GH2 has the most inflexible color engine of all DSLR's
- Thread starter Makrofag
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Matthew P
Well-known member
The main factor was hue (see my previous post; set it to just before a full revolution). I used colour curves too, and also reduced the saturation (more so in the dark areas - the GH2 seems to have warm dark colours). That's pretty much it, and it only took one minute.
j1clark@ucsd.edu
Veteran
Ok, I see the differences you mention in this clip. In your titling, you indicate a 'custom white balance'. I'll presume that the light from the window is mixing a bit with tungsten, to form a blue/red mix. Since I don't have the GH-2, I don't obviously know what that may produce when setting up a custom WB... but I would probably adjust that out in post. The problem is if you want to mix footage from the various cameras, then one has to find out if they are all conformable... which may not be the case due to different design goals.
Here's the situation... in film film, there are differences between film stocks. Many photographers choose a stock, and stick with it, either throughout a project, or for years across all projects. Some photographers change stocks and use the different color renditions to their vision's advantage.
Similarly with digital means. Different cameras with different design goals yield different qualities... I looked at a still of your clip, in the split screen of the girl that's sort of buried in the couch. The histograms are 'significantly' different, and not just due to slighly lower exposure on the GH-2 side. The 'red' channel histogram on the Canon is a big 'peaked' thing, where as the GH-2 is a much smaller and wider 'haystack'.
You'd most likely not be able to 'conform' these to look the same. That being said, I wonder if the GH-2 has been engineered to reduce the 'red saturation', because of problems in that regard with the GH-1, where 'saturated reds' would cause a blooming effect.
Update:
The problem is which one 'represents' the real colors. Another poster gave an 'adjusted' GH-2 version. Seems to 'match' the face tones fairly well, but is that the child's 'true' complexion.
A bump of the red does mitigate the yellow cast, and it's not a 'big' bump...
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John Caballero
Veteran
Well, what can I say. Another complaint thread. They don't end. I am vary familiar with the environment of the dancing video. With the lighting used in those clubs you are lucky you get anything decent out of it. There is absolutely nothing to complaint about the results there. When you don't have total control of lighting and all you have is strobing and jumping lights all over the place it is a no brainer.
Kinda makes me wonder why I never complained in my entire life about the cameras from other brands... hmmm.. I have to think about it
Ben_B
Veteran
For the skin tones test video what settings were used on the GH2 and the 5D?
I've never had any real problems getting the kind of color I want out of the GH2, especially after grading.
On my GH2 I try to balance nice looking in-camera color with a flat profile for grading. I use Cinema, Contrast -2, Sharpness +1, Sat +/- 0, NR -2. On GH1 I use Standard with same settings.
I've never had any real problems getting the kind of color I want out of the GH2, especially after grading.
On my GH2 I try to balance nice looking in-camera color with a flat profile for grading. I use Cinema, Contrast -2, Sharpness +1, Sat +/- 0, NR -2. On GH1 I use Standard with same settings.
John Caballero
Veteran
Kinda makes me wonder why I never complained in my entire life about the cameras from other brands... hmmm.. I have to think about it
Nah. It is OK to complain here. LOL!
I dunno. I think eyes and monitors have a lot to do with this. I watched the video and the 5D stuff just seems waaaaay too reddish for my tastes. The GHx cameras have always been a little yellow/green but I generally just adjust the color balance manually for a shoot and leave it.
I personally think that contrast means more than color since nobody who watches someone else's videos knows what the *real* colors really were. Only the person who captures it knows for sure but everyone will notice something that seems washed out and bland.
I personally think that contrast means more than color since nobody who watches someone else's videos knows what the *real* colors really were. Only the person who captures it knows for sure but everyone will notice something that seems washed out and bland.
Another color comparison against 7D. Check the orangutan - that's a drastic difference in colors. Well, I must admit that it's not much scientific, yes, GH cameras have built in tools for WB corection, yes there is "vibrant" color scheme that has LOTS of saturation that for some reason no one of AB testers uses when they compare colors, yes, you can tweak in post etc. But still... I just like Canon's worm stock colors against Pana. Yes, Canon's WB is more unnatural resulting in yellowish-reddish whites in most situation, but who cares?
BigBearDoinThangs
Active member
hmm this is interesting because the first thing I immediately noticed about my GH2 was how GOOD the color was compared to GH1, it just stood out to me as much stronger color fidelity that immediately 'popped' to my eyes
Yeah but the orangutan is lighted for the 7D but in total shadow on the GH2. Apples to oranges (get it?.. oranges?).
Wrt. the orangutan - FWIW, the GH color is more real - that's the shade orangutans have, the 7D is just way too bright and unnatural. Of course, nobody says natural is always better, that's a matter of taste. The question is, to go back to the OP's concern, how flexible is the GH wrt. color correction... could you get 7D-like colors out of the GH (though I'd add: can you get GH colors out of the 7D footage).
Matthew P
Well-known member
Yep, check out my post on page 2.
Easy as pie. Not so much the other way around, though.j1clark@ucsd.edu
Veteran
Kinda makes me wonder why I never complained in my entire life about the cameras from other brands... hmmm.. I have to think about it
One of the things the Wife and I use to do for the wedding events, is shoot the 35mm stills using real(tm) B&W film, like Fuji Neopan... then there was no problem with weird colors...
The only 'color' film that was used, was the Hasselblad, and with changable backs, we could do color+strobe, or B&W easily enough...
Once we made the switch to all digial 35mm, we still recommended people select the 'monochrome' option for the reception portion, because of the bizarreness of the environment, which also
covered some amount of 'color' noise due to shooting at higher ISO values...
This may not be the solution for everyone, but that is one solution to certain types of problems.
I actually tend to like a bit less saturation that apparently most people do... oddly, unless the movie is doing 'technicoloresque' style, frequently seen i RomComs... so do apparently many filmmakers.
But one of the things that drove the Wife nuts in the switch to 'digital' was an apparent 'haze/softness' of the image. She really did not like to apply an 'unsharp mask' to the image... but I eventually prevailed after a couple of 'disasters' she had with using the in camera 'sharpening'...
This may be similar to your seeing issues with 'out of the camera' footage, and what is required is some sort of small tweeking to get the image characteristics more to your liking.
Jonathan Briceño
Active member
Makrofag may be using this website to attack directly to GH2 users or future users. He just suscribe and have only post once, and have been today
Cosimo Bullo
Veteran
No one is making him keep it, nor should anyone encourage him to keep his thoughts to himself. This forum is here to talk about exactly these sorts of issues.
I for one, while quite taken with the GH2, have been having similar thoughts about the color. We've been having some luck by just watching white balance like a hawk. And for what it's worth, my take so far is - at least with skin tones - the camera prefers a cooler look in general.
j1clark@ucsd.edu
Veteran
In these sorts of discussions I wonder how many people have actually used film... I'd imagine these days, fewer... Why do I ask... well, with film, it does not come out of the camera 'ready for viewing'... positive film was not typically used for production, and had severe limitations on latitude... just like digital cameras... but negatives, typically were shot 'flat', to allow for the contrast boosts that occurred in the photochemical reproduction process. Further, various methods were available to 'change things', but the point is, the 'first out of the can' was not likely to be the eventual seen on screen. In fact, back in the 70's some friends would shoot 'color' cine film, and get muted colors, because of this 'designed' attribute.
The few times I did hand color printing, where fraught with waving little filters in front of a test print, attempting to correct for various color skews... people who made this their profession would learn a number of standard methods to correct... along with having something of a good eye for 'color'. But if one paid, one could get a number of shifts to enhance or subdue any number of color attributes.
For my GH-1 I've used the various settings that people have mentioned, that seem to work for me, but my goal in image acquisition is to produce footage that can stand some 'tweeking', if I really want to present in color at all. For 'out of the camera', well for some happy shots it may be 'good enough' to have saturated colors that sort of set in the same space as what is observed. But I'm tending to setup to shoot flatter, more muted.
This doesn't really give the HDR, at popular prices, I'd really like, but at least I can work with things afterwards.
Lucas Adamson
Well-known member
Your experience is the opposite of mine. Shooting for muted colours and low contrast gives you much greater post production flexibility. Boosting colour and contrast in post are pretty much non-degrading to the image, and give flexibility and options to the look. Reducing them in post can be disastrous. That's the way it's done in film colour processing too, and the way every colourist would have you shoot.
I think Svart is right. It's not much because of the difference in incamera color algos it's ratther because orangutan was sunlit during the shot with 7D and was in the shade while shot with GH2. But the question of tweakability of GH2's colors is one thing. The other is that sometimes you just don't have even time for color correction at all. In ENG situation and other reportage genres. There are appications beyond movie production where a good colorist and dedicated time are a part of the cycle. Sometimes you just need 'right' colors straight off the camera.