Matching AF100 to GH2 b-cam

C

Chris Lawes

Active member
I have a GH2 and an AF100. I have the Olympus 14-35 and 35-100 f/2 Zuiko's (pretty color matched.)
I want to use them both to shoot a 2-cam outdoor interview, sometimes even both at 35mm doing matching shots.

With my current settings on both cams the color is WAY different, with the AF100 being much warmer and more saturated then the GH2. I'm not attached to my current settings so much, so can you guys please give your input on how to setup both cams to match each other color wise?

Your own experiences on how you've done it or your theories on how to best do it. Obviously this thread can serve to help other's who want to match AF100/GH2 and not just my situation.

Thank you very much!
-Chris
 
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No actually I don't have a chart, just some grey cards+warm cards. I have been using an orange shirt that the interview subject will be wearing and trying to get them color matched to that. Embarrassingly un-professional, I know! But I'm way out in a village in India right now and don't have a lot of options. Of course the flip-out screen on the Af100 and the GH2 are not color accurate or matched themselves, so it's not a very exact process.
Hence my dilemma.. It's a personal project not a paid shoot so it's not high stress, but I still want to do it well.
 
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Yeah you need a color chart and a good monitor you can hook up both monitors to. Otherwise there's really no common reference to calibrate both cameras to and you just end up fixing it in post. There's no other simple way as these are quite different cameras.

Noah
 
OK I can accept that. However can anybody post their settings that they chose after calibrating their cameras? They may not work the exact same for me and my lenses but they could get them a lot closer then they are now and make it easier to fix in post. I've tried fixing it in post and they are so far apart that it doesn't look so good after I try to match them.
 
NoahK said:
Yeah you need a color chart and a good monitor you can hook up both monitors to.
Click to expand...
Except that that won't work either, because the GH2's HDMI output is inaccurate and doesn't show the actual colors recorded.

What you actually have to do, is record footage on both and then compare them in an NLE or play the GH2 footage back from a different/better camera that has an accurate monitor output.

It's an incredibly tedious process and I gave up after only getting sort of close.
 
Barry_Green said:
Except that that won't work either, because the GH2's HDMI output is inaccurate and doesn't show the actual colors recorded.
Click to expand...

Just a thought: What if you put the GH-2 reference footage on the same memory card in the AF-100 ? Can you play GH-2 footage from the AF-100 ?
 
Chris Lawes said:
OK I can accept that. However can anybody post their settings that they chose after calibrating their cameras? They may not work the exact same for me and my lenses but they could get them a lot closer then they are now and make it easier to fix in post. I've tried fixing it in post and they are so far apart that it doesn't look so good after I try to match them.
Click to expand...

Here's the end result of when I was trying to match them but gave up after I found out that the monitor output is completely inaccurate. This will get you vaguely close:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthrea...F100-and-GH2&p=2299040&viewfull=1#post2299040
 
Matching cameras was a breeze back in the stone age. A CCU for each camera made life so much easier than all this menu crap, pardon my French.

I'm thinking no need for an external hardware interface in 2012, just a software app for Mac/PC which interfaces thru the USB cable on the camera and displays the camera setup perimeters with instant update.
iPad version would be real hip being able to match cameras and design custom looks on location.

Dream mode off.
 
Do you think matching these cameras will work better matching them both to a manual kelvin white color temperature (e.g. 5600k) or having them both custom white balance to a gray card?

I will post some frame grabs soon, of my original settings, with Barry's settings, and Barry's settings with some white balance experimentation.

BTW thanks a lot for the settings Barry!
 
No matter how you handle your white balance, shooting a chart, even a cheapie chart with both cameras on each scene will help give you a reference to start with in post.
 
Chris Lawes said:
No actually I don't have a chart, just some grey cards+warm cards. I have been using an orange shirt that the interview subject will be wearing and trying to get them color matched to that. Embarrassingly un-professional, I know! But I'm way out in a village in India right now and don't have a lot of options. Of course the flip-out screen on the Af100 and the GH2 are not color accurate or matched themselves, so it's not a very exact process.
Hence my dilemma.. It's a personal project not a paid shoot so it's not high stress, but I still want to do it well.
Click to expand...

Lookup a chart on the web and print it out on paper.
 
Here's an example. I used Barry's settings for rough camera matching mentioned earlier in the thread, and I did a manual white balance on both cameras to a warm card (a bluish greycard, although probably everyone knows that.)

This is the result from the raw .mts files. Please don't judge the framing/angle! I was showing the left temple in this shot. The AF100 + 35-100 is the tight shot and the GH2 + 14-35 is the wide shot.

I'm not sure where to begin to match these two using curves or 3-way color corrector, I've been trying some but the tight shot keeps looking warmer/brighter/better.

What do you think Vincent?
-Chris

5782843567_8e8723862a_b.jpg
5783398298_ca9f9d901a_b.jpg
 
On the wide: roll your mids towards the orange a little bit as well as bump up saturation a touch. Looks nice though.
 
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