How to fix the standard washed-out colour look on the HPX500/2

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David See

Active member
Hi all,

I am disappointed with the basic setting or "look" to the pictures in the HPX 502.

Pictures tend to be yellow-ish, slightly blown out with washed-out and pale colours that do not look vibrant, rich or natural.

I shoot news mainly and anything else I shoot is graded in post, so I do not need a plethora of "looks" in my camera. All I need is a nice, clean, properly white-balanced picture.

I know there are adjustments that can be made to the pictures in-camera via the menus, but I am not technical enough to understand what each does (and should do) if I adjust them.

Could someone please point me in the right direction as to where I can learn how to set up this camera properly.

I hear the term "punchy blacks" being used in relation to getting good colour rendition, but how do I get that?

Thanks in advance,

David
 
up your contrast, use cineV, use CineLike Color Matrix, turn up the coring, and you'll have plenty of puncy contrast, crushed blacks (depending on your pedestal level) and vibrant colors.


I disagree with your opinion about the look of the camera. I have shot with it many times and much prefer the color rendition BECAUSE it is lifelike and deep. And I greatly enjoy having 16mm depth of field.
I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

CineD might have something to do with your woes, since it lowers contrast and increases dynamic range


also, because of MTF, high contrast detailed landscapes and such may lose contrast through the lens, appearing slightly washed out or not as vibrant as you remember them.

With excellent HD glass on the front, the 500 looks freakin gorgeous
 
DanHD said:
I disagree with your opinion about the look of the camera. I have shot with it many times and much prefer the color rendition BECAUSE it is lifelike and deep. And I greatly enjoy having 16mm depth of field.
I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the adjustment tips. But I don't believe washed out, pale pictures with blown-out highlights and a yellow tinge are attractive. Not sure who would, really. In it's standard form, the pictures from this camera, compared with the Sony DSR-570 it replaced, are rather ordinary (of course in SD). Thus I was hoping someone could give me some settings to put some life into the pictures. I only shoot in SD at this stage.

That said, I do have a fix from Panasonic to install, so I will see how that goes.

DanHD said:
CineD might have something to do with your woes, since it lowers contrast and increases dynamic range
Click to expand...

I am using this camera with its standard settings. I am not using any scene files. I tried CineD and the colours looked awful. Just like stronger saturations of the colours I got normally. But, I will give CineV a go as well.

Again, thanks for the settings. I will give them a go and see if it makes the colours and the pictures look any more accurate. I would say I am experiencing a combination of getting used to the Panasonic "look" in the pictures after being used to Sony for 15 years, as well as using the camera with its settings straight out of the box.
 
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DanHD said:
up your contrast, use cineV, use CineLike Color Matrix, turn up the coring, and you'll have plenty of puncy contrast, crushed blacks (depending on your pedestal level) and vibrant colors.
Click to expand...

I forgot to ask:

What would you suggest I set the coring and Pedestal to? I am unsure of what these do exactly (apologies for the ignorance, but this is the first time I have had to tweak a camera).

Do I change any of the other detail settings?

Cheers,

David.
 
Digital cameras like the HPX500 have lots of "handles" to make the image to your liking. It's all very subjective, but I would suggest experimenting with:

Chroma Level-go up
Gamma-you won't like either of the Cine settings probably
Matrix-stay away from Cine Like
Color Temp.-can paint the overall color balance with this
Black Level, NTSC legal is 7.5 IRE

Coring will affect detail, noise threshold, not as important as the above.

Also, early HPX500/502's had an issue with 5600K at preset, I believe as far as color balance. Panasonic offered a fix for it.

Sony and Panasonic cameras have a different look out of the box, Sony looking a bit magenta, Panasonic having more Cyan and Green saturation. Both can be tweaked.

I recommend using a MacBeth color chart and a DSC labs Chroma Du Monde chart, if possible, along with a waveform and vectorscope so you can see what's going on with the different settings.

I have owned many, many broadcast Sony cameras and I can tell you that there are a lot of Panasonic converts who prefer the latter for colorimetry/tonality, including myself. Hard to beat Panasonic fleshtones, IMO.
 
Thanks for the advice.

I am shooting 99% in SD at the moment but I guess the time will come where everything will be HD. Mind you, most of my vision is compressed and sent via the net to a server, so HD might not come about for a while yet.
 
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