Fall Foliage From PA

[jpenn]

This is some footage I shot with a Canon XF300 just before Hurricane Sandy came through here. I'm a noob at this so I hope it's not "Fail Foliage". Let me know what you think.

 

 http://youtu.be/fxLRfPsA2EE

 

100%

 

JP 

[theonecanoe]

Interesting,  Being a fan of Canon products I'm really surprised at how dull the original footage looked.  Canon usually does a superb job of capturing acurate colous at least when I do a manual white balance.  What white balance settings did you use on the original shot?

 

   -Wayne-

 

[JackWolcott]

You've obviously gotten a good handle on using the primary and secondary color correction tools.

Did you start out by adjusting levels (this relates to Wayne's question regarding white balance.)

I suspect that working with levels and a waveform monitor would "pop" some of the original color without having to resort to these tools.

 

For me, the "corrected" portion comes down to a question of taste. I'd characterize the effect as looking like The Wizard of Oz — heavily saturated, Technicolor, not quite believable as "real" color.

This may be the effect you were going for; if so, you've done a good job. If, on the other hand, you want me to accept this as though I were there, it's a bit too heavy-handed for my taste, a little too obviously manipulated in post.

 

[jpenn]

 

 

Thanks for the comments:

 

First a little about me;

I’ve always enjoyed shooting video but I’ve never worked at it professionally, I am more of an uber hobbyist. My last camera was a Canon XL1s which was all pimped out with three lenses, shoulder pad, a pro viewfinder, and more. I had to sell that so I could buy (and I'm still paying for) the XF300. I just couldn’t settle for anything less.

 

I’ve been retired a little over two years now and I have the time to devote to my hobbies. Maybe I can try to make a few bucks here or there with this camera. I’ve paid my dues after commuting to work for over 35 years. I’m not in a hurry to find another full time job. Time to enjoy life.   

 

 

To theonecanoe;

 

Yes I agree. I do believe I should be able to get more from this camera. That is the reason I went for it. I’ve only had this camera a few weeks and I’m still on the learning curve with it. I’m relying on the exposure meter and it sometimes lets me down. I guess it will take some time till I can eyeball a shot and compare that with what the camera tells me to get the intended exposure for the scene. What I see in the viewfinder doesn’t exactly match up with what I see on my computer screen. But then that could just be my inexperience.   

 

To JackWolcott;

 

Yes you are right. I was a little heavy with the saturation. I was going for that look.

 

When I first came up on it the scene, it was just so stunning with the green lawn and the blue sky framing the red, orange, and yellow of the trees it took my breath way. I wanted the colors to pop to reflect the way I felt.

 

As for post, all I did was to adjust brightness, contrast, and center to bring the levels into spec and then I used secondary color corrector to bring up the saturation. White balance was set on the camera.  I used the default “Daylight” setting of 5600K.

 

 

 

Thanks to all

John P.

[Fastfwd]

Since a purchase of Adobe Lightroom for my RAW stills; I have a renewed interest in doing some post color correction in video myself.  Glad to see this forum topic here to see what the hobbyist efforts look like for comparison. 

 

I lean pretty heavy handed myself in my Lightroom tweaks; oversaturated, etc. I think this video looks improved, but maybe a tad much contrast?  I wonder if being relatively new to color correction lends to a person pushing it beyond what a softer touch might yield? 

 

I don’t personally have a calibrated monitor nor is my monitor very high end for that matter.  So, what might look marginally oversaturated to me – might look wretched on a properly calibrated monitor or maybe it looks just right possibly?  I’m guessing my monitor probably is a bit oversaturated not calibrated vs. what it would look like calibrated.

[Mike Wilhelm]

It might have looked dull because it was juxtaposed right next to footage that's so highly saturated.

Flat looking footage is pretty common, even in higher end cameras. If you've seen the test footage that's come out of the Blackmagic camera, it looks pretty dull. The beauty lies in the amount of color data that's there, but that's undetectable until graded.

 

Nice video!

[Author]

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