Calibrating HD-100 & HD-200

[Lee Roberts]

Hi,

I have a 100 and a 200, and I'm having an incredibly difficult time calibrating the cameras to match. Some of the things I've tried (connected to two HD monitors):

- Loading standard scene files posted on DVInfo for the respective cameras (e.g. Paulo's True Color, et al - I've made certain I was grabbing the correct scene files for each model)

- Fiddling with the various settings for hours trying to get a 'match'.

A typical testing scenario goes like this:

- Hook everything up to the monitors
- Load a scene file to have some sort of baseline starting point.
- Begin tweaking every setting I can find to make the cameras match

I've looked at the images on a 'soft' waveform monitor (like the monitor provided in Vegas), but since I have no idea how to actually use the waveform things, they've been of little help.

The HD-200 almost always seems to have a little green bias (hope that's how you say that). For example, I was attempting to calibrate with several objects in the image - a red thing, a blue thing, a green thing, a thing that has several shades of 'skin tones' - all on a brown, cordory-type bedspread. No matter what I try, the bedspread always seems to have some green 'tinitng' on the 200, and either looks exactly correct on the 100 or will trend a little red. If someone has a definitive method (read: tutorial) for calibrating with a chart and the scopes, I would appreciate some direction. I've googled and found some things, but they have been more generic in nature. Something specific to the 100 & 200 would be nice.

Also, I have two other issuses with the 200:

- I have two 'dead pixels' (I guess that's what they would be called - bright/dark spots that appear on the monitor)

- For some reason, the 200's image has become noisy. I'm coming up on the 1 year anniversary for this camera, so maybe it's a warranty thing?

Anyway, I'm so frustrated with this that I'm at the point where I'm ready to send the cameras to someone else to have them calibrated. I can get them very close (close enough so that a slight adjustment in post fixes everything), but I want better than that. For the record, I thought I could look at what I was doing in post and then appply that to the camera, but to no avail.

I'm a newb, so feel free to blast me. Thanks in advance for your input.

Best ~ Lee

P.S. For the record, why is it that my dinky 100's image is (and always has been) better than the image on my 200? Not just a tad better either....a lot better. I swapped cameras when I first bought the 200, but it didn't help (maybe they were from the same production run?) Thanks again.......

P.P.S. I've gone into the 'Advanced Settings' and messed with the RGB gain and rotation to address the green tinting thing, but that doesn'r seem to be the answer. In fact, I don't think there is an area in the cameras process areas thay I haven't messed with...just an fyi.

[Marc Colemont]

For proper calibration you need something like a DSC color chart, StairCase chart and calibrate with a vectorscope/waveform indeed.
1. Load both camera's with the desired scene-setting. And do a manual white balance on a white chart.
2. Use the the waveform to set the camera's at maximum latitude.
Use a Staircase calibration chart for this. The darkest part of the chart needs to be at the lowest level, the brightest part of the chart should be set just below or at Maximum level at the waveform. Otherwise the color calibration afterwards will not be comparable.
Also check if both camera's show the same 'steps' between min-max values, as the gamma curves influence this. Adjust black-level to get the minimum value down or up. And use the Iris for maximum exposure.
Ones you've set both camera's at the right levels.
3. Then you can calibrate with the ColorChart, and adjust the Color matrix while watching the vectorscope. This is very tricky, as changing one parameter influences the other colors too. So make sure to relax, put some music on and start tweaking gently until the colors are evenly calibrated on the vectorscope across both camera's.
I would use one camera as reference.
4. Don't forget to Save you scene files.

[Lee Roberts]

[QUOTE=Marc Colemont;1016824]I would use one camera as reference.
QUOTE]


Okay, I get what you are saying. Ideally, each cam would be hooked up to its own scope, right? And does it really matter what type of scope I use? For example, if I use Vegas's scopes ( I have 2 PC's that have Vegas loaded), will that be sufficient?

I also understand the "tweaking one thing can change everything" statement - I already experienced that lovely feeling.

I'm reviewing Dashwood's DVD again, too. There were a couple of things he mentioned I had forgotten that may be helpful.

Soft music and patience? I thought kicking the dogs and smacking the wife were reasonable outlets for my frustration. Man, I gotta get outta this trailer park!

Seriously, I appreciate it. I set everything aside for a couple of days, so I'll attack it again today if I can come up with a DSC and Staircase chart.

Best ~ Lee

[Marc Colemont]

If you use the True Color Scene setting, then you can take the vectorscope as your reference. All the colors must be placed evenly spread.
You must have a DSC color chart to be able to setup properly.
If you don't have a real color chart, and you need to align both camera's then you need to take one camera as reference indeed to matchup with the other one.