Try matching colors GH2 and Canon 5D

[Giovassi]

I have recently bought a Panny GH2 to work with my Canon 5D II. It replaces my old Sony video camera, and I'm quite happy because besides quality, is very flexible and very close to a video cam.
I have tried different sets to match the two cameras colors, but I'm not very happy of what I get.
Anybody got good results working with GH2 and 5D together?
Thanks

[jean-baptiste lefournier]

The best tool to match image on both GH2 and 5D is the eye :)
GH2 image seems "already baked" out of the camera so you have to be careful when grading it.
I wish we could have Technicolor Cinestyle on GH2. (as EOS have)
I tried to match 7D and GH2 footage in this test : [url=https://vimeo.com/23907881]https://vimeo.com/23907881[/url]
I think this is not so hard to achieve.

[Andrew Reid]

Nostalgic and a slightly warmer than normal white balance will help match your GH2 to the 5D Mark II. Generally.

[Giovassi]

I'll try follow you setting Andrew, I mostly worked with SMOOTH, but I think that probably it would help having different lenses, Nokton for example, I have only the 14-140 for now. I can see how the 70-200 makes a huge difference compared to the 28-135 on the Canon 5D.

Jean-Baptiste, very nice your test. I maybe wrong but I can see in that video the limit of the GH2, I'm talking about the nice skin's texture Canon shows that I'm not able to get with the Panny. Mostly of my work are interviews and I got very "sensitive" of this point, you can color correct the image but when the skin is polished, washed out?, there is little I can do. I guess.. 8)

[Sara]

I personally don't agree that the skin tone on the Canon (any model) is superior to the GH2.  Ten's of thousands of people shooting GH2's get superior skin tone.

[url=https://vimeo.com/35321519]https://vimeo.com/35321519[/url] (example - he did a great job with his girlfriend even if it leans towards a baby soft pinkish hue)

Remember that even with the Magic Lantern rate improvement hacks for the Canon 5D, it is capturing FAR less video information than current 88mbs-154mbs Quantum X GH2 settings.  Seeing a smoother waxy skin tone is the first sign of a cheap digital production.

A couple things to know about skin tone.  First, skin tone lives primarily in the histogram-right of the mid tones.  Poor exposure means poor skin tones.

This Adobe pdf will explain why pro's rarely underexpose skin when shooting digital (stills or video - same rules):

[url=http://wwwimages.adobe.com/www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/products/photoshop/pdfs/linear_gamma.pdf]http://wwwimages.adobe.com/www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/products/photoshop/pdfs/linear_gamma.pdf[/url]

Second, skin tone is comprised of nearly all the colors of the rainbow (no matter what race).  Accurate white balance is essential because we are dealing with a limited color space and do not have access to a raw video file.

Third when making global color changes in your video editor (you really shouldn't too much - read above) work with vibrance settings before messing with saturation settings.  Vibrance leave alone skin tones and works with the least saturated colors first before messing around with the most saturated colors.

If you are finding that your GH2 is capturing "too much" detail - hair, freckles, wrinkles, etc. - use Black Pro Mist filters or my favs Schneider Hollywood Black Magic or Tiffen Glimmer Glass. 

Examples:  Results will be similar with video -

[url=http://public.fotki.com/makofoto/work/black-glimmer-and-m/]http://public.fotki.com/makofoto/work/black-glimmer-and-m/[/url]  (and no, this can't be duplicated in post production)

Take care.

[Giovassi]

Very instructive Sara, and the explanation of the Linear Gamma helped me to understand some of my frustrations.
I'll do my homework, experimenting also the hacked firmware for the GH2.
Thanks for now.

[Sara]

[quote author=Giovassi link=topic=290.msg1878#msg1878 date=1329716774]
Very instructive Sara, and the explanation of the Linear Gamma helped me to understand some of my frustrations.
I'll do my homework, experimenting also the hacked firmware for the GH2.
Thanks for now.
[/quote]

Ya im still learning too.  My boyfriend works with crews who shoot commercials for Ford and GM using the Alexa - thats how I know about skin tone.  The Alexa is one of the best digital cameras in the world (perhaps the Sony F65 as well) for skin tone. 

An actors skin tone is the #1 thing they stress over on set. 

It is easy to change the color of a car, wall, sky etc.  But skin....tricky.

Another guide that colorists use when working with video is to make sure that skin tone has the right amount of cyan, magenta, and yellow.  There is a rough % balance that leads to pleasing skin tone and these guides are useful for anyone shooting stills or video.

[url=http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93363]http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93363[/url]

My boyfriend used that guide (above) a lot when he shot digital medium format - helped him make a ton of money and close deals other photographers struggled with.  Now his video crews have similar percentages on their macbeth charts for the post production team to understand the tone they are going for.

[Francisco Rios]

Thanks a lot Sara!!
:)

[Giovassi]

Sara,
you say: My boyfriend used that guide (above) a lot when he shot digital medium format.

I don't understand if this is done in Post-color correction or with in the camera, if this is the case I would be very interested to know how he does it. Before starting this post I was working with Kelvin colors, the GH2 allows you to chance color gradation, but I didn't go very far.
Thanks

[Sara]

[quote author=Giovassi link=topic=290.msg1891#msg1891 date=1329768585]
Sara,
you say: My boyfriend used that guide (above) a lot when he shot digital medium format.

I don't understand if this is done in Post-color correction or with in the camera, if this is the case I would be very interested to know how he does it. Before starting this post I was working with Kelvin colors, the GH2 allows you to chance color gradation, but I didn't go very far.
Thanks
[/quote]

Post.  Shooting a Hassy or Mamiya or Pentax 645 medium format digital gives you access to a raw file.  The GH2 does not thus getting skin tone corrent in camera is very important.  Cameras like the Ikonoskop, Red, Alexa, Sony F35/F65 produce raw files that alow for accurate color tweaks in post.

But to answer your question, you are doing it correct - the GH2 just doesn't have many options for color correction.  A few landscape and wildlife GH2 users I know travel with Expodics - though pricey - for nailing color on lacation and avoiding correction later.  Buy a large size and you can use step up rings to have it fit most of your lenses.

[url=http://www.expoimaging.com/]http://www.expoimaging.com/[/url]

[url=http://tiny.cc/3yd7g]http://tiny.cc/3yd7g[/url]

:)

[cathallz]

links are very awesome guys. Thanks for sharing this.
;)

[Giovassi]

I used working in the past with those white balance filters for photography. Then I forgot using raw files.
I think is time to go back to the "old good manners".
Thanks for remind me.

[Estie]

select the art mode on the gh2 and play with the color/saturation settings. the setting should be just below the iA mode.
the art setting lets you play with color, brightness, and saturation. every eye is different so just try  it

[Axel]

Thank you, Sara, your informations are priceless. And good arguments against the often-heard point, that the GH2 makes bad colors. Anyway, the skin tones of the 5D [i]are[/i] very good, even without it's owner knowing all that background.

[quote author=Sara link=topic=290.msg1877#msg1877 date=1329713657]
Second, skin tone is comprised of nearly all the colors of the rainbow (no matter what race).[/quote]

I don't want to imply anything, but there [i]are[/i] no human races. Breeders select certain physical characteristics (i.e. skin tones) arbitrarily and prevent or control interbreeding. By this, they cause de-gen-eration, eugenics and racism. Biologically there are only species, and their mark is, that their individuals can have sex and reproduce. Excuse the OT, we should be exact in these things.

[Satkar]

I use more than a year both 5DmkII and GH2 for filming.
Colors of 5D are better on my taste and feel in terms of natural, vivid wide range color scheme.
But I get the best and simpliest match of both cameras using "Neutral" 0,0,0,0 on 5D
and "Vivid" on GH2. No cinestyles they can ruin your picture in certain circumstances.

[christianhubbard]

[quote author=Sara link=topic=290.msg1877#msg1877 date=1329713657]
I personally don't agree that the skin tone on the Canon (any model) is superior to the GH2.  Ten's of thousands of people shooting GH2's get superior skin tone.

[url=https://vimeo.com/35321519]https://vimeo.com/35321519[/url] (example - he did a great job with his girlfriend even if it leans towards a baby soft pinkish hue)

Remember that even with the Magic Lantern rate improvement hacks for the Canon 5D, it is capturing FAR less video information than current 88mbs-154mbs Quantum X GH2 settings.  Seeing a smoother waxy skin tone is the first sign of a cheap digital production.

A couple things to know about skin tone.  First, skin tone lives primarily in the histogram-right of the mid tones.  Poor exposure means poor skin tones.

This Adobe pdf will explain why pro's rarely underexpose skin when shooting digital (stills or video - same rules):

[url=http://wwwimages.adobe.com/www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/products/photoshop/pdfs/linear_gamma.pdf]http://wwwimages.adobe.com/www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/products/photoshop/pdfs/linear_gamma.pdf[/url]

Second, skin tone is comprised of nearly all the colors of the rainbow (no matter what race).  Accurate white balance is essential because we are dealing with a limited color space and do not have access to a raw video file.

Third when making global color changes in your video editor (you really shouldn't too much - read above) work with vibrance settings before messing with saturation settings.  Vibrance leave alone skin tones and works with the least saturated colors first before messing around with the most saturated colors.

If you are finding that your GH2 is capturing "too much" detail - hair, freckles, wrinkles, etc. - use Black Pro Mist filters or my favs Schneider Hollywood Black Magic or Tiffen Glimmer Glass. 

Examples:  Results will be similar with video -

[url=http://public.fotki.com/makofoto/work/black-glimmer-and-m/]http://public.fotki.com/makofoto/work/black-glimmer-and-m/[/url]  (and no, this can't be duplicated in post production)

Take care.
[/quote]

It's pretty obvious you really know what you're talking about?

could you go into more detail about skin tone in general?
I hear it discussed often on set or by people who know more than me and I'd really love to learn what it is they're [u]really[/u] talking about.

When you say skin tone, do you mean the color of the skin? or how clear the pores/skin resolution is?

What about skin tone makes it so important?

can you explain what "bad" skin tone is and how I can avoid it in my videos?

Thanks for your help.  :)

[Axel]

[quote author=christianhubbard link=topic=290.msg4103#msg4103 date=1334631728]
What about skin tone makes it so important?

can you explain what "bad" skin tone is and how I can avoid it in my videos?[/quote]

Stu Maschwitz, the author of [i]The DV Rebel's Guide[/i], says that skin tones belong to the >memory colors<. No matter where the picture was taken, we have an idea of how skin tones look. The same is true for the blue sky or for the green grass. White objects, on the other hand, may be tinted by the light, by the color temperature of the light, to be precise. So our natural [i]white balance[/i] is really [i]skin balance[/i]. But technically we need to find the color of the light, and with our camera we find it best by manually wb-ing on a neutral grey object or a white object in the shade (because if actual white is out of balance, at least one RGB-value must be clipped, and so you'd get no correct wb, the GH2 tells you that the object is too bright then).

As Sara said, all three color chanels (the RGB-model of our software is actually dealing with YCbCr-video, but forget it) are used by the skin tones, and caucasians will only have values of the right side of the histogram. She is right, you should'nt underexpose too much, but even as bad, if not worse, is [i]over[/i]exposure. I loaded a web-pic of Sarah Palin into Synthetic Aperture's Color Finesse (you can do this with Color, Photoshop or probably any other application that deals with color) and color-picked her left cheek. These are the values:
[img]https://public.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pWCoqxOp3ht-jTK9oM15Id0BUzbJdyjOc5FSI_BUmpkP3BRBkRRCKMdY_vtt2NnNs0oHzMslOnFqJ01f_cocnXA/RGBvalues.jpg[/img]

Red very prominent (250 of 255), and green and blue around 180 are typical for skin (Maschwitz calls the color [i]porange[/i], pink and orange). If you have darker skin, it's just that: The same mixture with more melanine in the skin cells. The blood that color our cheeks is always red.

But of course Sarah Palins face has more than one hue, and to preserve them all by correct exposure is very important.

What if a person is filmed during sunset, when there is an orange filter (by nature) over everything? Then it is natural, that the skin would also look more orange, [u]but not completely[/u]. We have an internal AWB in our perception. We expect skin tones, and we see them!

Even in [i]Matrix[/i], where everything seems to be filmed through a greenish filter made of rotten fish, the skin tones are protected. You protect them by selecting them (usually with color pickers, you qualify their hue-, saturation- and luma-values and play with the tolerances), invert the selection and change all other values towards cyan. In the so-called secondary color correction.
[img]http://data.motor-talk.de/data/galleries/0/18/3395/15341920/203244673-w500.jpg[/img]

To check in your color grading software if the skin tones are right, you should use the vectorscope. Here is Sarah Palins face as analyzed by the color scopes of Color Finesse:
[img]https://public.bay.livefilestore.com/y1prOBgEKL00xv62NTVyKrgQPzCFgDU8lHwLsrIbZryT5HNhsGTXy9Rz7-imikQAoiNKlj616287iPWMKyweTiXPA/Skinline5.jpg[/img]

If you see the vectorscopes circle as a watch, the so-called skin-line "R" for red is almost eleven 'o clock. You always get this line with correct skin tones.

In Avatar, Cameron deliberately ignored the rule that the skin tones need to be left out. The humans reflect computer displays and become blue, they reflect foliage in the jungle and become green, the blue na'vi become orange when they stand around a fireplace.

EDIT: The skin tone values can not be limited to "the right side of the histogram". Sarah Palins cheek reads 78 % luma. But color-picked beneath the chin the value reads:
[img]https://public.bay.livefilestore.com/y1p12N5ttDkpN_OBUseretOzXuO25Lzv9zWBrmSbTbzAOliJ84Tr_qk39AiURpCee7roHWA5qTGvZEfuJ3mM-C4VA/Chin.jpg[/img]

26%! This is the darkest spot, and still clearly part of her skin. The brightest is 83%.

[christianhubbard]

so you're saying after I grade my footage I should mark skin tone as the secondary and grade it so that it lines up with that line?

[see ya]

Interpretation and subjective generalisation. With regard to Canon (any model) vs GH2 skin tone comment & video is actually YCbCr not RGB comment.

Please see below a composite image, consisting of the same selected area from a single frame off a single Canon MOV video file repeated 12 times. To clarify the same selection of the same frame number of the same Canon MOV.

Non of the selections have been graded yet they appear different in tone as a result?

Not saying that GH2 isn't better than Canon. Frankly not interested, more to choosing a camera than that.

[img]http://www.yellowspace.webspace.virginmedia.com/skintone.png[/img]

[Axel]

[quote author=christianhubbard link=topic=290.msg4263#msg4263 date=1334777814]
so you're saying after I grade my footage I should mark skin tone as the secondary and grade it so that it lines up with that line?
[/quote]

You can color correct with primary CC, which actually means optimizing the contrasts and balancing the colors (like a white balance in post). You can do so by neutralizing neutral grey (resp. shady white), but you can also check if prominent skin tones hit the skin line of the vectorscope. I didn't put it so well. What I wanted to say is, that natural looking skin is more important than anything else. If there is a cast, you see it first on the skin.

With secondary CC, you only change a selection of the pre-corrected image. Either this is the inside of a soft vignette to relight a scene (comparable to Photoshops dodge tool, which copies the photographers wagging hand in the darkroom) or it is a [i]color[/i]. Or all colors. To pimp the mood of an image, you deliberately change all colors. [u]Except skin tones.[/u] You exclude skin tones (as they did in [i]Matrix[/i]), because it doesn't look cool if the faces are green.

An example by Laforet ([i]Reverie[/i] and [i]Mobius[/i]), graded by Stu Maschwitz, is [i]Nocturne[/i]:

http://vimeo.com/7152063

Note, how the skin stays normal in most scenes, whereas the shadows have that greenish (cyan) cast. Only when the death in the disguise of a young girl teases the skater, the skin becomes green too. EOS 1D, but so heavily graded, that this would be quite easy to do with a GH2.

A good way to understand secondary CC is to follow a [i]Pleasantville[/i]-Tutorial like [url=http://www.proapptips.com/proapptipsvideotutorials/879F6B61-CFF9-4FD1-8D43-FDF89605611A/5FB37E30-CA68-42CF-9492-E8E89FAFE83F.html][u]this[/u][/url]. Final Cut Express is not a very mighty grading application, but it's secondary CC works in principal in the same way as in other programmes.

[quote author=yellow link=topic=290.msg4267#msg4267 date=1334779674]
Interpretation and subjective generalisation. With regard to Canon (any model) vs GH2 skin tone comment & video is actually YCbCr not RGB comment.
[/quote]

I am sorry. English is not my native language. Are you saying that using RGB workspace means misinterpretation and results in bad colors?