Getting the proper color?

C

Chad N

Active member
Hey all! I've had the FS700 for a while now and, it could be just me, but i never seem to get the proper color straight from the camera. It could be a number of things, but in most situations i'll use my cool flo lights rated at 5100k and set the camera to that same temperature. Other times, i'll shoot outdoors and set the camera to 5600k. I don't really use the auto white balance much. I don't have a grey card, but i use a huge white cardboard card if i need to white balance.

I shoot with either Cinegamma 1 or 4, usually with Cine-color. I have tried messing with the color depth, mostly by trying out some of Ablecine's profiles here: http://blog.abelcine.com/2012/09/18/sony-fs700-scene-files-from-abelcine/

However, it seems i always come out with somewhat green-ish or just plain wrong looking skin tones.

How can i get these colors fixed coming out of the camera? Any particular findings about the FS700 color that requires certain settings to compensate for? I'd also be up for getting a color chart or something to help me dial in the settings, or a grey card if that works better. I don't know that much about it. Yet, i've seen a lot of videos posted where people just use the default Cine1 or 4 settings and their footage comes out looking great. I seem to be missing something.

I've never shared any of my work here, mostly because it's just me and my girlfriend making videos with what spare time we have for fun on You Tube. It's not artistic at all, very "you tube", just some fun for our audience which is mostly kids!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpKlyM6Umd8

I'm no colorist, but i did take Magic Bullet Colorista II to the above footage in attempt to try and fix my greenish hue i seem to get out of the camera. I hope i'm getting close.

Any tips for dealing with color in the FS700 or in would be great. Thanks.
 
Just some thoughts, take 'em or leave 'em!

If it's the girl you're having trouble with as far as green goes, ask her if she's got any SPF in her make-up products. That's probably the first thing I would check. And likely the issue.

Second, the lights: some fluos you have to gel to all heck and back to get rid of the green that pollutes flesh tones. Thus, I would say at your wallet's earliest convenience... go Kino.

Last, if it's happening outdoors then check your IR setup.

That's about all I can think of! The rests' up to people who know the camera settings, but those are things that I know can and will cause issues before it even hits compression. Good luck!
 
You are not alone as a number of us have experienced the same thing. Manual white balance on the FS700 is terrible with Tungsten lights as its always really green. Works a lot better with daylight balanced lights or outdoors. I just manually dial it in by looking at the LCD.
 
Maybe the camera in the case makes the problem worse, but I've always found that putting colour temperature labels on flus or LEDs rarely seems to match. With tungsten the colour temp seems to hover around 3000 to 3200 ish, and any mistake is easily balanced out in post - but until non-continuous spectrum light sources sort themselves out, they're always going to be a problem. Discharge sources are tricky too, although the difference in blues is less troublesome than green.
 
Thanks for the tips, everyone. Taking it all in to consideration and continuing to work on getting the color down.

I was thinking of ordering a color chart. It would be a breeze to just grab a shot of a color card before we start shooting (after the lights are set up). Would help me become more consistent trying to correct in post, but i believe would also help me dial in some picture profiles for my various regular shoots.

Is a color card something you'd recommend? Are they used regularly on pro shoots with this kind of camera? I could order an 18% grey card as well, but from what i gather it's more for exposure than color. My monitor has false color and such, so i'm not sure i'd need the grey card.... unless it helps with actual white balancing or color (don't know much about grey cards).

If a color card is the way to go, any certain one a popular option?

Thanks again.
 
Chad N said:
...but in most situations i'll use my cool flo lights rated at 5100k and set the camera to that same temperature.
Click to expand...

Please define for us "cool flo lights rated at 5100K". Which tubes? What CRI? Which ballast?

I'm asking because fluorescent tubes that aren't designed for video work are notoriously ugly. To do it "right" takes 6+ phosphors, and they have to be balanced. This, unfortunately, takes a toll on efficiency. Well balanced fluorescent tubes, driven with a matching ballast, put out fewer lumens than your run of the mill big box store shop lights. What makes the big box store shop lights so darn bright is the big green spike!

If you're using a three or fewer phosphor tube, you'll almost certainly have a fairly large green spike in the spectrum, and a CRI less than the mid 80s. You can improve this with some minus green gel. Start with, I'm guessing here, 1/4 minus green and see what that does for you. This will, of course, lower your lighting efficiency (less lumens) because you're heading in the direction of the 6+ phosphor tubes.

Once you've gelled the lights, do a manual white balance, using a gray card (white card can cause clipping on one or more channels, which in turn throws your white balance off). Why not just set the white balance using the camera's presets? Because technically white balance is about the balance between orange and blue, and doesn't take into account the magenta-green axis. And it's that magenta-green axis that's causing you problems. So make the camera do a manual white balance against a neutral gray card (and I don't mean a piece of random gray-ish looking board from your local framer, I mean an actual neutral card, like from Kodak, Lastolite, Vortex Media, etc.).

This is where I would start, considering how little I know of your lights. Clearly, YMMV.
 
Hey guys, is there a way to do a auto colour-balance on a grey card and then dial the warmth from that setting? I'd like to let the camera balance the magenta-cyan axis and then let me adjust the warm-cool values. When I do a white-balance on a grey card there seem to be no way to adjust from there. Am I missing something?

Cheers.
 
Stuart Mannion said:
Thanks for the tip Bruce. Do you find balancing with cards gives better colour than dialling in the K?
Click to expand...

Yes. Going to depend on the camera's white balance algorithm though.

The thing with white balance is that color temperature only defines the orange-blue axis. It doesn't know anything about the magenta-green axis. When you "dial in the K" you are only changing the orange-blue axis. And if you are using any kind of a discharge lamp (fluorescent, HMI, LED, etc.) then you really need to take care of the magenta-green axis also. Most modern cameras do a good job of balancing everything to a nice neutral gray when performaing a custom white balance. This is typically what you want. But the only way to do that is a custom white balance off a card. If you then try warm up your image by "dialing in the K" you loose the custom setting, and the magenta-green axis correction with it.

So if what you really want is a warmer look than the lights are actually giving you, your two best options custom white balance to a neutral target then color grading, or using a system like the warmcards to make a custom white balance to a non-neutral target. Or both of course.

Heck, the cards are cheap and easy and will almost certainly do what you say you want. How much of a gamble is it?
 
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