-
Color drift with TRV 900, tips on fixing?
Hi! I filmed a day long dance competition recently. A lo-budget one camera thing, but still: a paid assignment. When editing it appears that I have a gradual color shift throughout the takes, like a slow wave going from neutral (my manual setting which I locked) to a yellowish tint. Each ‘wave’ takes about one minute. My well kept Sony TRV 900 (in practice identical to the PD 150, except for the housing, DVCAM and audio options) is probably at fault and needs servicing? Has anyone else experienced this? The lighting conditions were difficult: indoor in a sports hall with a very diffuse light which probably is great for ball players, but gave me a dull and quite low light which I had to white balance pretty heavily to get it right on the monitor. I actually succeeded in that, but maybe I stressed the camera with a ‘too radical’ setting? This is the first time I’ve seen this shift. Since it is prevalent and comes at a constant rate, I thought I should give it a go with color correction in Premiere, creating an ‘anti-wave’ so to speak with keyframes, and then copy & paste across clips. Og dear, there goes the hour rate; there’s five hours of clips! Has anyone else attempted something like this and succeeded? The clips aren’t actually ruined; perhaps only me and a smaller part of the audience will take notice, but you all know: delivering a product that is less than the best you can do just isn’t cool.
-
6 Replies
-
There’s probably nothing wrong with the camera…it’s most likely the lights themselves.
Lights have cycles of emitting their waves…it’s why you can’t shoot NTSC video very well in Europe without some power adapters and 60 Hz lighting. Europe’s 50 Hz electricity causes lights to emit their “waves” of light at a diferent frequency than you are shooting…hence a scene that looks fine to your eyes will constantly be getting lighter and darker as each video frame is exposed. It’s why PAL television runs at 25 FPS and NTSC runs at 30…it lines up with the electrical service.
Ultimately, I’m sure that the lights weren’t imported from Europe…but sometimes aging bulbs or ballasts can cause this. I’ve had theatrical spotlights with failing ballasts cause some pretty interesting fluctuation over time…we thought the camera was malfunctioning on that shoot as well at first…
The best thing you could probably do would be to key frame some color correction so it sort of “fluctuates” with the lighting.
Unfortunately these sorts of issues aren’t easy to solve in post.
TimK,
Kolb Syverson Communications,
Creative Cow Host,
2004-2005 NAB Post Production Conference
Premiere Pro Technical Chair,
Author, “The Easy Guide to Premiere Pro” http://www.focalpress.com
“Premiere Pro Fast Track DVD Series” http://www.classondemand.net -
I have also had a similar issue with my TRV 900 (which, incidentally is the consuer version of PD-100 — no DV-CAM and some lesser other optinos — but not, actually, the PD-150). Iwas shooting in a high-school basketball gym. I was worried about the camera, but it has never done the same thing again, so I’m guessing that it was something about the sodium or mecury vapor lights that are commonly used in gymnasia.
This was a few years ago, before Premiere Pro, and I wasn’t willing to take the time to do the color correction in AE; plus it was a freebie. The folks I did the shooting for didn’t even notice.
I’d think you can keyframe the color correction in PP. If you split the clips after you’ve color corrected them on the long-cycle wave, it seems to me that PP keeps the “curve” if you will of the keyframes; that is to say, if you gradually fade a perameter from one key frame to another, then split the clip up into a bunch of shorter clips and rearrange them, the perameter in each smaller clip will still retain the changing properties it would have if it were still part of the larger clip. This is a new and wonderful feature in Premiere Pro….
Good luck.
– Dex
-
Thanks a lot guys! Although it doesn’t solve the problem as such, I can give a good explanation to my client – if she ever comments on it. This explains very well why I do not experience this problem when shooting outdoors, and thankfully I don’t have to spend bucks on nothing by delivering it to a service shop. By the way, the TRV 900 is the ‘twin’ of PD 100 of course, not PD 150. The ‘morale’ in this story must be to insist on proper video lighting. I requested it, but did not insist on it, and this is the punishment for the videoshop on a shoestring. Thanks for sharing your knowledge!
-
I have an HVR-Z1U, a JVC DV500, a PDX-10, and a TRV-900. That 900 is a great, sturdy little camcorder and has amazed me many times.
TimK,
Kolb Syverson Communications,
Creative Cow Host,
2004-2005 NAB Post Production Conference
Premiere Pro Technical Chair,
Author, “The Easy Guide to Premiere Pro” http://www.focalpress.com
“Premiere Pro Fast Track DVD Series” http://www.classondemand.net -
The one bad thing I will say about the 900 is that it really goes though the heads, at least my does. My fix this time around was to get a firestore FS-4 and by pass the head problem altogether.( and yes I’m using a vtr to capture from to reduse the wear on the heads, camera for record only!!!) hell of a camera other than that.
FLYING “The ability to throw yourself against the ground, and miss” Douglas Adams
-
You may be right about head wear. I worried about it too, and in fact this was the first project where I used DV-rack softwere and I recorded direct to disk with it. There’s nearly 8 hours of footage from this competition, and now I don’t have to spend a whole day capturing and logging. Using DV rack I started and stopped clips for every participant and gave them useful names right there. Only need some trimming before right to the timeline in Premiere. Do I recommend this software? Do I recommend this software??? This is only one feature however, there’s a monitor, audio recorder, scopes etc. I still recorded to tape however; always nice to have backup. In fact this is the first time I’ve done dual everything (recorded sound to disk separately as well), and of course: it’s proably the first time nothing at all has failed on me even the slightest bit.
The TRV 900 is the only DV camera I’ve had (I have rented a couple of others on occasion; nice to have a similar look on all clips), so I can say it has served me well… Probably starting to outgrow it as a filmmaker I’ve sometimes wished for a more precise focus and such stuff, but that would require a much bigger camera, not to mention investment. There’s also something for really knowing your camera – I can handle it blindfolded now, and adjustments are really fast in the field.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up