color grade 7D 5D GH1

J

jfro

Member
Would appreciate opinions on whether or not you would find this acceptable if you were paying for the job. Good and bad comments are welcome as long as they are constructive.

http://vimeo.com/8385666


Used 3 Nikon manual primes. It's less than a minute and pretty boring, (the girl is a real stiff), but I'd appreciate your thoughts on the color and exposure matching.
 
I think I know that girl...

I think all 3 match wonderfully. I'm not pixel-peeping, but to my eye they seem to be of the same camera.
 
Im seeing what looks to be more green cast in the Canons.

Would I find this acceptable where I paying for it? If I were a lay person, then sure.

Am I a production person? Cant tell you. Some people can nitpick anything.
 
I'm no technician, but from an editor's eyes they looked like they were from the same camera.

Great work. What software did you use to grade?
 
Honestly....when watching this earlier today I thought they all were coming from the same camera. There was nothing that stood out from one to the other that was different. If it really was all three cams on there then you did a great job in matching all the footage (IMO).
 
200mm @ iso 1600 with very little noise? Aspect ratios? This looks like a slideshow of photographs to me.
 
Noel Evans: “I'm seeing what looks to be more green cast in the Canons”


One thing I'm extremely happy with is the white balance I get from the Canon's for whites and skin colors. Last spring I researched 2 tools, the ExpoDisc and the CBL (which I bought). You can see the device in the lap on the wide shot. I'm impressed with the CBL for white balance.


I just went and did a screen grab off of Vimeo and grabbed some RGB values with Photoshop.
The whites are all consistent, although the GH1 is a little higher on the exposure.
Here are some samples from the 3 grabs in the tee shirt.
5D r 198 g 193 b 192
7D r 195 g 189 b 190
gh1 r 208 g 199 b 205


No green bias in the whites anyway. I did do some color grading on the GH1. I took out green in the high and mid tones and added a touch of red in the shadows. I also had to noodle around with saturation and curves.


Maarek: “GH1 seems to have more contrast and less latitude? “


I'd agree 100%. I couldn't get the GH1 nearly as flat with the settings in the camera and to match up with the Canon's, I did have to fiddle with reducing saturation, color balance, and color curves on the GH1 to match up.


I've tried taking the GH1 out as my only camera for family days when I want to shoot both video and stills. There is such a huge difference, IMO, with stills between the 5D and GH1 that I don't use the GH1 for stills. I only take it on family days when I take 2 cameras and use it only for video when lighting isn't an issue. If I take just 1 camera, its the the 5D with the kit lens 24-104 (f4). The stills are wonderful and lighting isn't a problem most of the time. I take the 7D when I want to extend the reach on my 200mm lens (which currently is my longest) and I'm not needing anything real wide.




Me Myself & I:


What software did you use to grade?


I used Vegas 9 Pro. I also take stills or single video frames into Photoshop to look and analyze for color and exposure., but don't do anything there. Vegas has a button to do a screen grab of the preview to memory or disk. Then just paste it into PS.


I'm going to do some more reading on grading with Vegas as I think I may find some techniques for matching and checking exposure that I'm not currently using.




Ian-T


My gut feeling is that in most cases (except maybe real low light) I can use the GH1 as my 3rd camera. I am just looking for some reinforcement. Some times, I need something that can keep recording past 12 minutes.


I appreciate your feedback.




Nitsuj “200mm @ iso 1600 with very little noise? Aspect ratios? This looks like a slideshow of photographs to me. “


I wasn't paying attention to noise as much as color and exposure.. Hopefully, I'll wrangle up some $$ and get a faster longer lens one of these days as I'd prefer to shoot lower than ISO 1600, but I think I can live with that for now. I sometimes shoot at ISO 2400.


Aspect ratio and Slideshow.


Good catch. When I first started my test I was editing video clips. I start with stills to color balance and check my exposure levels, which I do on camera and on the computer. Then I'd edit using the video clips. After a few tests, moving lights, white balancing to check myself, etc etc.... , When in the editor, the colors and exposure appear to be the same between the stills and video clips. So...... I got lazy and started just grabbing and editing with stills as they render so much faster.


However, as I'm writing this, a light bulb just went off and I realize, even though I used jpeg, not raw for the stills, I should do another test with the video as the compression might be a little different for noise. I sometimes go up to ISO 2400 on the 5D, so I don't think ISO 1600 will be an issue, but it's worth checking.


So on Vimeo, I used 3 stills and rendered in Vegas to mp4 at 5Mb/s. I did not crop the images for 6x9, but did render out the 1280x720p. I'll do another test using just video clips. The color shouldn't change, but the noise level on the ISO 1600 might so it's worth redoing. I'll post it in a few days on Vimeo.




I'm still messing around with techniques for exposure levels and then trying to match up the GH1 with the Canons to minimize color grading in post. First blush, the 5D and 7D will be a piece of cake and I think I can make the GH1 work them with a little more effort.






Thanks to all for your responses.
 
jfro said:
Nitsuj “200mm @ iso 1600 with very little noise? Aspect ratios? This looks like a slideshow of photographs to me. “

I wasn't paying attention to noise as much as color and exposure.. Hopefully, I'll wrangle up some $$ and get a faster longer lens one of these days as I'd prefer to shoot lower than ISO 1600, but I think I can live with that for now. I sometimes shoot at ISO 2400.

Aspect ratio and Slideshow.

Good catch. When I first started my test I was editing video clips. I start with stills to color balance and check my exposure levels, which I do on camera and on the computer. Then I'd edit using the video clips. After a few tests, moving lights, white balancing to check myself, etc etc.... , When in the editor, the colors and exposure appear to be the same between the stills and video clips. So...... I got lazy and started just grabbing and editing with stills as they render so much faster.

However, as I'm writing this, a light bulb just went off and I realize, even though I used jpeg, not raw for the stills, I should do another test with the video as the compression might be a little different for noise. I sometimes go up to ISO 2400 on the 5D, so I don't think ISO 1600 will be an issue, but it's worth checking.

So on Vimeo, I used 3 stills and rendered in Vegas to mp4 at 5Mb/s. I did not crop the images for 6x9, but did render out the 1280x720p. I'll do another test using just video clips. The color shouldn't change, but the noise level on the ISO 1600 might so it's worth redoing. I'll post it in a few days on Vimeo.

I'm still messing around with techniques for exposure levels and then trying to match up the GH1 with the Canons to minimize color grading in post. First blush, the 5D and 7D will be a piece of cake and I think I can make the GH1 work them with a little more effort.

Thanks to all for your responses.
Click to expand...

I wasn't really saying that there was noise but lack there of for being video. That coupled with the aspect ratios said to me that we were seeing stills instead of video. So that brings up another question since that was answered. Did you color correct the actual videos or the stills?
Were these stills taken from the camera or actual video?

If they were stills taken from the camera you will get totally different results than if you were to grade the actual video. If you graded stills of the video you would also get a different result from grading the actual video. From your statement about them being in JPEG and not RAW I assumed it was still photographs taken from the actual cameras which would produce very similar color results and shouldn't take much tweaking. Video is a different beast.

But if you graded the video THEN took stills of the results then this would be more interesting... to me at least.
 
http://vimeo.com/8449289

I did another test of the 5D, 7D, and GH1. Use the 3 cams, converted with Cineform and then graded. Used stills only for setting exposure.

Used Vegas again for grading, v9.

I'm finding I can get real close with the 2 canons and exposure is very close. The GH1 presents more work. I don't seem to be able to get the flatness out of the image that I can on the 2 Canons and getting the exposure spot on is not something I can easily do without some extra effort. Might resort to having to use a computer for that when setting up.

But my goal was to convince myself I could use the GH1 as a long form recording 2nd or 3rd camera and I'm feeling OK with that idea.
 
This test (as well as other tests in the past) shows me that the GH-1 has a more contrastier image than the Canons. I used to think it was sharper...but I realize the contrast gave me that illusion. The two Canons were very similar, Nonetheless all three looks good. Just a guess here...but I think if you want to match the Canons to the GH-1 you might have to notch the contrast up one click and maybe have the colors a little more saturated (that still might be a result of more contrast). Otherwise the images all look similar to me.
 
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Ian-t

I agree about having to bump the contrast & saturation on the Canons to match the GH1, but I'm trying to get the GH1 as close to the Canons as possible.

The reason being is that most of the time the canons will be the a and b cam.

The GH1 is more or less back up and occasional 3rd angle.

The other reason is to get the flattest possible matched video's so I can have some latitude in editing for grading the finished product. I'm just thinking that might be the safest way instead of trying to get the look in the canons and then try to match the gh1 to it.

On the other hand, I believe in the least common denominator theory and that would imply matching the canons to the gh1 by bumping the saturation and contrast. Time will tell, but I'm going to try a few projects with the flat look on the canons.
 
jfro said:
The other reason is to get the flattest possible matched video's so I can have some latitude in editing for grading the finished product. I'm just thinking that might be the safest way instead of trying to get the look in the canons and then try to match the gh1 to it.
Click to expand...
Right, I agree.

I always thought Panasonic cameras had a more ..um..."filmy" type of color than other cams when you shoot "out of the box." That's what I liked about the DVX/HVX etc. But I like Canon's (for a lack of a better term) "beefier" colors more and flatter image that makes it perfect for post work. They are both distinct in my eyes. I think one could go in more directions with the Canon colors in post than in the Panasonic (IMO). So, if I were in your position, I would do as you suggested, to get the flattest possible image with the 7D and then try to match it with the GH-1.
 
i think you may run into a problems in motion when mixing the 7d and 5d. i know you can make the 5d(30fps) into 23.97 but im just not sure how close they would match when using actual ppl.

ppl are pretty forgiving when it comes to slight color changes in cuts from wides to closes.
 
chrisxtharp said:
i think you may run into a problems in motion when mixing the 7d and 5d. i know you can make the 5d(30fps) into 23.97 but im just not sure how close they would match when using actual ppl.

ppl are pretty forgiving when it comes to slight color changes in cuts from wides to closes.
Click to expand...

I'm not worried about the 24/30 fps world I can do either some of the time. We are supposed to be getting 24p from canon soon.

I agree, people are somewhat forgiving. When cutting from wides to tight shots, camera angles, lens, etc will effect the color and perception of color.
 
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