the actual colour and this seems to have some nifty controls for that.

Did anyone use the old Koji Color?

More at www.kojicolor.com

No one's used Koji and have an opinion?
Come on, it's the internet, you can have an opinion even if you never used it!

I've kept an eye on this, but haven't really tried it. They have a free trial, so why don't you try it out for yourself? I will when I get some time. As for filmconvert, I think it looks good as long as you dial it back some. It's slow, but I would imagine it would be one of the last things you apply. If Koji is faster, that would be great. As with anything like this, the real test is just whether you think it looks good for your story. We're in a post-film world, where it's no longer really a standard. The look and feel of film can be thought of as just another in a long line of ways moving images can look.

Ok, got a chance to try out Koji Advance and do a quick comparison. This is by no means complete because I didn't do an exhaustive side-by-side going over all the different stock settings. A few observations:

1) While I said that filmconvert was slow, I think they updated it to use GPU a while back and I didn't upgrade it some reason. Using the latest version, it's pretty comparable in speed to Koji and is fast. Both work in real-time without rendering, at least on D700 GPUs. Haven't tested them on anything else.

2) Koji menus with the stocks is a bit hard to read because they just give you the stock number and nothing else for some reason. It doesn't say Fuji or Kodak Vision3 or anything like that, so you'll have to look up the numbers if you aren't familiar. It's been a while since I've shot film, so I only knew a few of those numbers right away.

3) For some reason, I think Koji's stock menu is PRINT stocks, not stocks that you shoot with (generally negative stocks). Their grain menu only has a few settings: five different Kodak stocks, but at least these are actually negative acquisition stocks. This is very strange to me, because you pretty much only shoot with negative stocks (well, there can be rare exceptions). Obviously, whatever print stock your film gets printed on as far as release prints does affect its look somewhat, but that's not the deciding factor when you're choosing which stock to shoot. This is also a strange choice when you consider that these days, your film might not ever be printed on a release print!

4) Filmconvert has a 3-way color-corrector, but Koji seems to have a few more settings you can tweak in the inspector. It's not really a big deal because you'll likely use something else to tweak color. Both programs have settings where you can tell them what camera and color profile you used. I used Canon C300 with C-log and had no problems with either program.

I tried an apples-to-apples comparison, but it's a bit hard because Koji doesn't let you select a negative stock for a preset, only a negative stock grain profile. So I compared 5207 Koji grain/2383 print stock with Filmconvert 5207 and all I can say is that Koji's default settings went more contrasty. The grain was very comparable; both looked pretty convincing to me. You can tweak all these settings endlessly in both programs, so it all comes down to a matter of taste.

If I had to choose, I would say Filmconvert is more flexible and has more options, not to mention the fact it lets you choose negative film stocks. Still, the Koji stocks look decent and the grain is good (although I found 5279 to be a bit exaggerated, but you can dial it down), but it only has about five stocks for grain. If all you're really interested in is the grain, Koji is cheaper and would work fine. If Koji actually added negative stocks for color profile instead of only grain, it would be competitive.

Thanks for the comprehensive analysis!
Yeah, saw somewhere that it was quite a deliberate decision to only have print stock.
I guess if they were the same price I would get FilmConvert but the $99 is about the upper limit I can afford to spend at this point, and even so, I shouldn't really be spending it. But I really want something like this so might jump on this introduction offer...

I have no S-Log2 footage to really try it out with.
I can't find anything about supported cameras on the Koji Advance. Seems they are a bit more generic than FilmConvert that seem to have specific profiles for many cameras (especially FS700 and A7S, which is the ones I own). Now how much this really matters, I have no clue.

I bought Koji when it came out last year, now I'm trying to figure out if I want to upgrade to this from what I currently have and spent $299 on.

Koji Advance has more options, but since I have color Finale and Crumplepop Grain35, I don't feel like I'm missing much other than the color temp, and density settings.

For $99 I feel like I should get it just to add to my toolbox, I do like the Koji color I have now and it's a solid product, but I don't know if I need to give them more money.

Color Finale:
1- You get curves.
2- You get wheels.
3- You get LUTs, can import/export/manage LUTs.
4- You get Vector controls.
5- As many of each, and in any order you want.
6- Only $99, which is a real bargain.

Not sure why I'd need anything else.

I do own Color Finale.
I've been playing around with the Koji Advance, and yes, it's marginal if getting Koji as well is worth it.

I do like that all the controls in Koji Advance are in the effects window and that you don't have to open a seperate window. Grain is also something I miss in Color Finale. And you have to click apply after changing LUT to see the effect, gets annoying quickly.

I seemed to be able to get results I liked pretty quickly with Koji. I find myself using mainly the vector controls. The curves are just too sensitive so I'm finding them hard to use. Maybe I just need to get used to them.

I'm curious about this line from the FilmConvert description: "FilmConvert realistically models the amount of grain required for each color and exposure level in your image.". Sounds like a very good thing but does it really make a (big) difference?

And are there any good Grain options that cost less than the $99 Koji Advance?
At the moment I only have the one that comes with FCPX and the one in mVintage but that is a processor hog.

Filmconvert and Koji Advance bill themselves as film emulation plugins, and their UI is built around tuning for the look of specific film stocks. Most likely, you will use them in conjunction with traditional color grading apps. Obviously, there is some overlap with color controls, but I don't think you can consider something like Koji Advance and Color Finale to be the same type of program. As for Filmconvert boasting about "grain specific to color/exposure" ... well maybe it does that, but 99.999% of people can't tell the difference, and I doubt anyone really cares.

Agreed, who notices film grain? Just watched a movie on TV, 63" HDTV screen, couldn't see any "grain" anywhere. I think folks get too carried away with emulating film, when they're not using film, rather than make the digital video look its best. Don't bother with a look of a medium you don't use, make what you have look its natural best.

I do like grain, and think it adds some life to images. However, usually it's lost in YouTube compression though. Vimeo is better. And sometimes you can use it as a creative effect if overdoing it.
I'm not a fan of too clean images. And I'm not traying to emulate film for film's sake, it's more maybe an easier way to get started with grading...

When you stay "it's more maybe an easier way to get started with grading...", what does grain have to do with grading? Adding grain is a special effect, not color grading. Or am I missing something?

BenB wrote: When you stay "it's more maybe an easier way to get started with grading...", what does grain have to do with grading? Adding grain is a special effect, not color grading. Or am I missing something?

Yeah, that had nothing to do with grain, but was more a response to your "Don't bother with a look of a medium you don't use, make what you have look its natural best." I guess what I tried to say that I'm not concerned to mimic specific film stock or anything like that. But LUTs (and grain) can be a shortcut to achieving a somewhat more organic image.