What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?

Paul R Johnson · February 24th, 2020, 12:49 PM

Why have you never in many thousands of posts up till recently never mentioned your noise issue? I suspect it's because you never noticed. You were not really grading were you? You were taking one colour, and trying to create a new one from very little real information in the data? If your colour on screen is nearly white, then there is a sensible amount of all colours in it, so you can increase cyan, or drop yellow a little and all the red green and blue primaries. What you cannot do so simply is take something that is very blue, for instance, and try to turn that green - because there is so little green in the original that bringing it up produce noise you can see. Matching white, something I've been doing for years, never seems to cause me any grief with my equipment - and it is not in the 'special' category at all. You were pushing too far, on unsuitable material. Your camera never bothered you until you discovered the latitude it has for big shifts is compromised. What you were doing was trying to do was a coat of paint electronically - and it failed.

Ryan Elder · February 24th, 2020, 12:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul R Johnson

Why have you never in many thousands of posts up till recently never mentioned your noise issue? I suspect it's because you never noticed. You were not really grading were you? You were taking one colour, and trying to create a new one from very little real information in the data? If your colour on screen is nearly white, then there is a sensible amount of all colours in it, so you can increase cyan, or drop yellow a little and all the red green and blue primaries. What you cannot do so simply is take something that is very blue, for instance, and try to turn that green - because there is so little green in the original that bringing it up produce noise you can see. Matching white, something I've been doing for years, never seems to cause me any grief with my equipment - and it is not in the 'special' category at all. You were pushing too far, on unsuitable material. Your camera never bothered you until you discovered the latitude it has for big shifts is compromised. What you were doing was trying to do was a coat of paint electronically - and it failed.

No, I noticed the noise issues before. I said before that when I tried to use the qualifier in Resolve to separate the skin tones, from the rest of the scene, like it shows how to do in tutorials, that separating was causing noise and artifact issues. When I mentioned that noise problem on here before, it was said on here, that it was because my camera was 8 bit 4:2:0, and that I needed a camera that was 10 bit 4:2:2, in order to separate the skin tones, with minimal noise and artifact issues. The noise issues would happen just from separating the skin tones, before I even started any attempts at grading. Now it was said before that having 10 bit 4:2:2 is only part of it, and I still need to do good lighting, but that is still a significant part of it though, isn't it?

When you say I was trying to create one color out of a new one, are you referring to the test I did when I tried to make the wall blue, behind the subjects?

Paul R Johnson · February 24th, 2020, 01:08 PM

I think you went overboard with the re-colouring on unsuitable material, that's all. We've known about 4:2:0 vs 4:2:2 for a long time, but chroma content is always noisier than the luminance. You were not being gentle - the colour shift from blue to green in that saturation was extreme. It's like when you try to increase contrast beyond a certain point. A little is noise free, push it too much and it goes badly wrong. Colour is less capable than luma changes because the information is not encoded in the first place - hence the differences in the two formats, but you just went too far and tried something too radical. Your format doesn't allow this much shift.

Have you ever had the need to electronically repaint a room before? I think you've read about the technique used to separate the skin tones, by pushing the complimentary colours, and instead of using it to increase the colour contrast, you're using it radically to change colours to totally new ones. Not subtle pushes, but huge great nudges!

Ryan Elder · February 24th, 2020, 01:14 PM

Oh okay, but the thing, is that the noise and artifacts was not caused from changing the colors. The noise and artifacts appear right when I separate the skin tones from the rest of the scene. So I haven't even applied any color changing from one color to another yet. The separating of the skin tones is what is causing the noise and artifacts, before any color changing.

Brian Drysdale · February 24th, 2020, 01:21 PM

Regarding car headlights, you don't need to go to the same location in order to test a light, something similar will do.

If it works, you can buy headlights from written off cars in the junk yard.

You don't need to grade shots for a lighting test, the ungraded pictures will tell you more about the light.

Ryan Elder · February 24th, 2020, 01:27 PM

Okay sure. I wasn't planning on going to the location to do the test, I just meant I wonder if car headlights would be doable, if the location does not allow cars in. But I will do the test and see.

As for buying a new camera, can I still separate the skin tones using qualifiers in Resolve with only 8 bit 4:2:0 then, without noise? It was said before that decorating the background with different colored options would help, but would it really help that much without 10 bit?

Pete Cofrancesco · February 24th, 2020, 01:28 PM

Lol. Paul you’re right it’s that whole crazy colorization thing he’s been banging on. I didn’t make the connection with skin tone and noise. Here I’m thinking insufficient light is the cause of the noise but instead the problem turns out to be Ryan. He has this odd way of not disclosing what he is really doing and then when you figure out what’s going on he denies it. Truly idiotic. Honestly it’s hard enough to film and he figures out a way to complicate it further. Madness!

Detach the light from the car? lol

Like I said before he’s not buying the camera.

Ryan Elder · February 24th, 2020, 01:33 PM

But the noise and artifacts was not caused from changing one color to another. It's caused from separating the skin tones, not the coloring that follows afterwards. I think it was incorrectly assumed that it was the color changing causing the noise, when it was in fact, the qualifier.

As for detaching the light from car, it was suggested to use car headlights, so I am trying to work with that suggestion. Is that bad?

Pete Cofrancesco · February 24th, 2020, 01:40 PM

There is no need to separate the skin tones.

You’re doing great. Detaching the car light is genius.

Ryan Elder · February 24th, 2020, 01:48 PM

Well the car idea was suggested to me, so I am just asking about a variable in that suggestion. I cannot get a car into the location. So I would have to take the headlights in separately, if I am to use car headlights.

Paul R Johnson · February 24th, 2020, 01:51 PM

It depends if detaching the light works for the owner?

Look - this skin tone obsession - if you carry out the process you've read about and watched the tutorials, you are changing the colour of the scene by shifting the balance of some colours vs others, and the most contrasting result is when one bit goes pink and another goes blue green (your teal colour) That's changing colours. Nothing else - just changing the colours and this is where noises comes from, so don't do it.

I bet you have not even thought about the reason you would want to do it? What is the problem with the material out of the camera that even needs it? You have heard of a technique, so want to use it, no matter if your camera and eyesight cannot manage it.

When your telephoto shots wobbled - did you read up about the mechanics inside real quality heads that make long lens work possible, and go out and buy one? Nope. Yet you have transferred your fly-by-wire obsession with focus onto colour changes.

What can we say? I cannot dance. Wanting to dance is not enough to make it happen. Spending money on lessons is futile - I cannot do it! So I don't.

Write a good script. Hire decent actors. Find a person who can operate a camera properly, and then find somebody who can record the sound properly too. Then you will have a decent product that you can try to edit. If you mess that up, the original material is still available and still decent and somebody else could edit it.

I note you never ask questions about end credits? I don't suppose you ever get that far?

Ryan Elder · February 24th, 2020, 02:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul R Johnson

It depends if detaching the light works for the owner?

Look - this skin tone obsession - if you carry out the process you've read about and watched the tutorials, you are changing the colour of the scene by shifting the balance of some colours vs others, and the most contrasting result is when one bit goes pink and another goes blue green (your teal colour) That's changing colours. Nothing else - just changing the colours and this is where noises comes from, so don't do it.

I bet you have not even thought about the reason you would want to do it? What is the problem with the material out of the camera that even needs it? You have heard of a technique, so want to use it, no matter if your camera and eyesight cannot manage it.

When your telephoto shots wobbled - did you read up about the mechanics inside real quality heads that make long lens work possible, and go out and buy one? Nope. Yet you have transferred your fly-by-wire obsession with focus onto colour changes.

What can we say? I cannot dance. Wanting to dance is not enough to make it happen. Spending money on lessons is futile - I cannot do it! So I don't.

Write a good script. Hire decent actors. Find a person who can operate a camera properly, and then find somebody who can record the sound properly too. Then you will have a decent product that you can try to edit. If you mess that up, the original material is still available and still decent and somebody else could edit it.

I note you never ask questions about end credits? I don't suppose you ever get that far?

My reason for wanting to change the color of the background, was I wanted more color contrast to separate the actors from the background. Plus different color grading for the background helps create, mood, tone, atmosphere. If color doesn't matter, and it's all about story and acting, then why do people even bother shooting in color, instead of black and white then?

When the telephoto lens wobbled I thought that was me and my hands moving it on the tripod. I thought it was me who needed more practice on moving the camera. I didn't think it was the lens that was causing the wobbling.

Brian Drysdale · February 24th, 2020, 02:11 PM

You can shoot orange and teal if you want to, it's now a bit of a cliche, but no one is stopping you. There are a lot of other grading options that are used in thrillers, but the choice is yours.

With long telephoto lenses you need a good tripod and head.

Ryan Elder · February 24th, 2020, 02:18 PM

Okay thanks, I have a fluid head tripod, which I have been using for the long telephoto lens. But I still thought it was my movement on the tripod that was causing the wobbling, not the lens itself. But I see that it was the lens, when it was suggested.

I don't want the teal and orange look exactly. What I what is a more neutral skin tone look, with either teal or blue in the background. I would have to try both and see, but I just want neutral skin tone, not orange.

So it's similar to teal and orange, but just teal or blue, with neutral skin tone. I also did find a way to push color further without noise. If you separate the skin tones, and then make the rest of the scene, apart from the skin, black and white, you can then tint a color over the black and white. This causes to change a color drastically without near as much noise, cause you can change to black and white and then tint a new color over top of the black and white, rather than pushing a color too far. If that's a good alternative. Seems to work better than changing an entire color into another.

Paul R Johnson · February 24th, 2020, 02:33 PM

You are such hard work Ryan. Your lens you reported as having stabilisation turned on and people told you that this and your jerky head was the problem. Selective memory now?

You want your subject to stand out from the background by changing the colours - this is an effect. Blue to green. Not shades, but a green top changing to blue is an effect - it's not real, it's manufactured. You want to use locations with colours you don't like and change them without introducing noise? That's impossible. Whatever noise is there will get worse.

If you want a real face colour, but want to change the background colours, that is a LOT of processing - what do you expect?

In your martial arts thing - why was the colour important? It was their location, and their choice of clothing. Why bother messing with it?

We're not really talking about specifics - we use your history as examples, that's all - you take everything so literally it is almost impossible to communicate. You never seem to understand and we're getting exasperated with you again.

We genuinely have no idea what on earth you are trying to achieve any longer.

February 24th, 2020, 12:49 PM	#256
Paul R Johnson Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Lowestoft - UK Posts: 4,045	Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading? Why have you never in many thousands of posts up till recently never mentioned your noise issue? I suspect it's because you never noticed. You were not really grading were you? You were taking one colour, and trying to create a new one from very little real information in the data? If your colour on screen is nearly white, then there is a sensible amount of all colours in it, so you can increase cyan, or drop yellow a little and all the red green and blue primaries. What you cannot do so simply is take something that is very blue, for instance, and try to turn that green - because there is so little green in the original that bringing it up produce noise you can see. Matching white, something I've been doing for years, never seems to cause me any grief with my equipment - and it is not in the 'special' category at all. You were pushing too far, on unsuitable material. Your camera never bothered you until you discovered the latitude it has for big shifts is compromised. What you were doing was trying to do was a coat of paint electronically - and it failed.

February 24th, 2020, 01:08 PM	#258
Paul R Johnson Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Lowestoft - UK Posts: 4,045	Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading? I think you went overboard with the re-colouring on unsuitable material, that's all. We've known about 4:2:0 vs 4:2:2 for a long time, but chroma content is always noisier than the luminance. You were not being gentle - the colour shift from blue to green in that saturation was extreme. It's like when you try to increase contrast beyond a certain point. A little is noise free, push it too much and it goes badly wrong. Colour is less capable than luma changes because the information is not encoded in the first place - hence the differences in the two formats, but you just went too far and tried something too radical. Your format doesn't allow this much shift. Have you ever had the need to electronically repaint a room before? I think you've read about the technique used to separate the skin tones, by pushing the complimentary colours, and instead of using it to increase the colour contrast, you're using it radically to change colours to totally new ones. Not subtle pushes, but huge great nudges!

February 24th, 2020, 01:14 PM	#259
Ryan Elder also known as Ryan Wray Join Date: Nov 2017 Location: Saskatoon, Canada Posts: 2,888	Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading? Oh okay, but the thing, is that the noise and artifacts was not caused from changing the colors. The noise and artifacts appear right when I separate the skin tones from the rest of the scene. So I haven't even applied any color changing from one color to another yet. The separating of the skin tones is what is causing the noise and artifacts, before any color changing.

February 24th, 2020, 01:21 PM	#260
Brian Drysdale Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Belfast, UK Posts: 6,152	Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading? Regarding car headlights, you don't need to go to the same location in order to test a light, something similar will do. If it works, you can buy headlights from written off cars in the junk yard. You don't need to grade shots for a lighting test, the ungraded pictures will tell you more about the light.

February 24th, 2020, 01:27 PM	#261
Ryan Elder also known as Ryan Wray Join Date: Nov 2017 Location: Saskatoon, Canada Posts: 2,888	Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading? Okay sure. I wasn't planning on going to the location to do the test, I just meant I wonder if car headlights would be doable, if the location does not allow cars in. But I will do the test and see. As for buying a new camera, can I still separate the skin tones using qualifiers in Resolve with only 8 bit 4:2:0 then, without noise? It was said before that decorating the background with different colored options would help, but would it really help that much without 10 bit?

February 24th, 2020, 01:28 PM	#262
Pete Cofrancesco Inner Circle Join Date: May 2004 Location: USA Posts: 3,005	Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading? Lol. Paul you’re right it’s that whole crazy colorization thing he’s been banging on. I didn’t make the connection with skin tone and noise. Here I’m thinking insufficient light is the cause of the noise but instead the problem turns out to be Ryan. He has this odd way of not disclosing what he is really doing and then when you figure out what’s going on he denies it. Truly idiotic. Honestly it’s hard enough to film and he figures out a way to complicate it further. Madness! Detach the light from the car? lol Like I said before he’s not buying the camera.

February 24th, 2020, 01:33 PM	#263
Ryan Elder also known as Ryan Wray Join Date: Nov 2017 Location: Saskatoon, Canada Posts: 2,888	Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading? But the noise and artifacts was not caused from changing one color to another. It's caused from separating the skin tones, not the coloring that follows afterwards. I think it was incorrectly assumed that it was the color changing causing the noise, when it was in fact, the qualifier. As for detaching the light from car, it was suggested to use car headlights, so I am trying to work with that suggestion. Is that bad?

February 24th, 2020, 01:40 PM	#264
Pete Cofrancesco Inner Circle Join Date: May 2004 Location: USA Posts: 3,005	Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading? There is no need to separate the skin tones. You’re doing great. Detaching the car light is genius.

February 24th, 2020, 01:48 PM	#265
Ryan Elder also known as Ryan Wray Join Date: Nov 2017 Location: Saskatoon, Canada Posts: 2,888	Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading? Well the car idea was suggested to me, so I am just asking about a variable in that suggestion. I cannot get a car into the location. So I would have to take the headlights in separately, if I am to use car headlights.

February 24th, 2020, 01:51 PM	#266
Paul R Johnson Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Lowestoft - UK Posts: 4,045	Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading? It depends if detaching the light works for the owner? Look - this skin tone obsession - if you carry out the process you've read about and watched the tutorials, you are changing the colour of the scene by shifting the balance of some colours vs others, and the most contrasting result is when one bit goes pink and another goes blue green (your teal colour) That's changing colours. Nothing else - just changing the colours and this is where noises comes from, so don't do it. I bet you have not even thought about the reason you would want to do it? What is the problem with the material out of the camera that even needs it? You have heard of a technique, so want to use it, no matter if your camera and eyesight cannot manage it. When your telephoto shots wobbled - did you read up about the mechanics inside real quality heads that make long lens work possible, and go out and buy one? Nope. Yet you have transferred your fly-by-wire obsession with focus onto colour changes. What can we say? I cannot dance. Wanting to dance is not enough to make it happen. Spending money on lessons is futile - I cannot do it! So I don't. Write a good script. Hire decent actors. Find a person who can operate a camera properly, and then find somebody who can record the sound properly too. Then you will have a decent product that you can try to edit. If you mess that up, the original material is still available and still decent and somebody else could edit it. I note you never ask questions about end credits? I don't suppose you ever get that far?

February 24th, 2020, 02:11 PM	#268
Brian Drysdale Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Belfast, UK Posts: 6,152	Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading? You can shoot orange and teal if you want to, it's now a bit of a cliche, but no one is stopping you. There are a lot of other grading options that are used in thrillers, but the choice is yours. With long telephoto lenses you need a good tripod and head.

February 24th, 2020, 02:18 PM	#269
Ryan Elder also known as Ryan Wray Join Date: Nov 2017 Location: Saskatoon, Canada Posts: 2,888	Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading? Okay thanks, I have a fluid head tripod, which I have been using for the long telephoto lens. But I still thought it was my movement on the tripod that was causing the wobbling, not the lens itself. But I see that it was the lens, when it was suggested. I don't want the teal and orange look exactly. What I what is a more neutral skin tone look, with either teal or blue in the background. I would have to try both and see, but I just want neutral skin tone, not orange. So it's similar to teal and orange, but just teal or blue, with neutral skin tone. I also did find a way to push color further without noise. If you separate the skin tones, and then make the rest of the scene, apart from the skin, black and white, you can then tint a color over the black and white. This causes to change a color drastically without near as much noise, cause you can change to black and white and then tint a new color over top of the black and white, rather than pushing a color too far. If that's a good alternative. Seems to work better than changing an entire color into another.

February 24th, 2020, 02:33 PM	#270
Paul R Johnson Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Lowestoft - UK Posts: 4,045	Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading? You are such hard work Ryan. Your lens you reported as having stabilisation turned on and people told you that this and your jerky head was the problem. Selective memory now? You want your subject to stand out from the background by changing the colours - this is an effect. Blue to green. Not shades, but a green top changing to blue is an effect - it's not real, it's manufactured. You want to use locations with colours you don't like and change them without introducing noise? That's impossible. Whatever noise is there will get worse. If you want a real face colour, but want to change the background colours, that is a LOT of processing - what do you expect? In your martial arts thing - why was the colour important? It was their location, and their choice of clothing. Why bother messing with it? We're not really talking about specifics - we use your history as examples, that's all - you take everything so literally it is almost impossible to communicate. You never seem to understand and we're getting exasperated with you again. We genuinely have no idea what on earth you are trying to achieve any longer.