Matching 3 cameras

[PFP_VIDEO]

A company who hired me for a shoot this Saturday informed me today, that besides my camera, they would be using 2 others. The 2 other cameras will be DVX 100's , but they can't guarantee that they will both be 100A's. Since I have to match them by eye, any hints on what settings I should use to start off with in matching a 100 and 100A?

[J_Barnes]

Make a color chip chart and print it out on a color printer...shoot it with all three cameras and match up the colors in post with the eyedropper tool.

[Barry_Green]

Obviously don't use any 100A-only settings, like the new gamma settings or "enriched" matrix. Stick to those you can duplicate from the 100, like regular cinegamma and regular cinematrix.

I've matched three 100's to a 100A using idential settings across the board, and manual white balancing -- for some reason the 3200k preset just wouldn't look the same across cameras, but with manual white balance they all matched very well indeed.

[PFP_VIDEO]

Wow talk about quick advice, thanks. Barry do you notice that the preset 3200k seems a little warm on some cameras or is it my eyes and or monitors.

[Barry_Green]

I haven't noticed that, but if you're looking at different monitors, every monitor will likely look different until they're properly calibrated to bars. With that said, my experience with the cameras was that they didn't all match when set on the preset, so yeah, there was something that just didn't add up...

[PFP_VIDEO]

What NLE would have the eyedropper function, I never thought of color matching or even correcting in that way.
I have Adobe 1.5 Pro.

[J_Barnes]

I've never done this, it was just the first thing that popped into my mind. When shooting film, you shoot a color chip chart at the beginning in order to tell the printer what standardized colors will be under the light you're shooting. The printer then adjusts the printer lights accordingly to make the red=red, the cyan=cyan, etc.

In this case, I was suggesting doing the same thing, but printing your own chip chart and just matching the cameras to each other, rather then to a specific standard.

You'd be able to load all three clips from each camera into your NLE and use the eyedropper tool to get an exact RGB value of each square on your chart, then you'd pick one camera to be your neutral and create "profiles" to adjust your other two cameras to that standard...probably using color curves.

This is what professional photographers do with digital cameras, they create standardized adjustment profiles for specific cameras and printers so that color stays consistent throughout their process.

You should be able to do it with most NLE's...FCE/FCP, Vegas, I'd assume premiere would have it since photoshop does.

[Barry_Green]

What a crafty idea! I mean, theoretically that's what manual white balance is supposed to accomplish, but having a chip chart there could give you an extra measure of control over correcting the image... never thought of using it for matching video cameras, which surprises me, because I did use it to match the DVX to the film camera for the upcoming DVD... but yes, I think I'll include the chip chart in my bag from now on!

[Gary_McClurg]

I believe Birns and Sawyer rents a system that you can hook up all three cameras through a switcher. I don't know the costs or your budget

[taubkin]

With FCP's color correction tools you have the ability to actually ask a color of one frame to match another color from another frame so that would be quite easy to accomplish...

[PFP_VIDEO]

After digging through my basement I found a 12 input 1 output video switcher. I'll use that to punch up the cameras for tweaking. I have no control over the edit so I just want to make sure my client gets all matching footage from all 3 cameras. Then the plan is they are so happy, they praise my talent and reward me with lots of $$$. I can dream can't I ?