Color Balance of the XL1S

[Josh Bass]

Interesting. . .

I've decided that the XL1s tends to shoot a bit too red, usually, for my tastes. . .are you saying you like this, or that you have to find that comprimise between too red and too cool (blue, green)?

[Dennis Hingsberg]

Wow finally someone else who shares my opinion that the XL1s is too red! I thought my Canon was defective or the LCD screen I was using for editing was defective. With my shots now I reduce reds or alternatively increase blue&green in post. I have to do this with 95% of them.

[Charles Papert]

Haven't found this to be an issue. Some people have noted that the beginning of the first Seinfeld movie ("Uniform") seems red-heavy in the skin-tones; actually it was lit that way intentionally, to create a contrast between the cool exterior light and the extra-warm interior.

It's a matter of preference. I consider the XL1 delivers a more neutral skin tone than other cameras, but if you are used to the "Sony Look" which hews to the green or cyan, the XL1 will obviously appear more red in comparison.

Dennis, are you using a NTSC CRT monitor in your edit setup? That's the only way to judge the actual color of your work--of course, it will ultimately be decided by the end-user's viewing hardware.

[Dennis Hingsberg]

Charles - well you hit the nail on the head there because initially I was using an LCD screen to edit on and then when I watched the same footage on CRT I felt like I was reborn. I'm still left with the impression however that the XL1s is a little on the red side, but I do come from shooting with Sony so that could also be why.

I should mention that I'm shooting PAL with my mini35 here in North America and not sure how this compares to NTSC versions of the camera.

I'm going to try white balancing to the 1/4 blue & 1/8 plusgreen to see how I find the results.

Thanks for your response.

[Josh Bass]

Yeah. . .I'm with Dennis. I'm a guy who hates screwing around with stuff in post. . .wish you could just do everything in camera, but I find, looking at my monitor, that in almost anything I shoot, if I just take a bit of red out (using color curves/color balance plug in in Vegas 4), skin looks much better. And this is where exposure on the skin is "ideal". Let's say you're shooting something kinda "dark," then it really tends to make white people orange. . .maybe that's just a charateristic of all video? I don't know. I've just noticed that if I blast someone with 3200K light (I know, I know. . .usually you don't just blast someone, but bear with me for now), for instance, and then stop down, that they get more orange as I let less and less light in through the iris.

[Charles Papert]

Gotcha. Dennis, if you find the XL1 red, you probably won't like the results with a 1/4 blue. You may even prefer to WB through a 1/4 or 1/8 orange (CTO) to cool off the image. Josh, you might want to try the same thing.

As far as the underexposure color issue, the only thing I can think of is that the camera is white balanced a lot warmer than 3200K. One of the things I like about the XL1 is that it retains a warm skin tone during underexposure, where I find the Panasonic and Sonys tend to go gray.

But again, what I like may well be too orange or red for you guys.

[Josh Bass]

I'll try your suggestions. Thanks.

[Jean-Philippe Archibald]

I am like Charles, I like the red tone of the XL1 much better than the blue of other camcorders. But generally I tend to desaturate colors a little bit in post (subtle) to really get the skin tone I like.

[Dennis Hingsberg]

I have a thread in this forum titled Stills using mini35 & XL1s where I posted some stills from my last shoot using the mini35 and XL1s. To some does these images look normal or "red-like"? The exception are the stills of the actress which were intentionally lit from the side using red lights. (almost a pulp fiction look there that we didn't realize at the time)

Go directly to the thread here: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...threadid=25206

[Jean-Philippe Archibald]

To me, theses frames look really natural. In fact, I prefer the BEFORE frame than the AFTER. But it is really difficult to judge a post production work based on one frame. I am sure that this look is well suited for the mood of your scene.

[Dennis Hingsberg]

Jean-Philippe - is your display CRT or LCD? I find my LCD shows more red than CRT. Having said that I believe the images would look more natural on a CRT display than LCD. What are your thoughts?

Having bought the mini35 let's just say I'm on a budget, so what's the best way for me to color calibrate all my equipment so when it is played back on variety of displays I will at least get the "average" look in color, contrast and brightness that I was going for?

I saw this device but am not sure if it will would help my situation: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/colo...monitorspyder/ If anyone can share how they go about tweaking their colors for display I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.

[Jean-Philippe Archibald]

Dennis, my computers monitors are 19'' Sony Trinitron CRT. I can't help you on how to calibrate your LCD monitor.

I am always using an external TV (Toshiba 14AF43) to do color corrections. It is not a broadcast NTSC monitor, but close enough (and cheaper) for my needs. I can see a huge difference in color and contrast when the same clip is played on the Tv monitor and on the computer monitor.

I don't think that it is really possible to get the same "average" look on all your equipement (computer monitors (LCD or CRT) and NTSC (or I beleive PAL in your case) monitors).

[Ken Tanaka]

Is it time to start a new thread? We're wanderin' a bit.

[Jean-Philippe Archibald]

Yes, sorry Ken.

We are a littlebit off topic...

[Ken Tanaka]

This new thread was split from this thread.