Sync color in 3 cam shoot

[Anonymous]

I shot a series of interviews using a Sony HDR-HC1 as the main and 2 Flip Mino HD (720p) as the individual head shots. The video looks pretty decent. But… I did a white balance on the Sony, and the Flips don’t support any white correction. So the color is different between the cams.

Using PremierePro CS4, is there a way to synchronize these 3 to look closer to the same? I’m using the multicam edit function in PPro and cutting between cams causes the color shift to show up and be noticable.

[D0n]

shoot a kodak greycard with each cam under the lighting you’ll be using and adjust your white balance and exposure if possible off the card in post….

[Anonymous]

The Flips don’t support white balance – all auto…

<<I did a white balance on the Sony, and the Flips don’t support any white correction.>>

[composite1]

Skoegler,

What D0n was saying is next time take your camera that has white balance controls and do your white balance. Immediately after you WB, with the same camera shoot a short clip (5-10 sec) of a gray card under the exact same light you white balanced. Make sure the card fills the frame. Next with both flip cameras slate them and then do the same thing with the gray card. You won’t be able to correct in camera but when you get into the editing bay you can set up your color corrections based on the gray card clip shot with the Sony. Long as you properly slate the different gray card clips, there’s no reason why you can’t create usable matching footage in post.

[Anonymous]

Ahhhh … got it. Thx. That makes sense.

Is there some way to manually adjust one set of the tripple (I have 15 interviews) and then apply the correction to the remaining 14? They were all shot in exactly the same lighting.

[composite1]

Skoegler,

Yeah, but it’s kind of a pain. If the interviews were shot in the same place without any background changes then you could use the one’s shot with your sony and try to use a solid color in the background as your reference color. Trick is to not throw off your subject’s skin tones in the process. Do not try to match your colors according to skin tones unless it’s the same person under the exact same lights. You’ll be very sorry if you do. Even if matching the background color works, you’re still going to be in for some hair-pulling tweaking sessions. Main thing is it’s not going to be perfect… period. Accept the fact that at this stage you just want a workable look and next time, plan to use the gray card.

[XTR-91]

If you at least have a fairly intuitive (doesn’t have to be too expensive) video editor, you’ll be able to adjust brightness, contrast, white balance, saturation, etc. until the synchronization suits you. You’ll probably want the HCR-HC1 as your main cam and the others as secondaries (e.g. the flip cams as interviewer-interviewee closeups) and the Sony HC1 as the wide. It is better to take similar shots (e.g. person closeups) from camcorders that are virtually close to the same.

[Anonymous]

Right. that’s pretty much the setup I used. I have Premiere Pro CS4, so there’s plenty of power there. Just need to make an initial adjustment I think. I”m guessing that once I get a setting that does the match, I should be able to create a preset effect and then apply that to the Flip clips…?

[composite1]

Skoegler,

You’ll probably have to make 2 ‘presets’ because I’d be willing to bet my own money that the two flips aren’t color matched to each other either. So plan on having a set for ‘flip 1’ that matches the sony shots and another for ‘flip 2′. If by good fortune the two flips match each other, then you won’t need that. It’d be a very good idea to check that out before you get crankin’ on color correcting.

[Anonymous]

Thanks all. Off I go. might even be fun 🙂

[D0n]

Yep greycards will get you as close to perfect as the sensors will allow, don’t be surprised if the reds and blues are impossible to match….

I know, I shoot weddings with a sony hdr hc1 an sr12 and several Pentax dslrs and I can get ’em real good, but never perfect…

My vid cam got better auto white balance, my dslrs better color accuracy across the board…

then there’s the clients who can’t spot the difference (mercifully) even if you point it out to them… so real good is good enough!

[XTR-91]

If you at least have a fairly intuitive (doesn’t have to be too expensive) video editor, you’ll be able to adjust brightness, contrast, white balance, saturation etc. until the synchronization suits you. You’ll probably want the HCR-HC1 as your main cam and the others as secondaries (e.g. the flip cams as interviewer-interviewee closeups), having the Sony HC1 for the wide shot. It is better to take similar shots (e.g. personal closeups) from camcorders that are virtually close to the same.

[Anonymous]

And now that I’m using the multicam function…

I used a clapper to get an initial sync, and that works fine. However, after just a few minutes into the reel, the sync drifts. I’m guessing that the Flips are not using exactly the same clock as the Sony. Obviously there is no timing function recorded in the track.

So is there some mechanism available to resynch or maintain synch with this setup? I’m not relishing the idea of buying a set of high end cams.

[Grinner Hester]

You can resync per edit or do a big fit to fill if you have to hang onto one shot for a long time.

You’ll just color correct to match in post. Don’t worry about matchin’ em in the field.

I think your sync issue is the flips are recording 30fps, not 29.97, if that helps you with fit to fill math.

[Anonymous]

Makes sense – the different frame rates. Can you point me to where I can find the function to remap the rates? or the fit to fill function?

[XTR-91]

Term’s “Undersample rate” in Sony Vegas Pro… not sure how much (if any) of a vocabulary your software has that varies from Vegas.

[Anonymous]

After some (lots of) experimenting, I found that changing the time rate on the Flip clips to 100.12% is the magic number. Once that’s in place, the timing is perfect.

Thanks!

[Author]

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