evf and onboard color

[bennyblanco]

working on a commercial with the red, this is the second one we have shot and this time the colors shown on both the viewfinder and onboard monitor are very different then the ones seen in redcine on the set macbook pro.thru both the viewfinder and monitor colors are not accurate at all have checked the color temp by meter and shot in conrespondence . any ideas or cause suggestions

 

[Brook Willard]

Make sure you're shooting REDspace.

Calibrate the computer monitor [using a real calibration tool, not somebody's eyes] to 2.2 gamma.

Understand that you're using a MacBook Pro for color analysis.

Also know that the monitoring outputs on the RED are not completely accurate... in fact they can be dramatically misrepresentative at times. Also know that the color temperature settings you're paying attention to are not critical in the least.

 

[Tim Sutherland]

I usually tell people the preview out of the camera is not unlike a film tap, because you're seeing part of the data you're getting. If you know how to shoot the camera, your preview is more for framing than anything else.

 

[Brook Willard]

Bingo.

 

[BMSFILMS]

I don't own a RED but may in the future and I'm in the 3th grade on my RED educational journey, however the above posts both confuse and concern me. I come from the film world where I'm used to using my light-meter and lighting thru the viewfinder. That Optical Image is my 'Monitor' on set. When shooting HD (Varicam) I light to an on set HD monitor. When shooting with the Panavision Genesis in the past I've applied a pre-determined 'Look' (not recorded to tape) to the RAW output of the camera and light and exposed to that with the help of a waveform to keep highlights in check. All of these methods assured me (and the client) that what I saw on set is what I saw in post. I assumed I could do the same with the RED – view the RED’s output on something like Barco's new reference monitor and be confident that image is exactly what the camera is producing. Hearing that the monitor output is not much better than the video tap on a film camera and is “dramatically misrepresented at times’ sounds strange. I do understand it only records a RAW file. Otherwise I’m a rookie and perhaps I’m missing something – - but certainly there must be a way to see exactly what the camera is producing on the set. No?

 

[Dylan Macleod CSC]

With all due respect to Brook...I have to disagree. I have used the image from the LCD and viewfinder as an additional tool on set to make judgements about color on set.

True, it is not the same as having a properly calibrated monitor on a high end HD shoot with a DIT. But it is certainly not as horrible as a videotap on a film camera!

Because all of the "looks" that you are tweaking are metadata, yes it is more like film in the sense that you have a lot of room to manipulate that image later if you don't like what you did or your monitoring was set up incorrectly - the beauty of "RAW".

I shot something recently where I had "dialed in" a look "in camera". When we got to one situation some of the existing industrial lighting looked a little green on the monitor, so i dialed a little magenta in to my look to get rid of it. They ended up using "mostly" my in camera look in the end.

 

[David Wyatt]

I think this is probably a case of RedCine having different settings to what ever you used on set (do you remember what the camera was set to: e.g. Red Space?).

The monitoring on-set is never going to show you the full gamut (that would require pretty immense processing!) and you shouldn't expect it to either - it's just a more manageable 720p representation of what you're shooting (or 1080p if selected on playback, with the right monitor of course). The Red camera has loads of exposure guides, waveforms, histograms, false colour etc to help you nail exposure. Basically you're shooting a RAW file like you do with DSLRs so most of your manipulation will happen in post/CC, rather than being baked-in. There are various video settings on the camera for you to approximate your intended final "look" (saturation, tone, contrast etc) but it's all meta-data obviously, so will not affect the RAW file.

 

[Ernesto Lomeli]

This is completely common and varies sometimes from build to build
and date the LCD was made.

The EVF in general i have found to be trustworthy, the LCD's are vastly different from the 5" to the 7" they look like they have completly different backlights, drives DP's crazy on multicamera shoots when some are using 5" LCD and some the new pro 7"

I P-touch on the LCD's "for framing reference only" and tell everyone to just use their meter.

 

[NateWeaver]

I come from the film world where I'm used to using my light-meter and lighting thru the viewfinder. That Optical Image is my 'Monitor' on set.

Sure. But you have to use your meters to figure out what parts are going to be lost, etc etc. So what you get on film really has not a lot to do with what your eye sees in the finder.

When shooting HD (Varicam) I light to an on set HD monitor. When shooting with the Panavision Genesis in the past I've applied a pre-determined 'Look' (not recorded to tape) to the RAW output of the camera and light and exposed to that with the help of a waveform to keep highlights in check. All of these methods assured me (and the client) that what I saw on set is what I saw in post. I assumed I could do the same with the RED – view the RED’s output on something like Barco's new reference monitor and be confident that image is exactly what the camera is producing.

No. What you need to do is do some test shooting with an external monitor, and then take those files into a Mac right away so you can see what was really recorded.

You'll be pleasantly surprised. Things you thought were blown out or lost in shadow will be there, resolution will be magnitudes better than you saw in the live 720p image.

The Red works NOTHING like the cameras you have mentioned above. It requires new ways of thinking. Once you understand it, and histograms, and the various metering functions given to you on the camera it will all make sense.

 

[Simon Valderrama]

benny you should check first what is your "VIEW" mode.
The info is displayed on lower left corner in your LCD
if you are in RAW mode your "color temp" and "asa" setting do not affect what you see on your LCD but are used by redcine as default, so in this case colors on your LCD can differ greatly from what you see on redcine.
RAW mode is indeed very useful because is the closest thing you can see to what is actually recorded by the camera.
Remember that color temp and asa setting are values that define the way Redcine interprets what's being recorded by the sensor, so it's more a matter of "interpretation".
If you want colors to match between LCD and Recine you should make sure all settings match on both sides.
Just remember that RedSpace mode has some highlight protection, so it can make you think you're clipping highlights when actually you're not ...

 

[Mitch Gross]

If you want to know what you're getting on set, shoot a test with it beforehand.

How did you ever really know what you were getting on set when shooting film? Film does not perform the same as the human eye and neither does the RED. It is just that you have grown used to the imaging characteristics of film but not yet of the RED.

Treat it like you would a new film stock. Test to teach your eye. This is what I did for decades using film and it has served me well shooting all forms of electronic capture. Lighting to a monitor is a crutch.