Color...is it me?
 

I'm just getting started with this camera, but so far I'm really having a hard time with the color. After watching Philip Booms review, I felt all of his footage looked a little instagrammy and baked. He defended his grading as " how he liked it" but frankly it seems like a "natural rendition" using the film gamma and proRes is almost out of the question. At least compared to c-log on my c300, the bmpcc color seems to be extremely difficult to just get a nice neutral, natural colorful grade. The video gamma delivers better color, but crushes the blacks pretty hard in the process.

Add to that the limited white balance presets, and lack of any method to set or dial in a custom white balance, and I'm in a quandary as to how this camera fits into any professional workflow. Perhaps this scheme works decently in a raw workflow, but that doesn't really help when raw hasn't been delivered yet..and who knows when or if it actually will be.

Re: Color...is it me?
 

I've looked at a few user videos from the pocket cam as they start to appear and often the color is very flat and lacks that "punch" I saw in a few black magic cinema camera footage Andrew Julian posted on Vimeo. I"ve seen Blooms video as well and I have seen him mentioning in other posts that color correcting is not his strongest point but his videos always look fine to me, except the pocket cam video which like you said has a "odd" color.

The pocket cam seems no different then it's bigger brother when it comes to achieving the right color but since there are users that are able to get it right they maybe can share their work-process?.

Re: Color...is it me?
 

Yes, I have had problems, and continue to have problems, with white balance. Problem is I’m learning a new camera as I also learn new software – DaVinci Resolve. My first attempts were less than satisfactory but I’m now getting there. Let me hasten to add I would not call my approach professional or that my fooling around would fit into a professional workflow; it wouldn’t. But then comparing the BMPCC with the c300 as tools for professional work is perhaps not appropriate as the BMPCC has too many constraints, the lack of custom white balance setting being just one.

But the price is right!

One thing that I do know is that the ProRes files off the BMPCC are quite wonderful to work with compared to AVCHD and Mpeg-2 files I have worked with in the past. Just for fun I set up my EX1 alongside the BMPCC (settings as similar as possible) and I like the BMPCC files more every time. I have been able to produce what I would call neutral colorful looking files, more and more as I learn, but it’s still a bit of a hit and miss thing, for now. For some footage I’m using good old Vegas Pro 12 and that works, now and again, too.

The ProRes files off the camera are indeed very flat and how far one boots the contrast towards that ‘punch’ look is clearly personal preference coupled with a tendency perhaps to under-do it in order to preserve the wide dynamic range the camera delivers. I find myself wanting to preserve detail in the shadows, because I now can, and that’s coloring my thinking. I really have to grit my teeth and boot those blacks down to jet black to get punch back into things. But again, I’m just playing around, and learning.

I venture to say we will see all kinds of non-neutral footage being delivered by folks shooting with the BMPCC simply because at the price point it can now easily be done. I also believe a competent colorist (which I am certainly nowhere near being) would be able to produce neutral footage with ease. I too look forward to hearing about workflows from others that are more competent than me.

But right now, for a professional shoot with an anxious paying client looking over my shoulder...I would pick up the EX1 and leave the BMPCC for weekend fun, and making movies.

Re: Color...is it me?
 

The Blackmagic cameras are all "colorist" cameras. One thing one can not judge at all from any footage online is the color. That's skill and personal preference.

I took a long hard look at a lot of cameras relative to cost and ROI (Return on Investment) and despite some awkward elements, it wins because of codec and color flexibility. I'm truly a novice when it comes to grading experience but I do have a good grasp on the theory and techniques.

When in a hurry there certainly are and will be lots of plugins specific to the Blackmagic cameras. Perhaps we need a topic just about that.

Also the low cost of the camera means, for some of us, more money for lenses.... which can have a much longer life than the cameras (as look at my nearly 40 year old Nikkon lenses I've collected).

Keep in mind the lens and the NDs play a role in the color.

While it would be nice to have a white balance button I think the settings are really meant to just be ballparks and the real balance happens in post if you know how to use RGB parade and, in lieu of white, balancing on skin tones.

Re: Color...is it me?
 

A quick shot of grey card or a color-checker at the start would make it much easier to get the balance later and standard practice on film-style shoots. Even when shooting ENG style camcorders I always do a "custom white balance" it takes only seconds however busy the shoot. I have done a lot of shooting with wide ranging skin tones in some of my work, often under wildly mixed lighting and got paranoid about somebody getting green skin - never happened but maybe that's why. Obviously personal judgement plays a part, but it's helpful to have something you can measure to back it up.

There are small credit card sized greycards that can easily be whipped out of the pocket and held in front up of one of these little cameras, or the "white lens cap" type of thing which could be left on and ready.

Its always best to have some sort of reference even it its a napkin.

I will be taking a close look at the BMPCC at BVE North in a few weeks along with the usual suspects from the DSLR crowd. It's on my xmas list.

Re: Color...is it me?
 

I've spent some time watching BlackMagic Cinema Camera videos on Vimeo and I've noticed they all have that summerish warm color (orange/brownish with light mids and shadows)
Is it the camera or is it a trend?
What if I wanted to shoot some cold, gloomy, dark locations on this camera?

Re: Color...is it me?
 

Given these cameras normally shoot in "Film" (log) mode the look is pretty much up to the person grading.

Re: Color...is it me?
 

Bingo Craig!

Shooting the BMCC is raw, you can push any kind of look all over the place. Amazing. A little time learning Resolve or the many other raw grading tools and you can take the exposure, hue, saturation, secondary color(s), contrast ... you can take them anywhere your (or someone else's) vision of the story takes you. But it is important to use that extra step of grading to bring this camera to its full potential. And it is a blast.

Once you've played with this combo, you will see it is a little strange to comment on someone's chosen look.

About the only issue is the need to watch out for use of heavy ND filtration without IRND usage which muddies up the blacks and can be tough to fix at times.

Re: Color...is it me?
 

Giacomo, Craig -

In my experience the warmth seems to be intrinsic to the camera. When white balanced properly (well that's a misnomer, because this camera has no white balance feature, only presets), everthing has a bit of a red tinge to it. If one adjusts the white balance to correct out the red, there seems to be no color in the image.

Not sure Craig if you own or have used this camera, but I'd say, with it's current color science, crippled white balance, and lack of "RAW" it is anything but a colorist's camera. Still trying to decide if I will keep it.

(on the positive side, the image is remarkably sharp and delicate and exhibits none of the aliasing that mars most cameras in this price range. Rolling shutter seems to be worse than my 5dmark11 though.)

Barry

Re: Color...is it me?
 

Hi John,

The subject is the BMPCC. It (currently) has no raw. In my opinion you can't push it around like a drunken sailer or all over the place, as you put it. And there was nothing strange (or little) about Giacomo's comment. His perceptions seem very accurate given the footage I've seen online, and my personal experience with the camera.

Barry

Re: Color...is it me?
 

Speaking of personal experience, after many GB of files generated and many hours of playing around in post I would say, and this is of course not only my opinion but my actual experience, yours may differ of course as it seems it does, that you can 'push it around like a drunken sailor or all over the place'. And I also find Giacomo's comment a tad strange. His perceptions are not at all reflective of my perceptions, that’s all.

In fact I find the truly remarkable feature this camera brings to the table, not to belittle the features you commented on as being positive as I agree with you in that regard, is the malleability and resilience and the complete lack of baked in color cast.

I have yet to see rolling shutter issues but that is a user induced event, as I understand it.

I do find it interesting that your experience is so totally different from mine. I have no doubt as a willing seller you will quickly find a willing, if not very enthusiastic, buyer:-)

Re: Color...is it me?
 

Sorry Barry - did not know you were speaking of the BMPCC (Do not see anywhere in your post noting that was the camera you were speaking of).

Yes, I was speaking of the BMCC which we own and Phillip Bloom has also reviewed. As we don't own a Pocket Cam version (yet) I have no business commenting on it. When it shoots raw, we will take a real hard look at it.

Re: Color...is it me?
 

Have a look at this BMCM user group on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/groups/blackmagic/...ge:1/sort:date

I see LOTSA brigh midlevels, low contrast images, lightleaks, and browish/reddish/orangish even in blues or in nightly shots...

Re: Color...is it me?
 

Do you have some videos you can show done with the pocket cam? I"m still interested in getting one but when I see the result many users get it looks to be difficult getting good color, I also have been looking at some users that used it during a wedding on vimeo and almost all have dull and lifeless looking color with weird skintones, I just wonder if it is really that hard to get good results.

Re: Color...is it me?
 

I do indeed, Noa. Today I filled a 64 GB card hanging around the Picton foreshore shooting whatever took my fancy or walked in front of the lens. Problem is my Internet connection here is lousy, to say the least, and uploading is well nigh impossible. What I can do is put together a few clips and on Monday pop into the Picton Public Library and from there upload to my Vimeo site.

The thing about the Blackmagic cameras is that the files must be seriously graded and that involves another skill altogether. With my EX1, and my NEX 5n, Sony have done all the grading (more or less) in the camera and it’s somewhat difficult to completely bugger it up whereas with the BMPCC it is all too easy. The other thing is, I believe, that the enthusiast/indie filmmaker types who are going for these Blackmagic cameras are only too ready to take the grade in all kinds of weird and wonderful directions not only because they can but also because it allows them to put their individual stamp on the footage versus being locked into the Sony rendition, or the Panny or the Canon look. So while the beauty of the Blackmagic cameras is the doors that are opened the downside is the sometimes garish hell that confronts us when we enter.

Let’s call it creativity heaven, artistic/stylistic choice. I’m all for it even as it is not everybody’s cup of tea.

I understand your main thing is wedding work. I really can’t comment on how the BMPCC would fit in a professional workflow such as you obviously deploy. I remain a tad skeptical (ignorant really) about that but I have also viewed more than once your excellent ‘Fruits De Mer’ and my guess is certainly for that kind of work you would find the BMPCC extremely interesting, to say the least.

OK, enough talk; Monday all going according to plan I shall pop some footage up that hopefully you might find helpful.

Cheers...

Re: Color...is it me?
 

I'm with Giacomo on this. Not only online sample movies and clips but from a few tests at my favorite local dealer here as well. The film gamma was particularly hard to deal with. No matter how hard I tried, once that flat, warm summer look was corrected either perceptible greenish/magenta tinges crept into the midtones and shadows or the overall color had to be dialed down to slight but noticeably desaturated levels. The video gamma was better but as has been mentioned here, the blacks were crushed. Stretching them would introduce some greenish/magenta casts as well.

This may come down to my skill in color grading not up to snuff or my tests and trials missing something important but after some big efforts I and my colleagues have decided to wait for the implementation of raw and stick with our EX1R's Mpeg 2 and FS100's AVCHD for the time being. We have been very surprised those compressed 35 and 28 Mbps files are so much easier to deal with when ingested and converted to the same ProRes 422 HQ files output from the BMPCC.

Re: Color...is it me?
 

To put it simple: can you achieve this look from a BlackMagic Cinema Camera?

Re: Color...is it me?
 

Has anyone tried using Film Convert for BMCC or BMPCCs (either the stand alone or plugin version)? This is a nearly instant way to get one of many traditional film looks and could at least constrain the grading to something that an experienced colorist might do. Not sure it would help with the strangeness some people have been seeing. There is a trial version.

Pat

Re: Color...is it me?
 

Yes I own the camera. That you say "crippled" white balance concerns me because that wouldn't be the issue with the post workflow this camera needs. The white balance in this camera is just a ball park. Like other dial in color temps it doesn't take into account the RGB channels individually. Sure it would be nice, but the intent, as is, is that you do a proper white balance in post using RGB Parade or, in some cases, skin tones if need be. That would have nothing to do with the issue short of someone not knowing how to do this.

As to RAW, while ProResHQ isn't as flexible as cDNG, it can take a fair amount of pushing around and certainly magnitudes better than most anything H.264 based.

If there's a color cast, you'd see it in the scopes. If you see it in the graded video, it's the person's skills and/or aesthetic.

There's also the issue of the impact on the color via various VariNDs that most use. In addition there's IR contamination. It may be that these issues are hard to correct given their complex impact on the image. That would be the only issue I can think of. Since different filters impact different cameras differently (for example the same Tiffen ND may impact color differently on different cameras) you'd still see some variation since obviously everyone isn't using the same VariND and IR filter (if being used at all).

What it comes down to. It's still in the grade for the most part although some things like filter impact might be harder to handle. Certainly white balance should be simple. Anybody relying on one of the quick and dirty "film look" filters may be missing the correction pass before the grade even if the grade is a simple looks filter. The correction pass must be done when using this camera if you want to start from a "neutral" position.

Even in ProResHQ, there's enough color information to fix any "tendency" in the camera and, to some extent, the filters used on the camera.

Re: Color...is it me?
 

There are DNG's from the pocket cam floating around, looks like its only a matter of time before we all have raw...

Re: Color...is it me?
 

You can correct for just about any color cast within FCP X using the "RGB Parade" scope and pushing/pulling range using the "luma" scope……I used this technique to achieve full dynamic range with some macro footage I recently shot and I think it was quite useable.


I believe most casts are created when improperly setting up the Kelvin white balance…..I really wish they used common names for the white balance instead of Kelvin.

Re: Color...is it me?
 

I'm sorry Steve. I've looked at this footage on two different machines, and it's pretty typical of what I'm seeing from my camera and the vast majority of footage posted online. Heightened, pinkish red response, lowered green response, and overall low saturation.

I've been able to achieve an "almost" normal look from cinema gamma footage with two passes of color correction, but at that point the image is seriously degraded in my opinion. I've shot some TV gamma footage under strongly overcast situations, and with some serious grading was able to get it to something acceptable in terms of (normal) color.

It's hard for me to see why anyone is defending the color on this camera at this point.

Barry

Re: Color...is it me?
 

Barry, I'm no expert on coloring or grading footage, but I have to agree there is quite "something" about the color that I find displeasing…..I've decided to sell the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera as I feel my GH3 captures the best video I've seen and suits my purposes perfectly.
Perhaps BM will tweak the color capture in future firmware updates as there are some updates promised for "Raw" capture etc……but as it stands, it's not the AMAZING camera I was expecting.

Please understand I'm not an expert but a serious video enthusiast and have owned over 30 cameras and when I see outstanding footage I can appreciate it…….not meaning to start a flame war, I LOVE what Backmagic has done by releasing a camera like this, it's just not 100% perfect for me at this time.

Dollar for dollar, I can't seem to find anything that beats my GH3 at the moment…..but i'm sure that will change…..in the meantime i'll keep my eye on Blackmagic and hope they improve the "Pocket" camera!


Cheers~~

Re: Color...is it me?
 

I think it will be here sooner then we might expect. Saw a review video, that was for the recalibrated sensor. I can't recall this gentalmans name, but he reviewed the camera, and they sent him back how exact same review camera, to see the difference after sensor recalibrated. They also told him to hold onto the camera, as raw was coming soon, and they wanted him to review after raw was released. That was a little over a week ago. I can't imagine they'd want him to hang onto the camera if it was still months away.

Re: Color...is it me?
 

Jeff, just imagine how big the DNG files will be......more processing!

Will current BMPCC owners need to send in their cameras for a sensor recalibration?
I hate the idea of mailing the camera to and fro......I will keep an eye out for this information.

Any links on this?

Re: Color...is it me?
 

My camera arrived 10 days ago, loaded with latest firmware. I have 2 of the sandisk extreme pro 95mbs cards. I'm ready for raw (well as ready as I can be). I bought Alexis Van Hurkman's Resolve training series, and I've also had a copy of his color correction hand book.


Based on what I've seen from my camera, it came with the recalibrated sensor, so no blooming issues. Also the new firmware tok care of the black spot issue.

Plus I believe Premiere CC is adding support of cinema DNG, so should be able to edit natively very soon.

I say bring on the raw, this is why I bought the camera.

I'll say, I am not a professional. This is a hobby/obsession for me. Hoping to fly this camera on a hexacopter very soon.

Re: Color...is it me?
 

I offer this recipe for people who don't do a lot of post processing, and who might be unsure about how to deal with their BMPCC footage. I use After Effects but the same thing could be done with any decent editing software. There are three basic things involved: 1. Adjust the Levels, or if you prefer you can use Curves, they both do the same thing, make the blacks black and the brights bright. 2. Adjust the color balance to get rid of any unwanted tint your footage may have. In AE Color Finesse does a very good job at this. If you don't know how to use it there are tutorials on Creative Cow. The basic idea is to get the whites white and not pink or some other color. 3. Boost the saturation to taste. For this you can use the basic Hue/Saturation adjustment.

If you have a lot of clips shot under the same conditions just copy the adjustments you've made to one and paste them onto the rest.

Hope that helps.

Re: Color...is it me?
 

Is there anyone willing to make available a very short piece (even second would do) of a prores files straight of the pocketcam where that "strange" color is best visible, if possible maybe a shot from a person. I just want to see for myself if I (and maybe others?) are able to get some life in the footage and to make skin color look like it should. Or maybe there is allready some available and if someone can share a link that would be great.

I just did some quick and dirty color correction in Edius 7 on that oliviatech sample from the 2,5k bmc camera that has been made available to experiment on, see a before and after below, what do you guys think? I actually don't have much knowledge in colorcorrection and that's why I like having a camera like a gh3 that can do it right out of the box, I probably would get frustrated with the pocketcam as well trying to get the color I want.

Re: Color...is it me?
 

Go back and adjust the overall color balance. Look at her t-shirt and the store wall, they're pink and they should be white. The levels have improved though.

Re: Color...is it me?
 

the question is if you have to start grading such flat footage, how do you know what should be white?

Re: Color...is it me?
 

While I'm new to color grading in general, I plan to keep my grey card with me, and try to remember to take a few seconds before shots. That way I can use the grey card for getting white balance correct in resolve.

Re: Color...is it me?
 

Excellent suggestion.

Noa, in this case it's easy. The t-shirt and the wall are both clearly meant to be white. How you approach this on harder shots will depend in part on what software you're using. You're going to need to read up/check out a tutorial on whatever color correction tools you have.

I just did a search and there are multiple tutorials for the Edius color correction tool on Vimeo.

Re: Color...is it me?
 

I still rely on some very simple color correction tools in Edius which do the job on my gh3 footage, I just point at what should be white, gray and black if I see the color is not right but for a shot like what I used to test I was not there so I can only guess what should be white, since the source footage contains hardly any information because it almost looks black and white what appears to be white might be a bit different, just like a wedding dress is also not always only white.

With my gh3 I leave it in auto whitebalance most of the time and in some occasions I use the presets, with my latest film I done called "fruits de mer" the camera was in auto whitebalance all the time yet the colour I got was just great. If I would have dialed the kelvin temps myself it would have looked wrong, I"m sure.

Just because of this I"m sure the pocket cam is not a camera for me, and if I see the remarks and look at the videos of many others it's also not a camera for them, it looks like just a few with sufficient colorcorrection knowlegde are able to get the most from it.

Also thx for the link but I have seen all those videos. :)

Re: Color...is it me?
 

I ended up putting mine on the Classifieds section here (and locally on Craigslist)…….I like the cam and what it represents but too much work to get the "look" i want…….unless a firmware update changes it……I'll just stick to my trusty GH3.

Re: Color...is it me?
 

The color is great however properly de-logging it seems to require more than just adding curves and saturation.
Reds and oranges tend to blow out and yellow seems to need some saturation added if you add a curve and saturation and leave it there.

I've tried to match the BMCC to Rec709 lut in resolve using my own skill set and there is definitely some secret sauce I'm missing to get the image the same across the full range of color and luminescence

Fortunately the LUT works really well and you can get normal balanced looking footage relatively easily with it. It's not a hugely difficult or massively time consuming workflow to ingest your footage via resolve apply the LUT and then render it out as Rec709. With this footage you can edit in your NLE and even do correction and grading. Grading this would be similar to grading camcorder 8 bit footage on a standard setting.

If you want to be more fussy then send it back to resolve via xml for final color correction.

It's worth taking the time with it because the flexibility to bring sky's back or bring up shadows or simply correct for an exposure or white balance that is off is well above whats possible with DSLR'.

Re: Color...is it me?
 

I have been thinking about this, could it be possible that the BMPCC captured ProRes files miss some color information? Not just some form of color cast or imbalance that hides behind the log film gamma looks? I am suspecting this because with "just" 4:2:2 sampling and 10-bit depth, the files were incredibly hard to grade to the normal looks when I tried them in FCPX and Color. The 12-bit RAW files captured by the bigger BMCC were not nearly as hard to make them look right despite the process being much more time consuming. I have also seen plenty of online videos graded from the BMCC's RAW files that looked superb. Some even had the overall color pumped up to eye-popping vivid levels and yet the color still looked right and balanced. Not seen a single video from the Pocket yet that looked close to any of those videos. While plenty of very compressed videos from numerous camcorders and DSLRs can have more or less the balanced looks from the get-go.

Re: Color...is it me?
 

Imho its a workflow thing. No one ever tried to grade those raws inside their NLE. Originally when the workflow came out many people were using Adobe camera raw in some form to convert the files. ACR has its own delogging built into it that is very good. If you open the cdng in ACR you don't get faced with log footage. It's got the adobe look and you can grade it from there. It was that or use Resolve in which case most people figured out how to use the LUT's.

Re: Color...is it me?
 

This took all of about 30 seconds to do in AE.

Re: Color...is it me?
 

And this took a little longer, maybe 45 seconds, but I'm having a slow evening. Vegas Pro 12.

Re: Color...is it me?
 

Looks like the blacks are crushed a lot loosing all detail so you"ll loose the benefit of 13stops DR. Would be great if there just was a preset you could drop onto the footage from within your NLE that would get it right from the start.