On Broadcast Color Levels

john_dennis wrote on 1/12/2012, 9:52 PM

While watching the local news this evening, my wfie asked, "What's going on with the colors?" The studio productions from this station are normally quite natural looking so I decided to record a sample to see if I could relate what I see on the screen to the video scopes.

Here is the offending station.

Here and here are examples of scopes that more closely match the levels that I have learned from this forum are mostly within the expected broadcast range of 16-235.

Am I just exhibiting "second year medical student syndrome" or should the local NBC affiliate tone it down a bit?

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Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 1/19/2012, 12:26 PM

I don't try to correct deep underwater shots; it is what it is, but Nick's curves may be more accurate since he's been there.

To maximize shadow detail, all you need to do is raise the output start to .040 in the Sony Levels filter. If you want a bit more contrast, you can drop the input end (no lower than ~.975) --or-- bump the gamma a tiny bit as mentioned before.

danv wrote on 1/21/2012, 5:03 AM

Jerry,
Thanks for this.....I will be able to spend time on Monday with this series of new ideas...right now I am in the last 2 days of a GUE Fundies course, and it leaves very little time or mental energy at the end or beginnig of each day :-)

Dan

danv wrote on 1/21/2012, 5:15 AM

Also...one of the challenges in u/w video is to get close enough to the subject, that your video lights can be effective in illuminating your sobject well, and in showing the full color spectrum. In this short sequence, the jewfish did not have any interest is altering it's speed to allow me to get closer :-) He was going over 4 mph, and you can see the effects of the strong Palm Beach drift current, even on him....I got as close as I could, but not enough for reds to really make the distance.

In the clips that foillow, I get very close to many jewfish inside the wreck, and their are many shots of the wreck itself, with a full and rich color spectrum.

When I get to the distance I "want to " shoot at, there is a big improvement on how the Appollo's do the job....I should send another clip in the wreck, where I get the shots the way I would like....and maybe Nick could comment if the Appollos are still holding the shot back, or....my hope is that they succeed in creating a nice warm image...
One of my good friends, Jimmy Abernethy, a world famous shark videographer, shoots with a light so powerful it is like an explosion of white --I think great for sharks in mid water in the Bahamas, but his jewfish clips seem to look less like the actual fish on deep and darker dives like this. Could also be that he just has a strong video light that is strong but not a good at balancing the spectrum.

farss wrote on 1/21/2012, 5:23 AM

Doesn't your housing have a flip down red filter?
If it doesn't maybe that's what you need. Flip it down, then white balance using a card on your left wrist. Seems SOP for underwater work.

Bob.

danv wrote on 1/21/2012, 5:31 PM

Here is the url for the jewfish footage where I was close enough for appropriate lighting, inside the wreck--

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/57686349/jewfish2.avi

And to Bob, I do not have a red filter on my Aquatica housing ( canon 5d mark II model) ..my assumption was that when you get deep enough that you lose all the colors but blues, then the only thing you can do is to try to get close with lights--if you are too far away with the video lights, you will lose colors like reds as you get too far way... I can try some experimenting if other u/w video shooters have had good luck with red filters at 100 feet or deeper. I am supposed to film a World War II fighter recently found off of Jipiter Florida in 190 feet of water soon.... A Navy Hell Diver....very intact, lots of lion fish and reef fish all over it, but just shades of blue...when I get in close with my camera, it will bring ALL the colors out well.

REgards,
Dan

amendegw wrote on 1/21/2012, 5:54 PM

A couple of things...

1) I don't know whether Nick Hope has recovered his connectivity, so I emailed these updates to him.
2) To get a clickable link to this video file, type [link=http://dl.dropbox.com/u/57686349/jewfish2.avi]
which results in this: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/57686349/jewfish2.avi

...Jerry

Alf Hanna wrote on 1/22/2012, 1:47 AM

Great thread. I wll recommend it to all. Nick's underwater video is amazing. Just fabulous quality. I'd follow his advice!

farss wrote on 1/22/2012, 2:40 AM

"my assumption was that when you get deep enough that you lose all the colors but blues"

Obviously at some point you loose all light but before that you loose so much at the red end that the sensor is just swamped by the blue and white balance cannot compensate.
Of course if you've got lights then you'd need to flip the red filter away and WB again when using them.

Bob.

amendegw wrote on 1/22/2012, 3:51 AM

Nick's still cannot connect. Here's his latest comments,

"Red Filter: On my Z1 I use mine between about 15 to 100 feet. Below 100 feet is just cuts out light and forces the gain up. Also at 100 feet the camera refuses to do a manual white balance. So if I'm going deep I try to get the most extreme red-boosting white balance the camera will give me, on the way down, and then use that deeper, but without the filter. Obviously the CC filter needs to be off if lights are on or everything goes red. I don't think the filter would really help the first deep blue grouper clip unless it allowed the camera to do a manual white balance.

...Jerry

danv wrote on 1/23/2012, 6:37 AM

[ Alf Hanna
Date: 1/22/2012 1:47:42 AM
Great thread. I wll recommend it to all. Nick's underwater video is amazing. Just fabulous quality. I'd follow his advice! ]

Absolutely! I will be following this. And it's not like you can get information like this from a proshop or a book.

danv wrote on 1/23/2012, 6:48 AM

So the next time I am in a wreck like this one with the Grouper, the plan will be to turn down the exposure on the Canon 5d. There is only one way to do this, as far as I know...there is no changing the ISO, or anything other than just turning the dial which chages exposure compensation ( whatever it changes, it shows the subject in the playback window as getting darker or lighter, depending on which way you turn it.)....So What you are suggesting, is to try darkening the palyback until the windows look like they are the subject ( properly exposed), then getting close enough to the Grouper to light him enough to see him, and than in post, pull gammas and brightness up in Cineform's First Light ( or in Vegas, but so far I have ONLY worked on issues like this in First Light). Cool thing with First Light, is that the changes require no rendering, no new generations, and are instantaneous. If any of you guys have used both, I'd be interested to hear if you still use Vegas sometimes for this kind of post edit.....

JJKizak wrote on 1/23/2012, 6:59 AM

Yesterday after viewing the Volkswagon Passat commercial with the christmas decorations (OTA Sony XBR2) the colors were the closest thing to the old Kodachrome II that I have ever seen. Just kind of wondering how they did that.
JJK

NickHope wrote on 1/24/2012, 1:24 AM

Hey, someone plugged the sub-Pacific cable back in! :)

Thanks a million to Jerry for relaying messages in the meantime, and thanks for the kind words about my videos.

danv, I'm not sure what "exposure compensation" changes exactly on the 5DmkII, but you should be able to examine metadata stored in the captured files to see if it's shutter, aperture or iso/gain.

Don't overdo the exposure reduction. I recommending monitoring everything in the Vegas scopes. Now I look at it more closely, in the jewfish2 clip, there is actually a peak in the blue channel just below 240, and the overall luminance peaks just below 235. So although the blue channel is getting clipped, the camera might still be making as good a job as it can of the overall exposure. I'm assuming that clip was taken with auto exposure? If you manually dial down the exposure too much, you'll just reduce the dyamic range and lose a little quality when you stretch it out in post.

Ref color correction, I really wanted to try the free DaVinci Resolve Lite the other day, as I've heard it's the business for grading, but unfortunately it won't run on my ageing setup. First Light is probably your best bet, but I also recommend getting familiar with using Vegas' color curves in conjuntion with all 4 Vegas video scopes. They really do offer a lot of control that you can't get with tools like the 3-way color corrector.

This guy uses DaVinci Resolve Lite to grade his F3 footage:

[url=

danv wrote on 1/26/2012, 5:50 AM

[Reply by: Nick Hope
Date: 1/24/2012 1:24:21 AM
Hey, someone plugged the sub-Pacific cable back in! :) Thanks a million to Jerry for relaying messages in the meantime, and thanks for the kind words about my videos.

danv, I'm not sure what "exposure compensation" changes exactly on the 5DmkII, but you should be able to examine metadata stored in the captured files to see if it's shutter, aperture or iso/gain.

Don't overdo the exposure reduction. I recommending monitoring everything in the Vegas scopes. Now I look at it more closely, in the jewfish2 clip, there is actually a peak in the blue channel just below 240, and the overall luminance peaks just below 235. So although the blue channel is getting clipped, the camera might still be making as good a job as it can of the overall exposure. I'm assuming that clip was taken with auto exposure? If you manually dial down the exposure too much, you'll just reduce the dyamic range and lose a little quality when you stretch it out in post.

Ref color correction, I really wanted to try the free DaVinci Resolve Lite the other day, as I've heard it's the business for grading, but unfortunately it won't run on my ageing setup. First Light is probably your best bet, but I also recommend getting familiar with using Vegas' color curves in conjuntion with all 4 Vegas video scopes. They really do offer a lot of control that you can't get with tools like the 3-way color corrector.]
__________________________________

HI Nick,
First, thanks for taking the time to go over these issues! And I have to say the videos you put on your site were spectacular...meaning anything you say, I am going to listen :-)

As to the 5D and dealig with exposure, from everything I've read on the 5D, it is iso which is changing when you run on full manual as I do. The quick control dial changes the video recording, to be either darker or lighter--either by iso change or exposure compensation...while this really says little of value, the manuals and books on the 5 D have VERY LITTLE INFORMATION of specifics of what goes on in video mode. From what you are saying, I will shoot some similar scenes next time I am in a wreck like in the video, and turn down the exposure a little, and then try a clip with Highlight Tone priority, and then one without, and see if this helps the clipping where the light is streaming in...If I can get close enough to the big fish or other key subject, so that the video lights do their job properly, then the dark areas will not be important, and noise there will not matter so much..At least, this is something I am looking forward to trying.
And I will begin playing with the Scopes in Vegas...as if the time spent in post was not long enough already!!!! :-) For those who do not dive, we kill about an hour of prep prior to getting on a boat, then a half day on the dive boat, every time we go out....so while you can't skimp on post, time spent on U/w video can be insane!

As a tangent Nick, from some of your exploits, it looks like you have been on some projects that were GUE dives, so I'd be interested to hear of you are also a GUE diver.

Thanks,
Dan Volker
www.sfdj.com