how to bring out the true color and depth?
 

Hi.

I made this video last night during a tornado storm and well it has came out rather dark looking. I know about using the brightness and contrast features. But i have read that maybe i did not work correctly on it by how i rendered it. I rendered this one to WMV, one to MP4 and one to AVI. The AVI gave the best qaulity, but at 1.2Gigs in size.

Here is the video and im wondering exactly how do you guys bring out that clarity in your videos. The rotation in the clouds was insane but it comes out darker on video. How can i add that natural eye effect if that makes sense?.

Here is my video. I also am not sure exactly what settings i need for rendering.
I understand Mpeg 2 for DVD's and they are great. But im not sure about the rest of it all, from bit rates to frame sizes.

http://www.vimeo.com/1328399

If you can get Magic Bullet looks 1.1, it could help, in lieu of that, try sony unsharpen mask at light, levels studio to computer, color curve, you will have to play with settings, you might try rendering mpeg4 at 3 mbsps, I use 500x375, see if this works, for a dvd if you are using architect, try rendering out vegas with sony avc at 10 mbps, ntsc, see what happens,

This won't help you now, but in the future try shooting in manual rather than auto. Therein lies the source of your problem. The exposure and focus keep changing as you move your camera. Shooting in uneven lighting is difficult but can be overcome with practice.

To expound a bit, you can chop up the video at the sections where you move the camera and the focus changes and try to match it up using contrast, brightness, etc...unfortunately the footage doesn't have much color and depth to begin with, as it appears, and Hugh's suggestion to try Magic Bullet, etc is a great idea.

Thanks folks.

After I buy my laptop for college, I am going to hopefully buy a new more higher end camcorder. I am thinking about maybe buying an HD camcorder.

But until then, my current camcorder will be more than plenty for practice and gives me good practice for using vegas also.
I have been rendering better DVD's now that i have been here and researching.

I actually have been cutting parts of my footage in vegas, in some of my tornado footage, i had actually turned to run as a funnel cloud did start to come down about 200 feet from me, i cut that out as it was just grass in the footage.
I have also been cloning to try and use the color balance and lighting effects.

I have just checked out the Magic Bullet and i think i will buy this very soon. Damn expensive though, $799.

That's the price for Magic Bullet Suite.
Hugh & Jeff were talking about Magic Bullet Looks which is only $399.00 and, if you have Vegas 6 or 7, they came with a light version of this called Vegas Movie Looks_hd.
This light version makes you eligible for the upgrade price of a mere $99.00 which is a LOT easier on the pocketbook :-)

Matthew,

If you want great color, consider RED's Scarlet when it comes out. It's not a $599 special, but at under $3k, it's not an impossible purchase either.

RED's cameras record the RAW format - in other words they capture the data right off the sensor. It's compressed, but the color depth is untouched. You then have access to the full dynamic range of the images in post.

With most cameras you do color conversion inside the camera, losing information. It's then impossible to get that information back later. It can lead to contour lines and noise. With RED's cams, you can apply fairly radical color correction and retain smooth images.

RED claims that they will have additional tools available when Scarlet is released. Hopefully, this will include a nice Vegas workflow.

Sounds good about the upgrade cost.

I have maybe set a price of around $2k for a pro camera and I have seen a few on Newegg where I buy all my computer parts from anyway, so i know they are a great company.

I have gotten into making videos and have decided to set aside one of my computers for editing and nothing else. My new computer I built had this in mind more than anything.

I must admit a few things though, I work in computer programming for web development, I attended college for a degree in programming and I go back to college next year for my degree in computer science and a minor in maths. But looking at all these real pro cameras, boy it just looks so complicated and I never for one moment ever thought there would be so much to making videos. It is mind bending at times. I really admire you guys who do this on a pro level and the videos i have seen here are amazing. I really do thank you all for such great advice