XLH1 and Over Saturated Reds

[Dan Quintero]

I've shot a few interviews outdoors of people with Caucasian skin and when I bring it into FCP, the reds are over saturated.

Any advice?

[Robert Sanders]

Use the 3-way color corrector and drop the saturation down about 15%. Also, take the mid-tone color wheel and swing it towards blue until you cancel the red to your liking.

[Dave Gosley]

Thanks Robert

I will admit - as a novice with an XL-H1 - everytime I do a project - especially where low lighting is involved and I don't get the results I want I very often try to blame the camera and tell myself it's not a good one for low light conditions. Everything I get comes out grainy and ugly.

I make myself visit your "Blackout" trailer and I re-discover the reasons why I have not passed the camera up to someone who can really get from it what it can do.
What you have put together is an inspiration and I thank you for sharing it with us.

One day, I hope to creat footage halfway as good...

Dave

Originally Posted by Robert Sanders

Use the 3-way color corrector and drop the saturation down about 15%. Also, take the mid-tone color wheel and swing it towards blue until you cancel the red to your liking.

[Dan Quintero]

Any presets that do this sort of thing in-camera?

I can run the footage through Color and fix the reds, but sometimes that isn't an option.

Thanks.

[David W. Jones]

Is your broadcast monitor properly calibrated?
What are you using to judge your colors?
How do the colors look on the vector scope?

[Robert Sanders]

Originally Posted by Dan Quintero

Any presets that do this sort of thing in-camera?

I can run the footage through Color and fix the reds, but sometimes that isn't an option.

Thanks.

Absolutely you can. Create a custom preset, go into the preset settings, and adjust the overall saturation value. Also, you can try adjusting the RGB values. Add a point of blue and remove a point of Red. Should help a lot.

Also, go here: XL H1 Custom Presets Download Library - The Digital Video Information Network

Download the Panalook from Stephen Dempsey (disjecta). That's a really nice preset that gets the Canon to look more like a Panasonic camera (not exact, but close). I use this one the most when I'm shooting random things.

[Robert Sanders]

Originally Posted by Dave Gosley

Thanks Robert

I will admit - as a novice with an XL-H1 - everytime I do a project - especially where low lighting is involved and I don't get the results I want I very often try to blame the camera and tell myself it's not a good one for low light conditions. Everything I get comes out grainy and ugly.

I make myself visit your "Blackout" trailer and I re-discover the reasons why I have not passed the camera up to someone who can really get from it what it can do.
What you have put together is an inspiration and I thank you for sharing it with us.

One day, I hope to creat footage halfway as good...

Dave

Thanks man, I really appreciate that. Of course, a great deal of credit goes to the key gaffer and his grip truck full of gear. We really knew our camera had a nasty noise floor. And because we were shooting a movie in "the dark" we quickly came to the conclusion that we would shoot the movie 1 or 2 stops brighter than we normally would. That allowed us to shoot more in the camera's sweet spot, crush the blacks to our liking, and avoid that terrible noise.

And it's really not the Canon's fault for the noise. Trying to pack that many pixels into a 1/3" chip is the main culprit. But if you can get a nice healthy exposure, the camera can look very very nice.