Colour matching S1H to Canon cameras

boosh

boosh

Well-known member
Hi all,

I own a Panasonic S1H and Canon C300MKIII. I usually film with one of the other but I have a few shoots coming up where I'll be filming with both on the same shoot and I want be able to match the colours so they actually look like they've been filmed with the same cameras. I'm wondering if anyone on here has a workaround to match these cameras colourise? Cinematch would be the perfect solution but I edit in FCPX and Cinematch for FCPX isn't due out until after Christmas. Any help is greatly appreciated!
 
You'll have to shoot a color chart and play around with one of the camera's color settings if you want to match them on the production.

In post, I'm not sure if there is anything great for FCP X (you can try the built-in "match color" but it's not a long term solution for many clips and doesn't work well sometimes).

In FCP X, you can use a variety/combination of the color tools available like the board, wheels and curves. This is essentially what any plugins do but the user doesn't see that work happening.
 
I don't know if FCPX supports ACES but if it does, I would set the color space to that and choose the correct input transforms for each camera. It makes different cameras look pretty similar in DaVinci Resolve at least.
 
ACES would help a lot indeed. In fact the S1H and 1DX MKIII (RAW) looked almost identical inside ACES in my test earlier this year.
 
boosh said:
Hi all,

I own a Panasonic S1H and Canon C300MKIII. I usually film with one of the other but I have a few shoots coming up where I'll be filming with both on the same shoot and I want be able to match the colours so they actually look like they've been filmed with the same cameras. I'm wondering if anyone on here has a workaround to match these cameras colourise? Cinematch would be the perfect solution but I edit in FCPX and Cinematch for FCPX isn't due out until after Christmas. Any help is greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...

I've just color matched my S1H to a new A7S iii. The same method should work matching the C300MkIII. I used the 'colorchecker video' chart from x-rite, shot short clips with both cameras, and in my case used the built in capability in DaVinci Resolve to select and create the profiles to map them to a common color space. As far as I know FCPX requires a Plugin for this, it should be available in Color Finale if you use that Plugin. (Do NOT use the 'x-rite colorchecker passport video' chart for this, use the larger 'colorchecker video' chart. I have the passport chart and there is a manufacturing error in the color layout; this is with the 2019 edition, earlier editions are likely okay.)

I do normally use ACES (with Resolve) to match cameras but haven't had much luck with the A7S iii, although I will continue to work on that. Again, as I understand, Color Finale 2 supports ACES and that is what I would try first with the S1H and the C300MKIII. The Panasonic V35 transform works well with the S1H and I'd expect the C300MkII transforms would work with the C300MkIII.

When Cinematch is available it should be a good solution. I've run the betas and they work well (with a watermark). But, as you say, this options isn't available yet.
 
Hi Boosh,

Do you use a Ninja V with your S1H? One thing I like to about the S1H is according to Apple and various field tests I have seen, Panasonic's implementation of ProRes RAW apparently stores white balance, and ISO as metadata that can be freely modified in post. In the second video the reviewer had to retract his prior statements about the inflexibility of S1H ProRes RAW.

If you are willing to work with a Ninja V and deal with the larger ProRes RAW files, you might not have much trouble matching the two cameras in post. When you get a chance update us with how this all works out.

https://youtu.be/8HtwLJRUNEc?t=96

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwF7zoJLJPY
 
boosh said:
Hi all,

I own a Panasonic S1H and Canon C300MKIII. I usually film with one of the other but I have a few shoots coming up where I'll be filming with both on the same shoot and I want be able to match the colours so they actually look like they've been filmed with the same cameras. I'm wondering if anyone on here has a workaround to match these cameras colourise? Cinematch would be the perfect solution but I edit in FCPX and Cinematch for FCPX isn't due out until after Christmas. Any help is greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...

Here's a relatively quick attempt at matching the C300 MKIII and S1H. I'm in a similar position, except I'm thinking of picking up an S1H to match with my C300III. I currently use a C200, but shoot mostly in the 8bit to save on storage. Just rented a S1H to check it out and see how it could work in my standard workflow.

A Cam/Wide angle is the C300III and the tighter B Cam shot is the S1H.

Camera_Comparison_Example1.jpg

Matching was done by converting the S1H Vlog Vgamut via a color space transform to Clog2 Cgamut through a lut created in LutCalc, then the standard Canon Clog 2 to Rec709WideDR. I shot a color chart to match up white balance as well. Close enough for what I do. I don't claim to be a colorist by any means.
 
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