True Color Preset
 

It is interesting that Adams and Mourtensen (http://thescreamonline.com/photo/pho...mentnotes.html) used very interesting Post techniques to arrive at what they considered the best work they could command. I studied Adams and became fairly good at achieving his look through darkroom practices, in photographs, which I love. Color, not so good but in B&W the darkroom is your slave once you are a little experienced in the dillutions and timing techniques. I also did, or attempted to reproduce some of the Mourteneen effects but the results were not nearly as predictable and some were good while some were terrible. As for video, especially digital video, one has a fair amount of latitude in the post process. But it takes a lot of time and work to achieve the manipulated results one is looking for. But I really enjoy all of this, the struggles we all go through in pushing the envelope to achieve a desired result. Great A1 stuff here and right on. Shoot a good non manipulated negative (positive) and do with it what you wish in post.

Paolo doesn't own an XH-A1, otherwise like the JVC (an excellent write up on initial HD100 colour tuning, then tweaks after field use on his website), I'm guessing he'd tweak the living daylights out of this one. I do have an XH-A1, and the rear illuminated DSC OSG's, but I'm much lower on the learning curve when it comes to the myriad of parameters possible. Like Paolo, I share an intense interest in wringing all that is possible out of the digital realm.

To complement Paolo's work we'll be doing a similar exercise with the HV20, XH-A1, EX1, and HPX500 looking at color rendering, dynamic range, ISO rating, and resolution. This is more to characterize these cameras in terms of adapter use, but the results should be interesting.

There is no question that the XH-A1 (and all the Canon cams up the scale) as well as the Sony EX1 offer an amazing feature set to tune the camera's beyond most user's understanding. What I can offer to do is take requests from this thread with regard to changes to the preset and see what effect they have on the waveform and vectorscope. We'll start the test series likely this week.

Here's some experimenting I've posted on vimeo. Enjoy...

http://www.vimeo.com/user405235/videos

Bill what did you think? I have to admit that although the truecolour was the darkest, it also looked the best to me. One thing that I would look at changing is the black setting to expand the blacks a bit from their crushed level in the preset. It would be interesting to try this in post and see how it looks.

The VX2100 is still the king of the affordable DV cams in terms of light sensivity IMHO, but that barrel distortion at full wide is huge!

[QUOTE=Dennis Wood;846910I have to admit that although the truecolour was the darkest, it also looked the best to me.[/QUOTE]

I thought so too but surely the point of the truecolour preset is to retain the maximium amount of information so the image can be altered in post therefore an 'in camera' comparison is not valid.

In fact while comparing any other preset on any one or a mix of camera's we are comparing a 'finished product' (an image with little work to do in post) whereas the truecolour preset is set to give the best raw image which theoretically can be manipulated in post to give a 'better' finished product.

in rereading this it sounds like I actually know what I'm talking about - that's highly unlikely, it's just my limited understanding of the preset and how it works

You know, it's interesting to me. I would be freaked out completely if I came home from a wedding with that footage in any capacity. But I think that once I messed with it in post, it might yeild acceptable results. I am scared to death because I have a wedding next weekend which is the first of 10 in a row that I am going to need to shoot with this cam, and I just don't know where I'm going with it yet. I have had it for 3 weeks, and this is as far as I have gotten... gulp.
Bill

Great test footage, Bill!

Let's hope the bride doesn't do any jumping jacks;-) Were you shooting progressive? With everything moving slowly in a wedding, would you consider shooting 24p (24f) with 1/48 or even 1/24? The HV20 would cut in well in 24p, too.

I agree that raising blacks should improve the low light situations. Bill, it's hard to tell how underexposed some of the shots are. Instead of using a high gain setting, try bringing the levels up in your NLE. Let us know how it works for you.

I was surprised how similar the HV20 full auto compared to TrueColor. I've done too much color correcting trying to get my HV20 and XH A1 to match, especially under tungsten.

I forgot why everyone in Alaska has a wedding anniversary during the last 2 weeks in June until I watched your video, Bill. I never see green grass and leaves until June 15! Although The World Ice Art Championships have concluded, the ice sculptures haven't melted yet.

Good luck on your wedding season!

So which preset is the one without the blue cast?

Also, just wondering if anyone has tried this on skintones?

WEll,
I brought in those clips into Vegas and raised the levels, and lowered the blacks. The Truecolor went grain crazy, where the first 2 settings which are optimized with NR settings adjusted very well. I need to sort this all out before next weekend. Gulp.
Bill

Which clips wedding stuff or lowlight?

lowlight...

TrueColor outdoors
 

I had gone out two days ago to check out some waterfalls. I did a little shooting there to see how the TrueColor preset looked to me. I had done some test shooting with it the day before outside my house, but I wanted a more natural seeing to see what I thought. At the falls, I used "FACTORY", "AC PREF1", "PANALOOK", and "TrueColor" with no filters except built-in ND and manual white balance.

After I got back from the falls, I reviewed the footage and noticed the the TrueColor did unfortunately have a slight blue cast. The waterfall had a more blue cast than the other presets, but more telling were the greens. The leaves just weren't right, they looked more green-blue. While we were there, I got my wife to take some images with her Canon XTi for comparison. These were a reference for the color. So between our memory and the images from the SLR, I feel that the blue is defiantly the thing that is off.

I think the preset could be very good and accurate if the blue cast effect and blacks could be worked out. I will readily admit that I don't have the knowledge to do this, but would hope that someone who had the skills and time would tackle this preset. It is just so close to being a new standard. I really like idea of having a workflow that allows me to capture the footage neutrally, then give it the look I want in post. I have used "VIVIDRGB" in the past (with a lower color gain), but I've come to think it looks artificial. At this time "PANALOOK" is preset I find is the most useful for now, but I think that a neutral preset would be the best. As a side note, I do not believe "FACTORY" is neutral. Overall it looks too warm to me.

Personal taste, but I think 12db is too noisy to begin with. And then trying to CC it in post showing mucho grain doesn't surprise me...

May I suggest going back to your den where you shot "lowlight", turn on your practicals (tv and what not) and just try comparing 3db and 6db with TrueColor.

Then do the same test with True Color but adjust the blacks so they are not quite so pressed (less Black). Yes it will still be darker than the VX, but I think the colors are way more more full and rich than the VX, and "it is an accurate image of a dark den". But now with almost no noise.

Just my opinion - Lonnie

There was an admitted error on the True Color setting, there's been suggestions on what to change to correct the "blue". And even Steven Dempsey, author of Vividrgb noticed the blacks are too crushed.

I personally think somewhere between True and Vivid lies a great lowlight solution with only 3db of gain that'll still be cinematic and full of non-noisy rich colors...

Dennis,
Tomorrow is my day to put the A1 through some lowlight tests, but I have a technical question... when you are adjusting presets in the camera menu's, and while hooked up to a monitor or computer (on Location), do you get instant realtime feedback with each click of an adjustment?

and if so, i'm assuming most single clicks within a parameter are so subtle, you probably have to go from one extreme to the other just to see what you are looking for (or what this particular button is adjusting) to begin with... is this accurate or make sense?

thanks,
Lonnie

Paolo, the only way I've found to get a correct WB with this preset is to use a warm card... well of course short of tweaking the preset, which I may do once I can find the time.

It seems others have encountered the slight blue cast as well. So I know it's not my eyes getting funky :)

Yes you get real time changes on your monitor

rajiv

Thank you Rajiv... yes I just started playing a little more seriously and I realized while you look at the menu of parameter preset changes, then select one to adjust, the camera intentionally loses the menu grid, so you can view the changes on the little lcd while adjusting... good stuff!

Now to hook it up to a larger monitor and play :)

Thanks for getting back,
Lonnie

I don't really know what I am doing with this yet or whether I have compromised the goal of Truecolor by trying this, but setting white balance to 6000 K certainly gets rid of the blue bias. The granite cliffs, pines, and late winter colors outside my window end up looking pretty good.

Pat

First of all guys, make sure that you check your preset because it was corrected a day after being posted. Pat, setting white balance to 6000K on a sunny day with blue sky sounds about right where it should be. White balance using a DSC chart is as accurate as it gets, so Paolo's WB was almost certainly correct during testing. This showed in my own tests with the Ambi2 where I white balanced to the rear projection screen itself (about 3200K). The blacks in this preset are crushed, and I have not attempted to pull detail in post....there is some room there for tweaking for sure.

Connecting the camera to a monitor is a great way to play with presets, but don't forget that dynamic contrast and calibration are important. Using a program like OnLocation (on one of the newer 1920x1200 pixel laptops) which displays color bars and has a blue function will allow you to calibrate the display reasonably well.

Bill, my one suggestion would be to check with Patrick Moreau over at stillmotion.ca as they've been using 2 or 3 XH-A1s extensively over the last year for primarily wedding work. They've got a long list of awards using the XH-A1 with our Brevis adapter. The XH-A1 in low light is noisy and is at 12db, in my opinion, terrible. Definitely look at using NR1 in your preset, or adding it to this one. It will have no effect at all on color, exposure, or WB. Don't use NR2 unless your subjects are motionless.

Actually Dennis, you've got it backwards. It's NR1 that causes ghosting... in all three settings. NR2, I believe, can be just as destructive if set above the 1 setting. Anything higher & it's similar to applying skin detail on the whole frame.

Just a note, all HDV cameras show quite a bit of noise in dark situations, the compression at 4:2:0 creates a lot of "dancing pixels". This is true for cameras that costs several times the price of the A1, like the XDCAM. Gain, IMHO, should almost never be used. In fact I completely disabled the gain on my HD100 since it was too easy to flip the external switch by mistake and have the footage ruined.
If you are shooting something fairly static, last week I taped a user's meeting, basically talking heads, and there is no way of adding lights of your own, you can use slower frame rates, 24fps instead of 30, and drop the shutter at 1/24. The easiest way of getting clean "boosted" signal. Be careful with those pans :)

I finally got to try this preset out, and it has become my new favorite. Low light was great. Also, I did not notice the issue with the Blue as others have mentioned. I did a short shoot last night, indoors and outdoors in overcast here in Portland and it looks wonderful.
Thanks!!!
Luke

Hi Luke, glad it works for you.

I find that I still prefer leaving Gamma at CineGamma 2 for projects that I like to treat as film (I use Gamma 1 for "film footage" going to someone else for their project, as Gamma 2 does require some correction for tv viewing). I also leave the master pedestal at 0, as I don't want to risk clipping -- but do have the set-up level down to -4, and sharpening at -4.

However, what I glean from this preset is the colors themselves. I have never seen such great looking footage from this camera as I have when using these colors. True to form, no exaggeration -- I believe this IS the film look; natural colors. Video is infamous for exaggerating reds and blues, and this gets it just about right.

For me, that is the attraction of this preset. No need to tweak anything, because I want real colors in the first place. Any tweaks in color I want I'll achieve with color temperature adjustments in white balance and lighting.

There is only one version and it doesn't have blue cast, not in my tests and in several people's results. I don't think we have found why some cameras show that phenomenon. Skintones are actually the reference point for TrueColor, see my description of the process in the 3 articles about the HD100 version. Regardless the type of camera the procedure is the same for all versions and it starts with setting the skin tones as a reference (red and yellow chips in the vectorscope). Natural skintones are probably the strongest feature of TrueColor.

Pat, the white balance should be set using the usual method of manual WB with a white card. There should be no compensation for blue as TrueColor is meant to be neutral. White balance is not affected by TrueColor so that is something that has to be adjusted shot by shot.

Paolo, is there a color or two in the preset I can adjust to try and get the slight blueness out I'm seeing? I'm not sure which ones to even try to experiment with. I really like this preset, btw. If I could work out the slight blueness, it would be my go-to preset.

Christopher, did you WB balance the camera using a neutral card?

I used the white area of a Photovision One Shot Digital Target to manually set my white balance. I zoomed in enough for that area to fill my entire view.

A question for Paolo. Could you tell as you were setting up the preset if the Knee, Black, Pedestal, and Setup parameters had any effect on the preset's color?

I know these parameters *should* only affect luma and not chroma but I don't necessarily know that that's the case. The reason I ask is because I'm very interested in the accurate, neutral color of your preset but would like to tweak it for more dynamic range (Black stretch, low Knee etc). I would test this myself but I don't have accurate charts.

Thanks in advance.

Juan

Hi Juan.
While the pedestal and knee usually work only in the "extremes" of the luma, extreme adjustments will affect the colors. For example, setting the knee too low will affect skin tones and colors that are in that range, like beige.
For the pedestal you risk to wash out the image when you go too far. Part of the film look is the richness of the blacks, that is my bias in setting these scene files.

Paolo. I'v been playing around with your preset for several days now and like many other people I like it. But I also notice the following:
I am trying a few tweaks via shooting, capturing, rendering, burn it to DVD and look at it at my LCD TV. Result: Pictures on the LCD screen of the cam look bad, pictures on my copmputer screen look very good, playing the DVD on an old CRT screen looks to red and playing the DVD on my LCD TV looks good for the colors but a little to dark. I would like more brilliant pictures and it could be somewhat softer for my likings. Newscast on that same LCD TD look very brilliant and naturally. What should I do?

Suggestions Anyone?
 

Does anyone have an idea of how to deal with the slight blue cast? I really have no idea of what settings to even try to experiment with. Should I just use it as is and try to warm in post? Any suggestions of how I might begin adjusting the preset?

Also while I'm at it, any thoughts on the Black and Knee? Are the current settings looking good for most people?

Any feedback would be appreciated.

True Co9loor Blue Cast
 

When I use the True Color preset I don't get a blue cast. I really believe in order to get such a blue cast you are either not WB correctly or often enough. I know id you are shooting outdoors the color of light changes continuously and you have to stay after the WB. I mean really stay after it if you want correct or perhaps consistent colors in your video. I don't know a lot about these presets bt this True Color one is simply great for me, always consistant and allowing post changes to be applied uniformally to all video shot using it. As for the crushing of the blacks, I just don't see a big difference when adjusting this preset as some have suggested. White balance is a friend and will save you a lot of grief if you use it often.

True Co9loor Blue Cast
 

When I use the True Color preset I don't get a blue cast. I really believe in order to get such a blue cast you are either not WB correctly or often enough. I know if you are shooting outdoors the color of light changes continuously and you have to stay after the WB. I mean really stay after it if you want correct or perhaps consistent colors in your video. I don't know a lot about these presets but this True Color one is simply great for me, always consistant and allowing post changes to be applied uniformally to all video shot using it. As for the crushing of the blacks, I just don't see a big difference when adjusting this preset as some have suggested. White balance is a friend and will save you a lot of grief if you use it often.

Maybe saying how you white balanced as an example would have been helpful. As I stated earlier, I used the white portion of a Photovision One Shot Digital Target to fill the screen.

About a hour ago ago, I went outside and did some testing. I white balanced with the target using the white area only, next grey area only, and finally the entire target. Next I brought the footage into Vegas to see the results. The white only still had a very slight blue cast, but the grey and the combo looked correct. That made me happy. I would be curious if someone could give a reason on why I got those results. Why would the grey work better than the white?

As far as the blacks are concerned, I appreciate your feedback on that. I think they did look ok. I did another test changing the Black from Press to Middle. I liked the results and thought that it allowed the image to look not as dark. Also, it seemed to let me open the aperture a little more.

True Color Preset
 

Chris, I am talking about white balancing with a white card placed in the light that will light your shoot. I believe the card you are referring to, the Photovision One Shot, allows you to white balance as well as metering and exposure monitoring by viewing the camera's histogram function. However I would try WB using a card or bright white piece of paper placed in the light falling on the subject. The histogram won't help you here but if you learn to rely on it and use for example this true color preset your results will be predictible as well as consistant. At least I believe so.

Phil

WB Target for truecolor
 

Phil, are you suggesting that the photovision target will not work? I would trust the target far more than a random piece of white paper.

BTW, what white card do you use? Can you give me a link? I'm curious if Paolo Ciccone could recommend a target that would work well with his preset.

Side Note: I had been considering getting the WhiBal Gray card.

This is the kind of card I was referring to. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...ist&sku=300868

The grey cards tell the camera how much to expose to get a representation of 18% grey. The WB tells the camera what the color of the light is that is lighting your subject. I'm not suggesting the Photovision will not work. I have never used one but I will say the colors I have managed over the years have been pretty spectacular and accurate (Outdoor Documentaries) and my efforts have relied on WB using a card and balancing often. I'm simply saying try a white balance the way I have suggested and see if it doesn't solve your blue cast problem. I'm betting it will.