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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Blue trees?

NormLi

NormLi

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Just finished shooting something this past weekend. Everything went great except for the one scene where we were outdoors and the trees and grass appeared blue in the LCD/EVF/Panny 17" monitor.

Link: https://rcpt.yousendit.com/611522247/5587d6d0bb8dff6fe647a27391a9e24a

I had a tobacco 2, tru-polarizer and ND6 in there and it was shot on a 35mm MK2 Superspeed. This screencap isn't treated at all.

Is this the case of the IR problem of the RED sensor? I didn't have any hot mirror filters but B-cam had no problems actually and had the same filters I had in there. We tried rebooting and checked all settings and they were all matching with B-cam, which looked 'normal'.

Any advice on how to fix this? The producer and director are worried about this and to be honest, I'm not sure what to tell them. I thought blacks turn blueish/purple but didn't know green also turns blue as well...

THANKS.

Norm
 
Reseting Metadata will have some influence. Nonetheless this loooks like a severe IR-attack. A tobacco costs 3/4 stop, the Polarizer approx. 2 and the ND6 2 altogether almost 5 Stops, or ND 15. Such high ND settings are prone to IR-pollution. It happend to me once in this severness. I also used Zeiss SuperSpeeds MK2s. Although the high NDs are the main reason the lens might contribute its share.

I'm sorry, but this shot is kaput. No CC can bring ist back to something usable.

Hans

EDIT: I just read that you had a B-cam with the same filtration and no IR pollution. I still think it's a IR pollution and the B-cam had the filters stacked differently, the polaizer turned in a other way, other lens, different angle...
 
Nope, it was all sill at 5600K not not mistakingly white balanced. Just in case, I did check the metadata in Redcine and it was at 5600K.

I think it may have something to do with the pola facing the wrong way mistakingly from my assistant now that I think of it and totally a sever case of IR pollution.

I tried coloring this and it was near impossible to get the trees normal. In a baselight or pablo system, could they isolate the trees and turn them green while not affecting the characters? They look fine but it's just the trees and grass that are the main problem.

Norm
 
No, even the most tricked-out cc-systems need some colour to work upon. Severe IR-pollution as shown in your example cannot be repaired to something exceptable. There is no green in the leaves of the trees. Nothing. It will look artificial if you try to paint that. I spend half a day to repair such shots with Shake and SpeedGrade and had no success.

Hans
 
When you use more then two Non-Hot Mirror filters you can get serious IR problem especially in 3200K.

This blue Tracksuit is very soft ... That's IR problem.

EDITED: I just saw that there is no green in the picture and the sky is yellow.
 
I'm going to say the pola facing the wrong direction could be part of the problem. What lens or lenses were used on the A and B cams? I have found that IR pollution differs from one lens model. Some lenses don't allow as much IR to pass through or, it propagates / converges differently. I see different IR effects through a Cooke 18-100 zoom than I do through a Zeiss Standard 14mm T2, even if both are set at a common t-stop.

To bring this clip back to proper color would take so much work, it's probably not worth it. It's seriously going to take tons of hand-roto work to mask elements and start coloring. And even then, it's just not going to look right or match everything else you have.. Would be better to re-shoot it if you need that shot.
 
Stupid question, If you change color gain on the camera, can you reset it in metadata ?
I have never changed color settings.
 
Spoke with my 1st AC and he said he's very very anal about the pola facing the proper direction and always checks each time to make sure. Both cameras used Zeiss MK2 superspeeds (we had two different sets of MK2's). The weird thing is, we used a Pola, ND6, and Tobacco 2 filter for this extreme wide 12mm shot on the same field and the trees and grass all appear to be the normal 'green' through the tobacco filter.

I remember seeing a demo of a baselight system isolating certain things in the frame even on moving dollying and handheld shots and changing it's color to anything without affecting anything else in the image. Since the trees are now black/white/blueish, can't we isolate them, green them up a bit, and darken them considerably so it's less noticeable? Actually with our budget and time constraint, we can only do it using Color...is this possible AT ALL or just not possible? No time to even re-shoot. They have to take this to some TV festival in Cannes within 7 days from today.

Norm
 
Color gain is metadata.

Aren't all 1st ACs anal? :umm: Doesn't mean they don't make mistakes... Anyway, I'm not saying that he made the mistake, but something obviously went wrong somewhere.

The better color grading and finishing systems have means of tracking and isolating elements in your footage. It may or may not be possible on the higher end systems... On Color it will be a challenge for sure. Most tracking works by isolating what the system perceives as an object, by way of pixel patterns and edge details that remain constant or move as a coherent group. Specific colors can be isolated as well. Anything is possible, but it all depends on how much time, effort, money, etc.. is willing to be spent on it.
 
Jeremy (jnewm) did a pretty good job treating the footage to make the trees look green again without affecting the image too much and that was a quick and dirty job using Color.

I guess with the proper amount of time, energy, and talent put into it, it can be fixed to a certain 'acceptable' extent.
 
NormLi said:
Jeremy (jnewm) did a pretty good job treating the footage to make the trees look green again without affecting the image too much and that was a quick and dirty job using Color.

I guess with the proper amount of time, energy, and talent put into it, it can be fixed to a certain 'acceptable' extent.
Click to expand...

I was gunna say.. anything is fixable with enough time and resources. (I'm from visual fx.. this kinda thing is "cake")

Glad someone fixed this for ya! :)

ps. did you have any sharpening involved? Looks like the BG out of focus that has been sharpened.

~S
 
LilRed said:
I was gunna say.. anything is fixable with enough time and resources. (I'm from visual fx.. this kinda thing is "cake")

Glad someone fixed this for ya! :)

ps. did you have any sharpening involved? Looks like the BG out of focus that has been sharpened.

~S
Click to expand...


They didn't fix it yet but just gave an example of how it can be possibly be fixed. I didn't do any sharpening. Do you have any technical suggestions on how to isolate and fix the grass/trees, especially since this is a dolly shot?

Thanks,

Norm
 
Norm,

I just looked at that TIFF some more, I think it is fixable. But it will take some work. The biggest challenge is that many of the RGB values are so muted and there's a lot of overlap between the sky/trees/ground.

Would be interesting to see a comparison between the bad image and one from the B-cam that shows proper colors.
 
Hey Jeff,

The funny thing is, the rest of the whole scene with A-cam is proper green colors that match B-cam. It's only this one shot that I posted (first shot of the scene that we shot with a dolly), that has this look to it. The weird thing is, the rest of the shots look normal and it was the same filter configuration as before...

Would I be able to zip up the r3d folder and use Yousendit.com to send to someone gracious enough to help me fix this properly?

Thanks,

Norm
 
NormLi said:
Do you have any technical suggestions on how to isolate and fix the grass/trees, especially since this is a dolly shot?

Thanks,

Norm
Click to expand...

Sure.. do you have any takes that were o.k.? Are the trees/grass moving? Were reference photos taken? Did B cam shoot a similar BG that you could use? Could either futz with roto/tracking of the trees/grass and color them separate (can do that in DI or Color app.) or simply comp in a new BG(roto and tracking). With enough patience you can fix this scene.. the level/quality of the fix is up to how much time/resources you put into it.

I could fix it but at a small price. I'd do it for free if I had lots of time on my hands but I am very busy working in.. vfx.. on a feature right now so my time is at a premium.

~S
 
I understand LilRed but what sort of small price are we talking about? I will need to pass this on to the producer (self funded low budget of course) tp see if it's affordable. Also again, their deadline for a finished product they need to France is Oct 10th and I'm coloring with them on the 9th but don't have time and perhaps skill to fix this shot.

This is the only shot that had this look to it. We had two takes both of which had the dolly in it (so trees/grass are moving), but the rest of the shots from the same scene are normal 'green' under a tobacco filter. B-cam had a similar background but was on a long lens and less of the trees in the BG.

Here's a screen cap of another A-Cam shot where the trees/grass was a normal 'green' with a tobacco 2 filter on:

https://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=R3owbGtObThoMlh2Wmc9PQ

EDIT: This screencap is not treated at all. If the trees/grass can be similar to this.


Norm
 
Norm,

I'll take a look if you want, can give you an FTP to upload to if that would help, maybe others can grab it from there too. Based on what you're saying (this just sunk in), but if all the other shots look right on that camera from the same setup, this could be something else entirely. Such as corrupt R3D metadata or a bad header. It may be fixable in other ways. Would need one good clip along with the bad one to see what all is going on.

If it comes down to fixing it in post, it's all about how much time and effort can be put into it and what level of quality would be necessary for the finished effort. There will most likely be lots of roto and tracking to fix this, but like LilRed is saying, there are various ways to go about it. Maybe comping in the background from another shot, etc..
 
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