Hi All,
I'm wondering if anyone has tried using colour checker charts (like the Gretag MacBeth http://www.xrite.com/product_overview.aspx?ID=1192 ) for video shooting?
I'm getting so fed up with subtle but annoying colour shifts, especially when matching footage from different cameras, so I've ordered one. I'm going to try using it in conjunction with scopes to develop a more robust way to do colour corrections and to better understand what the different options in various cameras actually DO. I'm hoping that shooting a few seconds of footage in each lighting setup should make my job much easier in the grade by giving me a proper reference to start colour correcting to.
When my AF100 arrives I'm planning to use it as a single camera (whereas we've been shooting with two HVX200's or a 5D2 and a 7D as A and B cameras). Even so I think it could be a very helpful tool in figuring out the camera's colour response and the effects and subtle interplay of various gamma, matrix, chroma and pedestal settings. It should also help to get skin tones on the money by having a standard, calibrated skin-tone-like target to use as the basis for each grade. (Models can have amazingly different skin tones- my girlfriend's is very green, especially compared with her best friend, who's skin is very magenta by comparison, despite both being Caucasian. This can be quite a struggle to grade).
It should also help reality check whole stream of my process by looking at the on-screen colours at the end of the chain and just holding up the real test chart next to it- I want to be able to reproduce the colours well before I start doing funky things in the grade.
Does anyone have experience of doing this sort of profiling for video? Any hints or tips?
Cheers, Hywel.
I'm wondering if anyone has tried using colour checker charts (like the Gretag MacBeth http://www.xrite.com/product_overview.aspx?ID=1192 ) for video shooting?
I'm getting so fed up with subtle but annoying colour shifts, especially when matching footage from different cameras, so I've ordered one. I'm going to try using it in conjunction with scopes to develop a more robust way to do colour corrections and to better understand what the different options in various cameras actually DO. I'm hoping that shooting a few seconds of footage in each lighting setup should make my job much easier in the grade by giving me a proper reference to start colour correcting to.
When my AF100 arrives I'm planning to use it as a single camera (whereas we've been shooting with two HVX200's or a 5D2 and a 7D as A and B cameras). Even so I think it could be a very helpful tool in figuring out the camera's colour response and the effects and subtle interplay of various gamma, matrix, chroma and pedestal settings. It should also help to get skin tones on the money by having a standard, calibrated skin-tone-like target to use as the basis for each grade. (Models can have amazingly different skin tones- my girlfriend's is very green, especially compared with her best friend, who's skin is very magenta by comparison, despite both being Caucasian. This can be quite a struggle to grade).
It should also help reality check whole stream of my process by looking at the on-screen colours at the end of the chain and just holding up the real test chart next to it- I want to be able to reproduce the colours well before I start doing funky things in the grade.
Does anyone have experience of doing this sort of profiling for video? Any hints or tips?
Cheers, Hywel.
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