Colour correction on the Canon XH-A1?
Jacques E. Bouchard
user's manual) on their XH-A1 (or similar HD camera)?
I took mine out to shoot in the park all day Tuesday, and while the footage
was amazing at 20f, the colours were not as vibrant as I thought they could
be. Is that a function of 20f, and in any case is it better to colour-
correct in post rather than mess with the camera's settings?
BTW, glad I decided to take the HD plunge early. The camera is well-worth
the money I paid for it.
jaybee
Smarty
My experience coming from the Sony 3CCD HDV camera and then switching to
Canon HDV was that the Canon was definitely "less vibrant". It is my
impression that this is a deliberate artistic choice made by Canon
designers, and some people prefer it and others don't. When I compare
footage from my 3 earlier Sony HDV camcorders, all of them were designed to
have, by default, warmer colors and greater color saturation.
I would start by first trying to compensate in post, since it is easier to
make subtle changes here than in footage which has already been
overcompensated or miscompensated in the camera during capture. If you are
not pleased with the results in the default Canon settings, try first doing
some post processing to see if the change in color balance / saturation
suits you. Your success and ease of adjustment will depend on your NLE
software and how well it can be adjusted to create the effects you are
looking for.
Then try it the other way, with the camera doing the compensation, to see if
you are getting the result you are looking for. Neither method is
necessarily "better", and you need to do your own artistic judgment here
IMHO. Remember that this solution you chose may work very well outdoors but
may not be the best choice in other lighting situations.
You have a very competent HDV camera which takes great video so I'm certain
you will ultimately find that one or perhaps both methods work well for you.
Smarty
"Jacques E. Bouchard" <inv...@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
news:Xns9A9FD231FE5Cje...@63.218.45.252...
David Ruether
"Smarty" <nob...@nobody.com> wrote in message news:55WWj.1011$vE.99@trnddc03...
Just a couple of comments... Various cameras may have "standard"
settings (the standard Canon HV20 color is rather saturated and a bit
red...), which can be modified in the camera controls to optimize
output under various conditions. It is preferable to do this and to do
as little modifying of HDV footage while editing as possible, since
modifying footage during editing forces the recompression of all of the
changed HDV footage (although some programs, like the Premieres,
unfortunately do this with **all** HDV footage anyway, changed or
not). This damages image quality and slows the rendering process, not
very desirable things...
--
David Ruether
d_ru...@hotmail.com
www.donferrario.com/ruether
Martin Heffels
>I would start by first trying to compensate in post,
[...]
>Then try it the other way, with the camera doing the compensation, to see if
>you are getting the result you are looking for. Neither method is
>necessarily "better",
Actually, in-camera adjustment is slightly preferreable for DV25/HDV/AVCHD
(highly compressed formats), _if_ you know what look you want. Every
correction in post, can introduce some noise and other problems. For small
corrections, the results are barely noticeable, but if you want to push it
further, it gets risky, and then it's beter to use filters or built-in
colour-matrix corrections.
cheers
-martin-
--
Official website "Jonah's Quid" http://www.jonahsquids.co.uk
Jacques E. Bouchard
news:4ppo24l2esuv9hd55...@4ax.com:
> On Thu, 15 May 2008 12:34:09 GMT, "Smarty" <nob...@nobody.com> wrote:
>
>>I would start by first trying to compensate in post,
> [...]
>>Then try it the other way, with the camera doing the compensation, to
>>see if you are getting the result you are looking for. Neither method
>>is necessarily "better",
>
> Actually, in-camera adjustment is slightly preferreable for
> DV25/HDV/AVCHD (highly compressed formats), _if_ you know what look
> you want. Every correction in post, can introduce some noise and other
> problems. For small corrections, the results are barely noticeable,
> but if you want to push it further, it gets risky, and then it's beter
> to use filters or built-in colour-matrix corrections.
That's a very good point, thanks everyone. I'll do some more tests,
especially on flesh tones, before I make any colour correction changes.
jaybee
Martin Heffels
<inv...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>That's a very good point, thanks everyone. I'll do some more tests,
>especially on flesh tones, before I make any colour correction changes.
Fleshtones: try the Tiffen 812 :-)
-m-
Jacques E. Bouchard
> On 15 May 2008 19:53:52 GMT, "Jacques E. Bouchard"
><inv...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
>>That's a very good point, thanks everyone. I'll do some more tests,
>>especially on flesh tones, before I make any colour correction changes.
>
> Fleshtones: try the Tiffen 812 :-)
I'd go the filter route only if colour correction didn't work in most
situations. I still have to do tests indoor. Also, I believe you can turn
colour correction settings on and off as needed.
So far, I've only noticed the need for correction in green vegetation,
which seems a tiny bit too washed out. It's a contrast from my Canon
still camera, which makes greens look like you can smell the freshly-
clipped grass.
jaybee
Martin Heffels
<inv...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>I'd go the filter route only if colour correction didn't work in most
>situations. I still have to do tests indoor. Also, I believe you can turn
>colour correction settings on and off as needed.
You can try the digital version though in the Tiffen Dfx Digital Filter
Suite. I think the 812 is available in there.
>So far, I've only noticed the need for correction in green vegetation,
>which seems a tiny bit too washed out. It's a contrast from my Canon
>still camera, which makes greens look like you can smell the freshly-
>clipped grass.
:-)
cheers
-martin-
Smarty
exactly the reasons Martin states. I've personally have found it difficult
to achieve accurate camera settings under the conditions which jaybee stated
in the original post "I took mine out to shoot in the park all day Tuesday,
I normally let the camera do the work in --calibrated-- settings like a
studio where I have control over lighting, and let post do the work in
more --random-- environments such as a park with jaybee's "all day" filming
with the resulting variable lighting. But as Martin says, no doubt the
additional post processing adds some degradation. One of the strategies
which arises out of using post is to learn how the specific camera behaves
in a variety of lighting situations, thus permitting the choice of several
presets which properly compensate the camera in future use. The camera which
jaybee uses is exquisitely suited for doing this with its multiple presets
and all sorts of individual color, R, G, B gains, matrix choices, and
gammas, unlike the HV20's and others of the more amateur class.
Smarty
"Martin Heffels" <goo...@flikken.net> wrote in message
news:4ppo24l2esuv9hd55...@4ax.com...
> On Thu, 15 May 2008 12:34:09 GMT, "Smarty" <nob...@nobody.com> wrote:
>
>>I would start by first trying to compensate in post,
> [...]
>>Then try it the other way, with the camera doing the compensation, to see
>>if
>>you are getting the result you are looking for. Neither method is
>>necessarily "better",
>
> Actually, in-camera adjustment is slightly preferable for DV25/HDV/AVCHD
> (highly compressed formats), _if_ you know what look you want. Every
> correction in post, can introduce some noise and other problems. For small
> corrections, the results are barely noticeable, but if you want to push it
> further, it gets risky, and then it's better to use filters or built-in
Spex
Okay, something dear to my heart, XH-A1 custom settings. I use a
modified version of this ( http://paolociccone.com/blog/?p=17#more-17
scroll to the bottom for the settings). I use Cinegamma 2, Knee H and
BLK Stretch. Since the chap who made this preset had gone to the
expense of using a DSC chart I gave it a go. Love it. Canon should
have shipped the camera setup like this as the default really doesn't do
the camera any favours at all, apart from making everyone into preset
wizards of course.
Oh, and take particular notice of the -9 Sharpness setting. I have been
shooting with -9 sharpness for a while as I found it was making a
drastic improvement to the encoding efficiency. The article above
confirms my own tests but graphically shows why on the scope traces.
I grade everything I shoot in Apple Color and have noticed the image can
be pushed further without it breaking up with the artefacts becoming
obvious, it's still 4:2:0 and heavily compressed but there is a tangible
difference. Well worth doing whatever preset you use.
Hope this has helped...