GH2 has the most inflexible color engine of all DSLR's

[Ivo Yurich]

I suppose the easiest option would be to keep the permanent Kelvin for skin tones on 54-56 K and light the scene for that temperature

 

[HKO]

Setting the correct color temperature is crucial for obtaining the widest latitude for color grading in post. What's important to bear in mind is that the white balance used to encode a video is permanently burned in and cannot be shifted in post-production to a different color temperature.

If you examine how color temperature is applied post-facto to a RAW still image, you can see why this is the case. In RAW image processing, the histograms of each of the R, G, and B channels can be individually manipulated to impose any desired color temperature. Once a video is encoded, however, the R, G, and B histograms are merged and can no longer be separated into the original RAW components. While you can still apply a variety of types of color correction to an encoded image, what you cannot alter is its underlying color temperature.

Try Cineform's firstlight. It can dop wonders as far as fixing white balance goes - even after the fact. YMMV

Personal experience here. I own a GH2 and 'kind of' get what the original poster is saying. Without getting into comparisons - let me say I love thee GH2 image. It can be sharp, colourful and saturated if you want. Just be careful in post, it doesn't handle manipulation too well.

I suggest you just have to look at the GH2 as a camera where you attempt to 'get it right' as much as you can when you shoot . It ain't rubbish but it's certainly not the best I have wiggled in post......:happy:

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

Yoclay : If it was such a simple story I guess the GH2 look wouldn't be easily spottable 70% of times even after color grading. That doesn't seem to be the case for other brands so Panasonic is probably doing something different. While this idea might be subjective it also might be objective and that's what we're here to discuss.

It would be nice if you could post some of 'your' footage, uncorrected in post, with details of the camera settings, what sort of target you used to 'white balance' if custom, etc. Since you have stated you have, or have access to a wide variety of cameras, take your 'favorite', and shoot the same setup, at the same time, (which is what I thought the 'girls' clip was in fact, and why I spent some time looking at it...).

Give a 'corrected' still from your 'favorite', and then see if others who may be more familiar with using the GH-1/2 footage, could 'match'... it could be a simple matter of you use to correcting for 'canon's/<or whatever' vs. what GH series does.

Early on, I made an analogy to 'film'. Film stocks differ. Film stocks are 'chosen' by photographers and cinematographers for their 'unique' characteristics. During the 'grading' process film, if a variety of stocks are used, are frequently 'conformed' such that the ultimate overall look, 'looks like what the director' had in mind. If a director wants a consistent look, the usual choice is to use the same stock for every shot...

Given that digital cameras, have similar 'unique' characteristics... I don't see the 'problem'... Since others have, including myself, have taken the examples you have presented, and 'corrected' them to some level of 'correctedness', I really don't see how you can say the GH series is 'uncorrectable', or limited in correction capability.

Every digital camera has limitations. Every 'process' will change one color but have unintended consequences in other areas of the image. The use of 'power windows', or more generally, masking and specific area color treatments is a frequent enough process for 'big' productions. In simple still photography, this is often done by simply creating a set of adjustment layers with attendant masks. In moving pictures, some form of 'match move' needs to be done to get the masks to move in concert with any camera motion, to cover the regions of the image correctly.

So, for example. I shot the footage and was experimenting with a 'technicolor' plugin I found online somewhere. I'm not absolutely 'happy' with this, but it was an interesting experiement.

The 'saturated' color area, is where the plugin was used. The 'grayish' image seen outside the saturated region, is the 'uncorrected' fooage, and actually pretty much 'matched' the day. Southern California, for all the 'sunny days' we have, frequently has a sort of 'graying' off of colors, because of the water vapor in the air, along with a hint of smog...

(as a question for anyone, is there any 'metadata' for footage, like EXIF, as there is for say the 'jpg' stills... which give the camera settings used for the shot... etc...).

As I recall, the mode was 'smooth', and all the settings set to -2. The one thing that I can't really remember is whether I had selected 'sRGB' or 'AdobeRGB', which according to the manual isn't selectable for 'movie mode', which by experiment does change the image characteristics of the captured footage...