Mr. Brittain
Member
Yesterday I took delivery of my very first pro light kit: A lowel 500w Rifa light, a Lowel 500 watt V light with tota "brella", and a dedolight.
I set them up straight away and when I added the HVX on a tripod, my office looked a little like a pro film-equipment showroom. I stood back and smiled, knowing that the acquisition of this little basic light kit marked the beginning of a new era for me....
Later that evening I tried the lights with the camera. All three lights are tungsten. The Dedolight has a dimmer with two preset settings - 3,200k and 3,400k.
Firstly, I aimed just the Dedolight at the nearest object in the room - my Dyson carpet cleaner. Then I switched on the HVX and set the whitebalance to the 3,200k preset.
And I noted a very curious thing. The Dyson cleaner is, to my naked eyes, a light purple/mauve colour; in the HVX viewfinder and on the LCD screen the Dyson was a perfect medium blue!
When I switched to 5,600 daylight preset on the camera, the result was a lot closer to the colour I was seeing with my eyes.
I tried the other lights and the results were the same - the dyson, on a 3,200k white balance, showed blue in both the viewfinder and on the LCD screen.
I did a manual white balance, and got the same result - a perfectly blue Dyson.
I played around with the chroma phase and the colour balance settings, and LCD screen settings, but no matter what I tried it made little difference. My Dyson vacuum cleaner remained blue in the viewfinder and purple/mauve in the physical world.
I then connected my Panasonic 17" LCD tv to the HVX by means of an s-video cable. On the tv screen, the hue of the Dyson was a definite purple, if not exactly the hue I was seeing with my eyes. But at least it wasn't so blue.
Then I connected the camera to my laptop and fired up a demo version of DV Rack 2.0. It showed a purple that was slightly better than the Panasonic TV.
By adjusting the chroma button on the virtual monitor, I was able to replicate the exact colour of my Dyson turbine-head cleaning system.
I recorded a couple of shots via DV Rack.
When I viewed the clips on my LG LCD computer monitor from within Premiere, the hue of the Dyson looked pretty close to the original.
I also compared the LCD viewfinder of my AG-DVX100a, and this fared better than the HVX - the colour, although not exact, was a at least a purple/mauve, and on the fluorescent scene-file preset, it looked pretty close.
I understand that the LCD screen and viewfinder on the camera are not high quality, but I would expect at least an approximation of the colour of objects in the real world, especially under controlled lghting conditions.
I also know that I need a pro-monitor to achieve accurate colour balance (my next major purchase).
I tried again this morning, with natural daylight, on both the preset daylight white balance and manual white balance, and got the same result - blue instead of purple.
Other colours of other objects in the room were off also, but not as off as the purple/mauve dyson. A red object, for example, showed orange.
Is there something wrong with the camera - has anyone else had similar problems?
If I purchase a little pro HD LCD screen for mounting on the camera, will that give me accurate colour rendition? If so, what is the best option?
Thanks in advance for any help or advice in this regard.
Jerry
I set them up straight away and when I added the HVX on a tripod, my office looked a little like a pro film-equipment showroom. I stood back and smiled, knowing that the acquisition of this little basic light kit marked the beginning of a new era for me....
Later that evening I tried the lights with the camera. All three lights are tungsten. The Dedolight has a dimmer with two preset settings - 3,200k and 3,400k.
Firstly, I aimed just the Dedolight at the nearest object in the room - my Dyson carpet cleaner. Then I switched on the HVX and set the whitebalance to the 3,200k preset.
And I noted a very curious thing. The Dyson cleaner is, to my naked eyes, a light purple/mauve colour; in the HVX viewfinder and on the LCD screen the Dyson was a perfect medium blue!
When I switched to 5,600 daylight preset on the camera, the result was a lot closer to the colour I was seeing with my eyes.
I tried the other lights and the results were the same - the dyson, on a 3,200k white balance, showed blue in both the viewfinder and on the LCD screen.
I did a manual white balance, and got the same result - a perfectly blue Dyson.
I played around with the chroma phase and the colour balance settings, and LCD screen settings, but no matter what I tried it made little difference. My Dyson vacuum cleaner remained blue in the viewfinder and purple/mauve in the physical world.
I then connected my Panasonic 17" LCD tv to the HVX by means of an s-video cable. On the tv screen, the hue of the Dyson was a definite purple, if not exactly the hue I was seeing with my eyes. But at least it wasn't so blue.
Then I connected the camera to my laptop and fired up a demo version of DV Rack 2.0. It showed a purple that was slightly better than the Panasonic TV.
By adjusting the chroma button on the virtual monitor, I was able to replicate the exact colour of my Dyson turbine-head cleaning system.
I recorded a couple of shots via DV Rack.
When I viewed the clips on my LG LCD computer monitor from within Premiere, the hue of the Dyson looked pretty close to the original.
I also compared the LCD viewfinder of my AG-DVX100a, and this fared better than the HVX - the colour, although not exact, was a at least a purple/mauve, and on the fluorescent scene-file preset, it looked pretty close.
I understand that the LCD screen and viewfinder on the camera are not high quality, but I would expect at least an approximation of the colour of objects in the real world, especially under controlled lghting conditions.
I also know that I need a pro-monitor to achieve accurate colour balance (my next major purchase).
I tried again this morning, with natural daylight, on both the preset daylight white balance and manual white balance, and got the same result - blue instead of purple.
Other colours of other objects in the room were off also, but not as off as the purple/mauve dyson. A red object, for example, showed orange.
Is there something wrong with the camera - has anyone else had similar problems?
If I purchase a little pro HD LCD screen for mounting on the camera, will that give me accurate colour rendition? If so, what is the best option?
Thanks in advance for any help or advice in this regard.
Jerry