2 Different Cameras, settings and color matching?

MikeLV wrote on 4/14/2024, 1:52 PM

I have to shoot a video with two different cameras in a studio setting (unchanging lighting condition). First camera is the Canon XA10 and the second camera is the lesser quality Sony HDR-CX405. Despite being a lesser quality cam, the CX405 has several video settings, and the sample footage I saw online looked very good. I did a test shoot with the settings on auto, and the video didn't look great. How would you configure the Sony with its settings to get a good quality picture? And is there a best practices procedure for color matching between the two cameras? Based on what I learned so far, I think I need to get a color card as I don't have one yet. Thanks for any suggestions; this is all new to me.

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Comments

MikeLV wrote on 4/17/2024, 10:22 AM

Thank you for the video, I will watch it!

MikeLV wrote on 4/17/2024, 11:31 AM

Here's a photo of the display on my XA10 (I haven't white balanced yet). A couple of questions I've developed:

Why don't the F-Stops go lower than F2.8?
On the waveform scope, there's no indication of 0 and 100. Since the black appears to be sitting on the second line from the bottom of the box, should I presume that 100 is the second line from the top of the box?

MikeLV wrote on 4/17/2024, 1:24 PM

I am not so happy with how this is going. This is video from the XA10. I set the white balance in the camera using the white card, set the shutter speed correctly and I added I think it was 3dB to the gain. I then had the subject hold the color checker card and recorded. Then I opened the video in Vegas, went to the color grading, and targeted the lift by clicking on the black color, and the gain by clicking on the white color and this is what I got. The picture is entirely too dark as you can see.

Before adjusting gain and lift:

After adjusting gain and lift:

What am I doing wrong?

mark-y wrote on 4/17/2024, 3:28 PM

Going the wrong way. Use gamma and lift to raise the shadow curve, not crush it

mark-y wrote on 4/17/2024, 4:11 PM

MikeLV wrote on 4/17/2024, 5:07 PM

We're going to go with a different backdrop that has more colors, and I'm not going to worry too much about it anymore. It's too tedious, and it's not a Hollywood epic we're shooting. I'll just do my best to get decent lighting and white balance and go from there. The other thing I discovered is that the little Sony doesn't give me full manual control. If I set aperture to manual, then shutter speed and iris go to automatic. But I was pleased with the picture I got on the Sony by controlling aperture only. Thanks for your help.

Howard-Vigorita wrote on 4/17/2024, 7:23 PM

The way I use Vegas color wheels is to adjust the bottom levels 1st with Lift and then the top level with Gain. They interact somewhat so it takes a bit of back and forth. I don't care for the droppers... in build 300 they adjust the levels of Red, Green, and Blue as a group rather the overall level. That's probably an improvement over disrupting a correctly set white balance like in the past but I still don't see the point of it not tweaking the overall level instead.

I use Gama for rough adjustment to mid-range brightness. But I go to the RL Color Wheels-Midtone wheel 1st... it has a smaller range and, unlike Gama, almost no interaction with Lift and Gain, but is often sufficient.

One thing I totally hate about CGP is the way the mouse wheel can disrupt color balance if you move it while pointed anywhere above the bottom sliders. Even if the mouse points outside the circles. I use the mouse wheels allot to move the bottom sliders but often get screwed up by this aberrant behavior if I'm not careful.

Another thing I find annoying is that the overall settings on the scopes default to limited-range even through projects are set by default to full-range. If my project is full-range, I always uncheck the Studio RGB box.