Hi All,
There's nothing like the moment of illumination when something you know in theory bites you in the ass in reality.
If I'm honest, I had not been blown away by my AF101 footage thus far. I knew there was bound to be a way to go on settings (this forum has been awesome in helping me zero in on settings I like, thanks everyone!) But it seemed like I was getting further and further away, because the first stuff I'd shot had looked great.
This afternoon I was editing some footage which for some reason the white balance (done in the usual way with a white target) had gone a bit awry and I'd ended up with a slightly cold scene with a mild magenta cast from the reflected light from a purple bed spread. Not bin-the-footage, but enough to make me nervous that the footage would fall apart in the necessary grade.
Indeed, such seemed to be the case. I got HORRIBLE posterisation on the white wall at the back of the scene where there was a smooth falloff gradient. Before the grade it was faintly noticeable if I looked closely. After the grade it was AWFUL. There were big, abrupt colour steps.
Funny thing is that this particular posterisation issue seemed to be getting worse and worse with every shoot I did, and no settings on the camera seemed to be pulling it back. It seemed like whatever I did, the footage didn't look as good as the first few shots I'd taken when I got the camera. I was Dr. Grumpy.
Then I noticed something. The footage looked rather different on my two, supposedly calibrated, Apple Cinema Displays. Green cast on one, magenta cast on the other. No worries, I thought, I'll redo my calibration, haven't done it in a couple of weeks.
When I re-ran the calibration something was clearly amiss- a very bad magenta cast. I'm not talking "that looks a bit too reddy-purple" I am talking triple layers of full minus-green filter, everything absolutely purple. I did it again- another weird colour cast, bit less than before.
I tried it by eye using Apple Gamma. Instant improvement. Both monitors now agree and look much crisper and lush. They may not be "right" but at least they are internally consistent, and I've got back a bit of the richer shadows and cleaner highlights that I'd vaguely wondered about the last few calibrations diluting.
Then I looked at my AF101 footage again. The posterisation problems have diminished to the point where they are just no issue. I won't say they aren't there- you CAN see a bit of banding if you look- but the key problem was that the bad calibration had the monitors straining so hard that they were over-emphasising every last step and gradation. The exact mechanism for this I am not sure of but...
I conclude that my six year old Spyder is broken, has probably been on its way out for a few weeks, and that it was the bad-and-getting-worse screen calibrations that were causing me grief. Hallelujah, the self same footage graded to rescue it now looks absolutely fine, perfectly acceptable, and some of the stuff I shot at the weekend which was looking OK-ish before is now looking spectacular.
I know the "real" answer is a proper broadcast reference monitor, but at least for now I have improved my AF101 viewing experience by the simple expedient of calibrating by eye rather than by hardware. The Spyder is in the bin, and a replacement is on order.
And I feel a hell of a lot better about the AF101 footage than I did this afternoon.
A curious thing is that the HVX200 footage seemed to hold up better even when I had the bad calibration, but that now looks even nicer too. I guess there probably is more posterisation in the AF101 footage but without the crappy monitor calibration blowing it out of all proportion it is hardly visible as opposed to being shot-wrecking.
Hooray. Calibrate. And sanity check your calibration hardware!
Cheers, Hywel.
There's nothing like the moment of illumination when something you know in theory bites you in the ass in reality.
If I'm honest, I had not been blown away by my AF101 footage thus far. I knew there was bound to be a way to go on settings (this forum has been awesome in helping me zero in on settings I like, thanks everyone!) But it seemed like I was getting further and further away, because the first stuff I'd shot had looked great.
This afternoon I was editing some footage which for some reason the white balance (done in the usual way with a white target) had gone a bit awry and I'd ended up with a slightly cold scene with a mild magenta cast from the reflected light from a purple bed spread. Not bin-the-footage, but enough to make me nervous that the footage would fall apart in the necessary grade.
Indeed, such seemed to be the case. I got HORRIBLE posterisation on the white wall at the back of the scene where there was a smooth falloff gradient. Before the grade it was faintly noticeable if I looked closely. After the grade it was AWFUL. There were big, abrupt colour steps.
Funny thing is that this particular posterisation issue seemed to be getting worse and worse with every shoot I did, and no settings on the camera seemed to be pulling it back. It seemed like whatever I did, the footage didn't look as good as the first few shots I'd taken when I got the camera. I was Dr. Grumpy.
Then I noticed something. The footage looked rather different on my two, supposedly calibrated, Apple Cinema Displays. Green cast on one, magenta cast on the other. No worries, I thought, I'll redo my calibration, haven't done it in a couple of weeks.
When I re-ran the calibration something was clearly amiss- a very bad magenta cast. I'm not talking "that looks a bit too reddy-purple" I am talking triple layers of full minus-green filter, everything absolutely purple. I did it again- another weird colour cast, bit less than before.
I tried it by eye using Apple Gamma. Instant improvement. Both monitors now agree and look much crisper and lush. They may not be "right" but at least they are internally consistent, and I've got back a bit of the richer shadows and cleaner highlights that I'd vaguely wondered about the last few calibrations diluting.
Then I looked at my AF101 footage again. The posterisation problems have diminished to the point where they are just no issue. I won't say they aren't there- you CAN see a bit of banding if you look- but the key problem was that the bad calibration had the monitors straining so hard that they were over-emphasising every last step and gradation. The exact mechanism for this I am not sure of but...
I conclude that my six year old Spyder is broken, has probably been on its way out for a few weeks, and that it was the bad-and-getting-worse screen calibrations that were causing me grief. Hallelujah, the self same footage graded to rescue it now looks absolutely fine, perfectly acceptable, and some of the stuff I shot at the weekend which was looking OK-ish before is now looking spectacular.
I know the "real" answer is a proper broadcast reference monitor, but at least for now I have improved my AF101 viewing experience by the simple expedient of calibrating by eye rather than by hardware. The Spyder is in the bin, and a replacement is on order.
And I feel a hell of a lot better about the AF101 footage than I did this afternoon.
A curious thing is that the HVX200 footage seemed to hold up better even when I had the bad calibration, but that now looks even nicer too. I guess there probably is more posterisation in the AF101 footage but without the crappy monitor calibration blowing it out of all proportion it is hardly visible as opposed to being shot-wrecking.
Hooray. Calibrate. And sanity check your calibration hardware!
Cheers, Hywel.
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