Setting Colors and Scene File on DVX100A

[tubaman290]

Situation:

I primarily shoot on-location events such as marching band competitions and high school band concerts, neither of which allow me to control lighting situations or environments. As the environment changes throughout the day, outside of course, clouds passing over, getting darker as the day goes on, I am constantly white balancing adjusting colors throughout the day.

Problem:

Even though I shoot with all of the same cameras, DVX-100A, if all of the settings are exactley the same, sometimes the 2 pictures still differ slightly, sometimes in color, saturation, etc..... I am in search for a trick or method to setting camera settings, saturations and colors to be true. Are there such things as reference color cards to put in front of the lense and adjust from there, what is the best white balancing method? I appreciate your help in advance.

Thanks.

 

[dpdave73]

Your best bet is to setup the two cameras so they look the same first (before the shooting day starts). This would be best done in a controlled environment (in your case daylight balanced, not forlescent).
Setup the two cameras on sticks hooked to one monitor (calibrate the monitor as best as you can). They do make color charts that you can use, but they can be very costly. A McBeth color chart is about the cheapest but it is not made for video. What I do is set up one camera the way I like it then go through the other cameras to make sure all the settings are the same. Then look at the pictures (A/B switch on the monitor) to see where the adjustments need to happen to get them looking closer. Even though you are using all 100a's the colors can still look different.
As far as your white balance while shooting... Make sure all your cameramen have the same white card to balance from.

Other than that it's good luck.