Unspeakably Horrid
 

I'll go back to system presets before I accept either of these. I've never seen A1 footage this ugly.

Steven's on the left. Mine on the right.

Tom, I don't have time right now to really look at them in depth but I would try to even out the exposure setting before doing a comparison. I tried to make the one with my settings a little more like your one in terms of exposure:

They were shot at the same exposure, but yours had the cine1 gamma and -5 master pedastal giving it more contrast.

I understand. The only reason I am boosting the still with my settings is so that I can more easily judge color casts. Underexposure can cause colors to pop more than they should. I'll take a look at these tests in the morning.

Thanks for doing this, I appreciate it.

Interesting – notice the sidewalks in both. Tom’s use of Stevens preset looks decidedly more magenta, while Stevens use of his preset is more on the green side.

What accounts for that? Lighting conditions, the sun, time of day, etc?

Judging by the shadows, Toms is in direct overhead sunlight – while Stevens shot has softer more diffused light (again judging by the shadows).

Tom using Steven preset on Left >> Steven using Steven preset on right.

But in this last case if both cameras had the "same" default settings, shouldnt the asphalt be pretty close to the same color not having a magenta compared to a greenish? (take my sayings with a grain of salt, i am just speculating) (and trying to learn at the same time)

What white balance was used on each?

Mike

5600K on the white balance for both presets

Doesn't look that it was that bright, looks cloudy, but at least they were both the same. Sure does not look good! :)

Mike

What accounts for it I believe is that the calibrations are different between the two cams. Steven's preset is definitely better on his cam and worse on mine, and vice versa.

And I appreciate it too.

Okay Tom, here's the problem and potential solution as I see it.

I think if we are going to do a scientific test then we need to quit using a generic white balance like 56k. The shots I have taken have been mainly in the morning and evening light when there are natural casts. Because I created a neutral image, that means I am essentially changing the natural casts of nature and when the light shifts from the time I took the still, the color balance goes way off.

So here's what I did. I used a white card this morning to white balance and my preset looked horrible. I tried to calibrate it back to a neutral color palette based on the correct white balance and here's where I ended up:

EDIT at 12:16 PST: I just changed all these settings, they should be right now....the image remains the same

Gamma: Cine1
Color Matrix: Normal
Color Gain: 40
Color Phase: 0
Knee: Low
Black: Middle
Master Ped: -5
Setup Level: 0
HDF: High
H/V Detail: 0
Sharpness: 3
NR1: Off
NR2: Off
Coring: 0
Red Gain: -2
Green Gain: -15
Blue Gain: -3
RG Matrix: 0
RB Matrix: 0
GR Matrix: 0
GB Matrix: 10
BR Matrix: 0
BG Matrix: -13

Make sure you properly white balance the camera before shooting anything with this. Of course if you change the Color Matrix or Gamma, it shouldn't introduce any cast at all so it would work for your settings also. Let me know the results of your own tests.

Here's a still taken with the camera properly white-balanced:

Looks nice, but the long deep shadows indicate quite different kind of light - its effect on the picture is similar to cine gamma. So, again no good for comparison (altough your point about proper white balancing is valid of course).

I think this is okay for comparison because I white balanced for the dominant sunlight and most of the frame is made up of objects affected by that particular light. I don't usually white balance any other way. How do you go about white balancing for a scene, I'm curious.

Frankly, with the Canon I had to use a preset (or manually balance to a white card, when the WB was critical); the AWB I couldn't trust - it tends to be wandering which is even worse than a wrong but fixed hue. Now with the Sony, I shoot with AWB most of the time, with white walls staying all shades of white...