How to Get the Perfect Exposure w/ PTZOptics Cameras
In this video and blog post, we will discuss how to get the perfect camera exposure with your PTZOptics cameras. Color matching multiple cameras will be covered next week but capturing the ideal exposure with your cameras will go a long way to creating an amazing picture from your cameras. The tools we will demonstrate in this presentation include a Color Checker, Gray Card, White Balance Filter, Calibrated Monitor, Vectorscope, Waveform Monitor and Adobe Premiere. We have prepared the following check list of considerations for video production (especially live streaming) below.
- Color matching and correcting is not a “1 click process”
- It takes time
- Colorist’s are hired my movie companies for one job only. Color correcting
- Plan ahead for your shoots to give ample time to color match your cameras and footage in post-production, so you’re not disappointed.
- Different angles cameras might pick up a hairline light as something else.
- Make sure you use reliable monitors. Not all monitors are built the same.
Color Matching Cameras in a Theater Space
How to Get the Perfect Exposure
Getting the perfect camera exposure requires testing with the camera settings. We have a camera settings guide available for download here. Our workflow starts with setting up the cameras in your space where the lighting is already on. Then configure your cameras to the basic camera settings that you want to use for example a high shutter speed for sports. Once you have your basic settings done you want to tweak shutter speed, aperture and gain. You should have a good picture before you go into the more detailed features such as contrast, luminance, gamma and hue.
- Set up your lighting. Light the room or subject you want to film.
- Use a color checker chart and White balance card to help the White Balance.
- Zoom your camera in all the way on the Whiteboard to check the white balance.
- Check the Exposure, Aperture and color using PTZOptics IP control or IR remote
- Match all your PTZOptics cameras so they have the same configuration
Lock in your PTZOptics Color Balance and Exposure and then lets bring these camera feeds into Vmix or Adobe Premiere to continue the color correction.
Perfect Camera Exposure
Camera Color Matching & Exposure Advice
One of the key things with color corrections is that most people try to all of the color correction and exposure inside the camera. Many times the highlights can be blown out before they even get into your video production software. Using a vectorscope and waveform monitor you can bring down the range of your camera to make sure that you are not clipping. These tools make sure that you are not crushing the blacks or overexposing the whites with the settings in your camera. The waveform monitor specifically allows users to stretch the exposure to the perfect white and black settings.
VMix/Software Adobe Premiere
- Use VMix new color correcting software to tweak the color for each camera.
- Use Vmix Vectorscope
- Use Vmix’s Waveform Monitor
Work on your
- Highlights
- Midtones
- Shadows
Perfect Vector Scope
Using a Vectorscope
A vectorscope is a tool that represents the color of your camera image. It’s like an x and y graph representation of the color accuracy of your live video feed. At the top of a vectorscope you have red, toward the bottom you have cyan and there is also a green similar to what you have seen in color correction software. The vectorscope graph allows you to see the balance of the colors coming from your live video camera. To accurately tune your camera you can put up a color chart in your space and zoom into it with your camera.
The vMix color chart will produce lines that connect your current image with the ideal colors. A vectorscope is a tool that is ideal for live video color correction without having to rely on your own eyes and inaccurate monitor representations of your video cameras image. The vectorscope is all about color and provides us with tools to accurately adjust our camera settings ideally on the camera side first. Once the camera has been accurately tuned the finishing color corrections can be done in vMix.
Wave Form Monitor
Using a Waveform Monitor
The waveform monitor is the counterpart for the vectorscope available to handle brightness and exposure. With a waveform monitor, you can easily see if your image is clipping at the top or if the blacks are getting crushed. The waveform monitor will allow camera operators the ability to adjust the image preferably in the camera first to ensure your image has a good exposure. Using the waveform monitor to influence your camera settings adjustments, you want your camera’s image to be within the lines of your monitor. You can use vMix to make sure your video has perfect whites and blacks using the tools as needed.
Using the Color Correction Wheels:
The color correction tools inside vMix have three (3) wheels which are used commonly in video editing software. The first wheel represents the blacks (shadows) also called lift, Gain also known as Gamma also known as mid tones, and the third wheel represents the highlights and overall brightness of the image. Each wheel adjusts a particular part of your video image, so the first wheel is the dark areas, the middle areas which is usually skin tones is in the middle wheel and the final wheel is for the highlights and the brightness. Using the three components of the color correction wheels allows operators the ability to do fine color correction in an intuitive layout. You can use gain control, for example, to adjust the yellows just in the highlight of an image. The tool is similar to all of the other color correction tools out there today. vMix also announced 20X ZCam control in vMix 21 as well.
Conclusion:
The good news for those of you who are permanently installing your cameras. This process will likely only have to be done once. If you are mobile and setting up your cameras in different locations for each live broadcast. Well, that means you will need to master this process and perform camera exposure mapping for each broadcast. You are now ready to check out our camera color matching guide here.
Learning about live streaming and video production:
