Why are these so different looking

[Shaun]

SO i’m a bit confused, I shoot on two identical cameras, white balance them to the same card, and they still look so different from eachother and I’m having a hard time color correcting them back to looking unified.

Any help?

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp-NJ4AW5OY&feature=youtu.be

[pseudosafari]

My bet is that window is the culprit. You’re head on with it in one view and not in the other. Perhaps exposure is the issue and not white balance? Just a thought.

[doublehamm]

Each and every camera is different! I have 2 Sony Z5’s that never match. Even if I manually set everything the same – or use the memory stick to make sure each and every setting is identical. When I called Sony about it, they said I would need to send them in for service, and to let them know which cameras picture I preferred overall. Then they would match the other camera through factory settings exactly the same. They were both under warranty at the time I wanted to do this so it would have been free, but I needed my cameras and have since learned to put up with them.

[doublehamm]

Exposure is another thing that messes my matching up – the more gain the more the coloring was different.

[composite1]

You need to have your cameras professionally calibrated in order to get them to match perfectly. On the other hand, there are tools you can use like Adobe On-Location’s virtural waveform monitors. Still though you’ll need someone on hand who understands what and how the controls work and use the settings.

Without the above options available, shoot as ‘flat’ an image possible with both cameras and make it easier to match it in post.

[Shaun]

woah, if this happens on the Z5, then I feel more comfortable with my TM900, still i know it takes a ton of color correction and post work to match any two cameras.

Doublehamm I had manual too, but they are odd manual controls on my camera, but either way I did notice that on some the images match pretty well, on others (yes, zoomed in ones with the window in the background) are often dark (which I expected) with the color off quite a bit.

So the question: I use Sony Vegas and have all their plugins, any suggestions on which ones to use that might point me in a right direction.

I’m guessing a mixture of Color Correction and Color Curves, any other suggestions? I’m starting to learn Vegas so thanks for any help.

[EarlC]

I suggest auto-gain is causing most of the color differentiation. Light IS video and if one is getting more, or less, than the other, primarily due to the auto-gain increasing/decreasing the light, there’s going to be a major color shift.

Also, in white balancing, especially auto-white balancing, the dominant color temperature is going to be what the camera adjusts for while shooting. Even if you manually white balance, if one is white balanced according to light coming in from the window and the other is balanced according to either predominant fluorescent or incandescent light, they’re going to vary significantly in coloration.

EVEN if you use the built-in filters for outdoor/indoor, commonly indicated by a miniature sun or lightbulb, and then swing a camera from the inner-most interior where the dominant light is incandescent, to where an open door or window lets in a significant portion of sunlight, color shift is going to occur. Also, if using auto-iris or exposure, the lightening and darkening as the iris opens/closes, is going to not only wreak havoc on the exposure settings, blowing out the background and silhouetting the subject, or the other way around, it’s also going to adversely affect the coloration.

[doublehamm]

Here is a thread I had when I was having issues with the Z5s – there is some great help there. http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/2x-z5u-same-camera-same-settings-bad-color-matching

[Shaun]

thanks double, that was helpful… so should i pay to have my cameras matched?

I shoot with two TM900’s, hardly a pro level, but I’d MUCH rather put money into having them matched to get my monies worth as I’ll be doing a lot of 2 camera shoots.

I did a quick google search, but not even sure how I would go about color matching them. Any thoughts?

And. Earl, even with them color matched would that even matter? I understand what your saying about the change of variables affecting things on each camera, but would they be much less extreme if I paid to have them calibrated?

[doublehamm]

What I ended up doing was using Vegas, and set up a preset that changed one of my cameras to match the other (mainly using color curves). Then I just laid that on one camera. It is not 100% perfect, but gets me very close in a ballpark area to do some quick tweaking to cap it off – as each shoot has different variables in lighting.

[Shaun]

so you basically have a preset that’s close enough as a starting point for each shoot to calibrate one video stream to the other?

[doublehamm]

Yessir! Assuming of course both cameras are set identical to start with.

[EarlC]

Shaun, had the same issues with my two Canon XL1 units. Paid to have them MATCHED and STILL continue to have variables based on the issues I noted above. In a wedding I shot some time ago, with one camera facing from the back of the church to the altar area (affected by direct light from a bank of windows on the left side of the camera, in the building’s outside wall, the other just off the front, left pew, facing AWAY from the windows, adjusting white balance with a large white card, zooming in, setting, the aisle-located unit gave us GREAT color while the offset camera took on a predominance of GREEN from the building’s Fluros’ … just sayin’.

[Shaun]

damn earl… so what do you do in that situation? can color correction really fix things to THAT degree! I’m doing low budget stuff where good enough is… well, good enough. For a wedding I’m guessing that wouldn’t fly (which is why i’m not going anywhere near weddings at this point).

So all it took was some color correction and it was fine?

I’m thinking I have a few issues on my end:
1. different shutter speeds, I do think I forgot to set that – woops
2. lighting from the windows behind which throws things off, esp. when I zoom in
3. I had no front lights, only an overhead ‘hair light’ bouncing off the white ceiling (which made the ambient light more of a factor), and a few of the stage lights that were there and not that bright

Next time, I’d add my 2 20″ softboxes to the front sides and black out the windows from the outside… oh well.. steep learning curve…

[Shaun]

double that preset idea is saving me a ton of time… in this one project I’ve created 6 different color correct presets on 6 tracks and I drag each clip that needs some CC lovin to the track that best matches my camera 1 image. Thanks for that!

[doublehamm]

No problem – free fix is always good!

[Shaun]

def… oh and my focus was totally off… found it hard to focus on this gig without proper lighting.. thought I had enough, but apparently not..

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