footage looks too dark in FCP / quicktime

H

harry-O

New member
can't find any info on this topic so far so any help greatly appreciated.

i'm used to using regular, broadcast HD cameras (PDW700, HDX900 etc.) and set my exposure to the image i'm getting through the EVF and the monitor. i've been using my 5D mk2 for a few months now on short film projects and i've noticed that daytime / well lit shots play back exactly as intended however when i shoot atmospheric scenes with a lot of shadow (majority of the image is dark with pockets or shafts of light) the image looks fine in the LCD viewfinder and an HDMI monitor, both when previewed and when the recorded image is played back from the camera - lots of clearly visible subtle detail in the shadows.
However, when i copy the data to a Mac and play back with either Quicktime or Final Cut (still in it's original, un-transcoded form) it appears a stop or two darker; the blacks look crushed and the chroma over saturated. this is the case on 2 separate Macs (Mac Pro and MacBook Pro with OSX 10.6.2 and FCS2) and also on a PC running Premier CS5.

i know i can boost the gamma in post but that also increases the noise so currently i'm over lighting my scenes by 1-2 stops. not an ideal way to work.

camera profile is set to 'Natural'.

anyone else come across this problem or is it just me?
 
All I can say is when you edit you need to view on a broadcast monitor, I use a Matrox box for this as you cant judge you footage on a computer screen.
Derek
 
I think you should do some testing

Basically

Get some of your clips grab some stills and look at the histo gram in photoshop (or use a similar video edit tool - but im from a stills background)

Evaluate your perception of those images

learn to evalute your exposure using the histo not the screen when shooting

IMO footage is better darkened than lightened - that will control noise

Stills people ETTR (expose to the right) with the intention of kicking the curve down in post (darkening shadows) controlling noise

So maybe you are not overlighting at all - lifting shadows is IMO the way to extract noisless footy

A paranioa for hot highlights (hard lighting) is also something quickly developed shooting DSLR (IMO)

Hot highlights box you away from ETTR without under exposing shadows

Once the footy is on the computer if there are shifts between the H264 and your editing converts thats a software issue - possibly old QTime

S
 
Good run through above, I was also going to say that use the histogram to adjust exposure, aim for the right side as it is always better to darken in post than lighten. Computer monitors are not good references, try to output the image to a regular TV if you have no proper TV-monitor to find out what it really looks like.

In one shoot the cameraman, partly deliberately, partly by unexperience, underexposed 5DII footage badly, also the white balance was badly off (daylight setting at 12000K post-sunset situation). ISO was something like 6400. To my amazement it was possible to tweak the image to almost normal (relatively speaking) in Color, except the noise of course. Even then it was as good or better than average digibeta SD...
 
thanks for the input guys. i'm having to learn still photography skills very quickly.
on the camera the histogram is lacking on the right - i'm guessing that is the 'bright' information that's missing?

i guess Canon uses a different gamma setup than Adobe or Apple.
for now i will continue to make my scenes brighter than necessary, and darken in post to absorb the additional noise generated by the high iso.
 
The camera should be on Adobe 1998 which is not different from what Adobe use !

If the histo is blank at the right end you are still under exposing

Consider spot metering either by using a zoom to fill your frame with a highlight or moving the camera till a highlight fills the frame

get that to the farthest right on the histo right - that is your best exposure

You are probably not overlighting but lighting for a narrow dynamic range camera

its very different to lighting for the eye or film or (I imagine) more developed vid cams

Its interesting coming from shooting digital stills since 1999 and ETTR since 2001 to see how even the Red Users seem baffled that digital is not film (yet)

S
 
Great article on this ETTR buisiness and how baffling the whole deal is...

Great article on this ETTR buisiness and how baffling the whole deal is...

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/optimizing_exposure.shtml

I was coming by dvx to see if anyone was considering working this into the GH2 hack. What is happening when you try balancing the light by eye, the live view is using a rather dumbed down protocol, that will not serve you well.
The article says more than I ever could.
 
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