Problem's with PDW-F350

[Alessandro Pinto]

My sealers has given to me one used Xdcam F350 for test.

This camera for my is dedicated for news and wedding.

Last weekend i have try this camera with standard paint setting and customs paint setting from "http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/sony-xdcam-hd-cinealta/124332-pdw-f-series-favourite-settings.html" and the result's is very very bad quality.

The image have a yellow tint in outdoor (also in WB manual) and the backlight is very very poor, the highlight or lowlight (various exposure) is lose.

[Alessandro Pinto]

http://img28.picoodle.com/data/img28...2m_cfdbba8.jpg

http://img37.picoodle.com/data/img37...1m_d21067b.jpg

http://img32.picoodle.com/data/img32...3m_75300c5.jpg

http://img28.picoodle.com/data/img28...4m_256f606.jpg

[Alister Chapman]

Colours look correct to me. Looks like you are over exposing. You should try using the standard camera settings but with just Cinegamma 4. That should give you some extra lattitude.

[Richard Raaijmakers]

Alessandro,

which settings are you using from the posting you mention?

Like Alister said, try to use Cinegamma 4, it is much nicer on the highlights.

This morning I did some tests with Cinegamma 4 and the standard gamma. I've attached 2 pictures made with both settings. You can see the difference in how the highlights are handled nicer on the Cinegamma 4 setting (left picture). Look at the roof of the house in the background.

These are my settings for CineGamma 4:

MATRIX 1

USER MATRIX: ON
USER MATRIX SAT: 0
USER MATRIX HUE: +3
PRESET MATRIX: ON
PRESET MATRIX SEL: STD

LOW KEY SAT LEVEL: 6

MATRIX 2

User matrix R-G: +16
User matrix R-B: +6
User matrix G-R: +2
User matrix G-B: +17
User matrix B-R: +6
User matrix B-G: +4

shot in 1080 50i 35Mb HQ

[Alessandro Pinto]

Hi Richard, i use your settings for this shot.

Your's two sample image is very similar to my image but for me is too yellow :(

With cine gamma 4 is better on the highlight's

[Richard Raaijmakers]

Well, color is a very subjective thing.

You could start with Cine gamma 4, all the other paint settings at default and try a preset matrix. See if you like it. I would not try to setup the user matrix if you don't have the equipment to judge the picture correctly. My camera was initially setup by a professional engineer with all the techical intruments to judge the picture. This is now my reference scene file.
With the standard gamma I noticed some abrupt highlight clipping when you overexpose a bit, specially in peoples faces. with cine gamma 4 the highlights are more gradually clipped.


Richard

[Simon Wyndham]

Alessandro, we need to know how you are monitoring the image and how you have set your monitor up to eliminate any possibility that the yellow tint isn't being caused by your viewing equipment.

[Alessandro Pinto]

i monitoring with a Sony LMD-9050 or LMD-2450W in HD-SDI perfectly calibrated.

Tomorrow post some test make today on the beach with HDW-750P (1st camera on the set) and PDW-F350 (2nd camera on the set for backstage).

I don't want all resolution or dinamic range of HDW-750P to PDW-F350, i want only the just colorimetry.

[Alessandro Pinto]

Ok.

Another test, this colors of beach is correct for you?

Shot with PDW-F350

http://img27.picoodle.com/data/img27...1m_b743f15.jpg

http://img32.picoodle.com/data/img32...2m_f375352.jpg

This is some image shot with HDW-750P

http://img32.picoodle.com/data/img32...1m_73ade03.jpg

http://img37.picoodle.com/data/img37...2m_bf6095e.jpg

[Alister Chapman]

For a start the F350 is well over exposed pushing the whites well into clipping which in turn is leading to a lot of Knee Saturation correction. Stopping down a little will help. The grabs also look noisy, what is the gain set to? 0db gives best lattitude, -3db gives lowest noise.

How are you white balancing, I've seen similar colour casts due to using bleached paper that is in fact slightly blue.

I would do a full reset on the camera to ensure that all the Paint settings are back to the default as those image look to have some Gamma and matrix tweeks. Then I would just try stock settings with the exception of using Cinegamma 4. Normally the colorimetry between a stock F350 and stock 750 is very close. You might also want to turn down the detail correction, try -10 it will help with the black lines around the high contrast areas. There is something not right about the way that F350 is set up.

[Alessandro Pinto]

Hi Alister,

The WB is set-up on grey paper 18% (6300°k 750, 5100°k 350)

before try setting's of Richard i have reset all system camera to default.

The gain is 0db.

is possible a problem of lens? in the F350 is mounted a SD broadcast Canon Lens 1/2".

[Alister Chapman]

Looking at your frame grabs the whites are not white. Usual causes are incorrect white balancing, off-set white setting or matrix settings. I doubt it's the lens more likely camera setup.

[Greg Boston]

Originally Posted by Alister Chapman

Looking at your frame grabs the whites are not white. Usual causes are incorrect white balancing, off-set white setting or matrix settings. I doubt it's the lens more likely camera setup.

I was thinking that someone might have placed a WB offset into the camera. With adequate monitoring on set, it seems they should be able to paint the 350 very close to the 750.

-gb-

[Uli Mors]

Yes, definetely make a full reset and start from scratch.

Can you set up HDCAM and XD HD next to each other with a colour chart (or some reproducable colors) to make an A/B comparison?

In the first stills you posted there were lot of CA. My "standard" lens is a Canon YH12x4.8 WA. Though it makes CA under certain conditions, it seems much heavier in your pics.
I also own an old Canon YH18x6.7 that makes the pic really bad... so I dont use it anymore.

ULI