Lowlight clips coming out tinted red...although looks neutral on LCD

A

averan

Well-known member
I couldn't find any threads about this, so forgive me if anyone has already answered this.

I'm having trouble with all my lowlight shots coming out tinted red.
They look fine in the lcd and evf when shooting, but the raw and transcoded clips are much darker and reddish.

Does anyone know what might be causing this?

What are the standard steps to properly calibrate the lcd and evf?

I made adjustments to both some time ago so that what I saw through the camera looks like what I see with my eye.....perhaps I did it incorrectly and unknowingly reduced the reds in the viewfinder/lcd?

What confuses me is that my daylight clips look fine.

I shot in lowlight using the preset 3.2k white balance and with a slightly modified Cine D scene file; modified to add a little extra detail, sharpness, chroma level +2 and chroma phase -2.

Any help or hints would be appreciated. :)
 
btw, just checked, my lcd and evf are both set at factory defaults...all settings at 0, neutral.

color bars look fine.
 
I have the exact same issue.

The first event I did I used Scene 1 standard with no mods and the footage was fine, no tinting. After I changed changed to Cine D though the next shoot, I got the tinge..
 
I have this same issue but I am seeing a difference in 2 camera's. I am uploading some rawish footage to show you guys. Maybe I can get a pointer or 2 on how to match/color correct to compensate.

I synced the settings I wanted with both cams before the shoot, once I got it into the editor I noticed they were very different. We were suppose to be shooting 5.6k wb, auto iris, scene F1, 1080/30p. Maybe the other camera got switched to 3.2k, I was told otherwise.

I was on 5.6k because that looked the most 'natural' in my LCD. But wow when I got it back on the computer it was very much red and I suppose I should have been on 3.2k anyways. I put the gain up to 6 a couple times, could that pump a bunch more red into the footage when compared to a hmc with no gain on?

Footage Update: http://www.vimeo.com/6019781 - Look at 2:00 to 2:15, You can see the difference. This is with some color correction all ready.
 
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Natural daylight has a good balance of colors in it, but blue is slightly underrepresented. When we use artificial light indoors, blue is often in very short supply. When we white balance the camera, the camera adds electronic gain to the blue channel to try and compensate. However this adds noise.

When the camera cannot get enough gain in the blue channel, the image begins to shift toward red.

The only REAL solution to this problem is to use light that contains an ample amount of blue in the first place to reduce in-camera gain. Your video will be a lot cleaner for it. This is why most cameras produce far cleaner video with natural daylight or HMI, than with tungsten.
 
this still doesn't explain why the image would look fine on the lcd/evf and dark and reddish when played back from any computer.

i know barry would say that if it looks ok on the camera, but not the computer, then the problem is on the computer.

but i'm not totally convinced.

the raw mts files look the same whether they are played in wmp, mpc or from inside my nle (edius). and the transcoded files (avi, canopus) look the same too.

now maybe this is a codec issue and all the players and nles are using the same codec i've assigned (coreavc) for decoding avchd, but then why would this only happen on my lowlight footage? if it was the codec, wouldn't it then make ALL my avchd clips darker and reddish?

i'll post a few frame grabs later today to show what i'm dealing with.
 
here's some stills.
all shot with Cine-D.
lowlight footage shot with preset WB 3.2k, daylight with preset WB 5.6k.

avi, no cc
1250098436.jpg


avi, cc - white balance and color adjustments
1250098474.jpg


avi, no cc
1250098512.jpg


i've noticed that all my clips seem to have a bit more red by default....wondering if the camera tends toward the red in general and needs to be corrected with a chroma phase adjustment?
 
I noticed this too when I first received my HMC150, especially on skin tones. What I did was adjust the CHROMA LEVEL to -2. Skin tones and reds look way more natural. Hope this helps for your situation.
 
chroma level is just saturation.
did you mean chroma phase?

i had it at -2 before as well, but i then found myself shifting it back in post.
 
This was posted over in a scene file thread...

AGMedia said:
Film the same scene with each of the six scene files -- and if you don't see a difference -- you need to find another business.

Also, view your footage on a monitor. If you're trying to see differences on the awful on-camera screen -- that may be the problem.

The "HMC150 Scene File Handbook" you can download from the Panasonic "PASS" web site is immensely helpful.

For the ultimate easy answer -- do this -- F3 "Spark" -- reduce the Chroma Level (not "Chroma Phase") by one or two (the default is "+4" -- so bring it down to +3 or +2).

Exactly like the HVX -- the auto/default settings are completely underwhelming. Exactly like the HVX -- if you properly exploit the scene files and camera settings -- the results will infuriate people who spent sixty thousand dollars on their camera.

Good luck!
Click to expand...
 
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