[Steve Crow]

Absolutely the color can be corrected. What I am seeing in the first set of frame grabs is a difference in overall exposure and depth of field.

In the first set, camera one is more “face on” and the has a much deeper depth of field, you can also see the sun hitting the woman strongly on her left/camera right cheek area. I think what you want to do for this shot is try working with the 3 way color corrector filter in final cut pro to reset your white point and then also lower the overall exposure. That should help you out a great deal. Did you white balance before this shot or did you rely on the automatic white balance setting on camera one?

Camera two (still on the first set of screen grabs) is actually filming from her right/our left and has a much shallower depth of field. I suspect that the white balance settings were different and that camera operator had an angle that was more in the shade too which helped with the color issue – I think that’s why the shots look so different.

You will have to tweak all the shots individually in order to get the two camera’s clips to look closer to each other, it’s not like you can create one filter setting or settings and apply it to a bunch of clips.

Once you have the basic white balance and overall exposure issues addressed THEN you can take a look at color grading the clips (each one individually again, sorry) with Color or Magic Bullet

Hey – don’t feel too bad, shooting outside in harsh sunlight is tough! I recommend you get yourself a Fader ND which will allow you to both deal with this challenge and let you get a shallow depth of field without blowing out your camera sensor because of the wide open aperture.

On the second set of clips I see you where going for the shallow depth of field inside but what seemed to get you was the bright sunlight coming through a window? and hitting her right/our left cheek.

Again – adjust the white balance and exposure levels with the 3 way filter and see where you get to.

Camera two got a totally different look – I suspect the camera operator had totally different ISO and aperture settings so was able to get what looks like to be a very nice shot even though filming from the “sunny” side of her face. Looks like a totally different person from that angle!

[Steve Crow]

That’s cool to know about the Alpha and your experiences…does it autoload or do you have to initialize the software with every power cycle or change of memory card?

[Steve Crow]

I think this video tutorial might prove very useful to you since it talks about yellow banding and how to correct it in post:

https://dslrvideoshooter.com/how-to-remove-horizontal-band-lines-from-dslr-footage/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dslrvideoshooter+%28DSLR+Video+Shooter%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

[Steve Crow]

Hi Ben,

If in the lens description it only lists one aperture (as opposed to a range) then you can be confident that you are looking at a constant aperture lens.

Here’s an example: “Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM Lens” versus “Canon EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III Telephoto Zoom”

[Steve Crow]

Thanks Zane, like you I only shoot in full manual and I am indeed trying to learn as much as I can about still photography (everything except using a Flash that is!), I agree with you that learning the skills that still photographers have known and used for years will really help us become digital cinematographers with these new DSLRs.

[Steve Crow]

Here’s another example from the same Philip Bloom video (“Dublin’s People”)

So Zane if I understand your point you are saying the difference between the more rounded off disc shapes and the sharper hexagon type shapes has to do with the specific camera model, aperture or lens – do I have that right?

[Steve Crow]

Here is an example from a Philip Bloom video of how I would like to take this effect to the next level … a foreground object or person in focus and the background out of focus

So now I am kinda getting back to wondering if aperture IS related when this kind of effect is desired…if I just used the focus ring for a shot like that then both the girl and the background would be out of focus, but here just the background is out of focus…shallow depth of field.

[Steve Crow]

Yes, that’s it. I went out tonight to do some testing and I quickly came to the conclusion that what I was after was actually a focus issue – I was at about a 2.0 during my test filming.

Now I do notice the shape of your “blurred” lights is the hexagon shape I was talking about versus the more disc/round type of shapes that I’ve also seen…I will look at the footage I filmed in the morning to see if I got hexagons or discs…maybe a disc is just an even more out of focus hexagon? I will do some more testing to see how this focus-related effect works and how it might be used creatively

[Steve Crow]

I’m not sure what you are asking but yes you can use XLR to miniplug adapters with your 7D

[Steve Crow]

“Can I also sync up Audio and Video for the Canon 7D with the Plural Eyes Software?”

Plural Eyes is actually the better of the two packages so yes you definitly can sync using it, that’s what it is made for, the other package is meant to be less expensive version with a bit more limited capabilities…it is coming for the Mac but you will have to wait a bit, it’s in development