@Marco.

Thanks, but I meant the info from the file HandBrake encoded as that's the one you gonna feed YouTube with.

@Marco.

I didn't encode anything in HandBrake. I just imported the original camera file in HandBrake and used preview to see what it looked like since @Musicvid said that HandBrake gets both the levels and colors right.

But you don't really gonna upload that uncompressed 10 bit 4:2:2 AVI file to YouTube, do you?

Why not? Got unlimited internet and have the time to wait. What's the downside? Coming from audio, uploading compressed media to get compressed once more just freaks me out. It's like encoding something in mp3 twice!

I'd see it as waste without advantage. You could have same result with just a small fraction of the data bandwidth. Alone blowing up the 8 bit 4:2:0 to 10 bit 4:2:2 is just useless.

But the waste probably is the only downside.

The downside of uploading bloated files to Youtube is that there isn't any upside.

The upside is my peace of mind and not freaking out over uploading doubly compressed files to YouTube to get compressed once more. I wish I had control over this obsessive part of me, but I don't! I have already hacked the Nikons to shoot at 64mbps rather than the 24mbps they do from factory.

With Youtube, the tail doesn't wag the dog.

I'd suggest channeling the obsession towards lighting, exposure, white balance and color correction in post if you want your videos to look better, assuming you've satisfied yourself with compression.

@RogerS 

Any suggestions? I’ve done the best I can with lighting and white balance in this shot, but decided not to touch the colors (beyond the 601 -> 709 conversion), because of my lack of experience. It’ll be some time until I feel confident adjusting the colors

Regarding the exposure, I don’t mind the clipped parts on the TV, I’ll be putting up a dark wallpaper there for the actual footage. Still, I think I might be a tad over exposing and that might be why I like the crushed look of VLC. I’m at ISO 250 on the Nikons, could try going down to 200 if you suggest (24fps, 1/50s, f1.8). What else do you suggest I do in post?

i have a second camera shooting from the side FYI.

With uploading a well-chosen frame size and at the same time at a tenth part smaller file size you could gain better YouTube end-user quality as you do with a bloated empty-bit-upload (assumed YouTube still sorts his internal encoding according to same properties as it did some time ago).
If YouTube is your common distributing channel it is worth investigating its mechanisms.

Just hovering over the white target in your image R,G,B are not equal values so it's not balanced and is a bit pink. Did you do a custom white balance in camera? If not try that in the future. I'm not sure if that target is accurate, though. Try shooting it at daylight/5500K in camera on a nice sunny day in a place without reflections (parking lot? not a grassy field) and when you bring it into Vegas see if it looks neutral on the vectorscope.

In post there are many ways to fix white balance. The white balance Fx is one to start with (tip, you can "draw" a box on the preview window by clicking and dragging to select an area and take an average reading vs a single pixel.)

The TV would be best replaced with something that doesn't draw so much attention to itself. Super bright objects in the background behind your subject just detracts from it. I'd light your subject brighter than the background to keep the focus where it belongs.

Overexposing modestly (without blowing out any highlights of importance) is a good way to reduce noise. However the red channel looks to be clipped here so there's no detail in the shirt. If you have control over the lighting I'd increase power to shoot at the camera's base ISO and probably wouldn't shoot at quite that shallow an aperture. I'd think you want some depth of field to keep your whole subject in focus.

If you want to increase contrast in post try color curves or the curve in the color grading panel to make an s shape. bring the shadows down and increase midtones/highlights slightly without making too much of the image pure white or black.

To modify hues you can use the free AAV color lab Fx or the Color Corrector Secondary. This is great for tweaking skin tones, bringing down overly saturated/distracting colors, etc.


Quick example- white balance, bring down shadows, reduce red saturation slightly [not sure if the screenshot will look quite right as one monitor is sRGB and the other wide gamut)

(PNG saved from Vegas).

Personally I'd keep a little bit of space next to the speakers so they aren't at the absolute edge of the frame.

 

I haven't used a Nikon of this vintage for video but do you have other choices for picture profiles or whatever they are called on it? Something a bit flatter would be easier to work with in post and give more room to adjust the look afterwards. Neutral, natural, etc.?

@RogerS

When I put the white card where my face would be the white balance in the scope is pretty much bang on. I'm using the 'cool white fluorescent' preset in the camera but fine tune it by manually moving it two notches towards amber (A2). I have two soft boxes that are rated at 5000K, but unfortunately I'm in a mixed lighting setting. So I was expecting to be closer to 4000K and this setting gives the best result. When I use the eye drop in the white balance effect, the change is negligible.

Don't have the option of removing the TV, but will put a dark wallpaper on it (it'll be my 'logo'). I will either remove the stuffed animals, or only keep a small one on each side instead of the whole family. Will have to talk it out with them first though!

I won't be moving much really and in my tests I've always remained in focus. Because of how far the camera is and how close the stuff behind me are, the depth of field is not that shallow. I would have wanted things behind me more blurry, but I'm limited by the room size and setup.

Are you sure the shirt is losing detail because of overexposure? I thought it was due to compression. In camera the only thing clipping is TV.

I don't feel confident messing with contrast or skin tones yet. I'm watching some tutorials when I have the time though! Maybe later?

Shooting in Standard picture profile now. Tried Vivid, didn't like it as much. I can do Neutral, but again, I don't feel confident going there yet. I'm afraid I'll mess things up.

"When I put the white card where my face would be the white balance in the scope is pretty much bang on."
So you are saying the white target in the image (that's the white card?) is wrong then? It's clearly not neutral. It's off enough to be significant in my eyes- see the neutrals like the white desk and speakers. Look at it using the RGB parade- the horizontal line in the upper white is that target. Use crop or bezier mask to isolate areas of the image and see what the white balance Fx does. R=G=B = neutral.

Does the camera not have a custom white balance function? Eyeballing it isn't so repeatable (though you can do trial and error if this setup remains the same).

The final look is subjective though, you can play with it to make your skin tones look the way you want. General workflow is to first correct to neutral and then grade/alter to taste.

Also, you can use mixed lighting to creative effect if you are lit using one color and the background a different one.

Pre-WB


Post WB


For the shirt it's overexposed. How did you conclude it was not overexposed in the camera? Does it have zebras? The histogram may not be precise enough for clipping in a single channel.

Look at the RGB parade here. I lowered it slightly in levels so you can see that the red flatlines at 100%. That means any data above the line was clipped and detail was lost. Compression isn't your main issue.


Feel free to post an example with neutral. Less contrasty and saturated would give more flexibility.

@RogerS

Am I doing this wrong? I've used the pan/crop tool to zoom in on the white card (which is "supposed" to be neutral white) and then look at the RGB parade. I'm new to this, so bear with me as I make rookie mistakes!

The in-camera custom white balance function always gives wonky results. Our video guys at work have problems with Nikon white balance too (same model). It always adds a green tint. Although I'm in mixed lighting, the setup is fixed. So the lighting shouldn't change.

The camera doesn't have zebras, it has highlights. The only thing flashing in highlights is the TV, but you're right, in Vegas the shirt is clipping. I will reduce the ISO to 200 and see how it looks like. I already thought the rest of the frame was slightly overexposed, so now I can reduce the ISO more confidently. If that doesn't work, I'll start looking into shooting in neutral.

Yes, you cropped in just fine. Try the white balance Fx and make a selection on your preview window. Toggle the Fx on and off and see the RGB parade values change. When perfectly neutral the three channels will match up well.

A less saturated camera profile would also be a bit less likely to clip. You can easily add saturation in Vegas.

Do reduce to ISO 200 and take a look at the levels.

Btw - especially for the red clipping of this kind of source footage it is mandatory in Vegas Pro to do a 601 to 709 conversion as a first step (best done as Media FX). You could see this even better when taking a closer look onto the display behind. I masked it for a better analysis.

Uncorrected 601

Corrected 601 to 709 conversion

The 709 conversion brings some clipped details back (which is why this conversion is best placed as Media FX).
And I saw Kdenlive also imports this particular footage as 601 color space, it even displays "601" for it. So it's pretty likely our guess of mixed color spaces was correct.

@sss-v

If I may: don't just reduce ISO, close aperture instead. Once that sensor is overloaded no amount of ISO reduction will ever help. Also, your "90% white card" is at 96% right now, so...:)

@adis-a3097

White balance is bang on. The WB effect does very little.
 

What do you mean by my 90% card being at 96%? You mean it’s overexposed?

Not gonna touch the aperture! :-D But I have an ND filter. Should I try that?

Bang on? Nope. I do this for a living (well, in part). The WB is slightly off as I stated- load the before and after screenshots I uploaded in different tabs and toggle between them. For a guy obsessing about compression I thought you cared about getting the details right.

Yes it's overexposed but you knew that. The ISO advice makes no sense. Go back to base ISO and if still clipping highlight detail close down aperture slightly or dial down the lighting very slightly. Any ND filter will be overkill for such a small difference and if the filter isn't good you'll get more color casts to correct.