Red vs. Amber LEDs as subjects in videos

MichaelTiemann

Active member
Here is a screenshot of some footage from my HMC150 using:

Detail: -7
V. Detail: -7
Coring: 0
Chroma Level and Phase: 0 and 0
Matrix: Norm2
Gamma: Cine-D
WB: 3.2k Present (using halogen lamps to illuminate)

I should also add that I'm throwing about 1.25kW of light at the subject to try to balance out the intense brightness of the LEDs. I shot this with an ND16 filter at f4.0.

One thing you can notice is that there is NO DIFFERENCE between the apparent color of the Red LED under "STAGE NUMBER" and the amber one above it (showing BANDWIDTH parameter at zero). To my eye, these are as different as...Red and Amber.

To be honest, the Canon EOS 5D doesn't have an easy time with it, either, although you can see *some* Red LEDs instead of none at all:

Buchla200e.jpg


Is there any magic to capturing the rich red color of LEDs from red LEDs? Or is this something one fixes in post? If the latter, what are the color tricks to do so?
 

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About WB.

What was the temperature of the main light source? Was it 3200K?

Perhaps WB channel boosting messed with the color rendition of the LEDs.
 
About WB.

What was the temperature of the main light source? Was it 3200K?

Perhaps WB channel boosting messed with the color rendition of the LEDs.

I've tried it both ways (3.2K and 5.6K) and there's no difference in the rendering of the LEDs.

I do know that red is the hardest color for video to handle. I'm just amazed that two light sources that look like (red) apples and oranges cannot be distinguished at all in the video file.
 
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