Bad colour reproduction? - Canon HF100

[eddypolak]

I have a new Canon HF100. It's my first camcorder although I am a keen stills photographer. I mention the novice status because I might be being a bit naive here.

The problem is that in bright conditions pure reds are recorded as pink. To cut out a lot of possibilities note that the footage appears this way right out of the camera if I take the SD card and play the AVHDs on my PS3 and out via HDMI.

In post processing (iMovie 09) I can't get rid of the pink-ness without making the rest of the colours hideous. Similarly, during recording it is also helps to reduce the exposure by a few clicks but a good red is only achieved via massive underexposure. White balance settings appear to make no difference.

As I have read that the camera performance is generally excellent I am surprised at this. Am I just expecting too much from a camera of this price? I should emphasise that reds don't look a bit 'pinkish' they actually look pink - it's not a subtle effect.

Any advice would be appreciated.

[Badger0-0]

I don't know anything about it, but just having read on the net, apparently making sure it's in "cine" mode, improves the image.

Fortunately, Canon has a "CINE" mode for people who are more serious about their image quality. It basically turns down the saturation dial to a more normal level. Unfortunately, the dreadful manual is horribly confusing about this and I actually learned this valuable fact from an online forum. Take my advice and leave your camera in CINE mode for the best image quality.

The brave new world of High Tech, High Def - Canon VIXIA HF100 Flash Media Camcorder - Epinions.com

Don't know if that'll help, but worth a try?

[eddypolak]

Yes, that is worth a try. I had noticed there was cine mode option but didn't think of it in the context of this issue. I'll let you know...

Thanks

[chrishull3]

Originally Posted by eddypolak

I have a new Canon HF100. It's my first camcorder although I am a keen stills photographer. I mention the novice status because I might be being a bit naive here.

The problem is that in bright conditions pure reds are recorded as pink. To cut out a lot of possibilities note that the footage appears this way right out of the camera if I take the SD card and play the AVHDs on my PS3 and out via HDMI.

In post processing (iMovie 09) I can't get rid of the pink-ness without making the rest of the colours hideous. Similarly, during recording it is also helps to reduce the exposure by a few clicks but a good red is only achieved via massive underexposure. White balance settings appear to make no difference.

As I have read that the camera performance is generally excellent I am surprised at this. Am I just expecting too much from a camera of this price? I should emphasise that reds don't look a bit 'pinkish' they actually look pink - it's not a subtle effect.

Any advice would be appreciated.

It does not sound right,no modern cams reds should be as bad as that

[eddypolak]

I hope it's not faulty as this was one of the famous £199 Curry's specials and a refund would not quite do it!

[eddypolak]

I tried Cine Mode. It is indeed different and quite a bit better than the default mode, so thanks for the idea. Testing with a large scale car model the pure red bodywork comes out errr...orange. That at least is to my eyes less objectionable than pink! Also within iMovie I can correct to get something that's quite acceptably close to the real world. But it's it's still pretty time consuming and tricky to achieve. I also notice that really small changes to 'exposure can have dramatic effects to colours. This whole experience is just not like working with stills. However this relative success is really only with my model in subdued light. In bright sunlight it's still defeats me to get a realistic red.

I think it is unlikely that this kind of 'fault' is specific to my unit so I will have to put up with it - unless anyone out there knows better! After all, getting a refund will only yield enough cash for an entry level SD recorder, and I can't believe that would be a good move!

[A n d r e w]

Red is the worst colour to get right. Even pricier camcorders can struggle with it. Definitely much more of a problem than with stills.

[Badger0-0]

Originally Posted by eddypolak

I tried Cine Mode. It is indeed different and quite a bit better than the default mode, so thanks for the idea. Testing with a large scale car model the pure red bodywork comes out errr...orange. That at least is to my eyes less objectionable than pink! Also within iMovie I can correct to get something that's quite acceptably close to the real world. But it's it's still pretty time consuming and tricky to achieve. I also notice that really small changes to 'exposure can have dramatic effects to colours. This whole experience is just not like working with stills. However this relative success is really only with my model in subdued light. In bright sunlight it's still defeats me to get a realistic red.

I think it is unlikely that this kind of 'fault' is specific to my unit so I will have to put up with it - unless anyone out there knows better! After all, getting a refund will only yield enough cash for an entry level SD recorder, and I can't believe that would be a good move!

Well, my only experience of a modern camcorder was one I bought my daughter for chrimbo a couple of years ago.
It was highly recommended by one of the members on here (red sox?).

Whilst I have no doubt it was a good choice at the price point, I must admit, I thought the colours were poor.

I just thought that's how they are.
It was also a Canon.

[JefUK]

If your colours are that far out then there is something wrong with it. The colours from my HF100 are as good, or better, than any other camcorder that I have owned or used. Reds are faithfully reproduced.

[chrishull3]

Agree with jefuk above i have not had a cam for many years that could not produce good reds, i find manual is best left to difficult situations and have used auto or outdoor settings, my present fx7 and hv30 give great reds using the outdoor setting, no way should you have to fiddle around with cine mode etc.

[eddypolak]

Thank you for the responses! However there does not seem to be much concensus on what colour fidelity to expect. As all posters are clearly speaking from experience and are knowledgeable I an not sure what to conclude. It does put me in a quandery given the crazy cheap price I got the camera for. If i'd bought full price i'd probably return it and try a replacement.

I suppose if I saw output from another HF100 that was markedly better than mine I'd know what to do. Is there somewhere to go for this, other than YouTube, where camcorder enthusiasts go?

Finally if I captured some representative stills and put them up on my FlickR account would folks here be prepared to have a quick look?

All your help is much appreciated.

Regards

[A n d r e w]

Originally Posted by eddypolak

I suppose if I saw output from another HF100 that was markedly better than mine I'd know what to do. Is there somewhere to go for this, other than YouTube, where camcorder enthusiasts go?

You could take a look at Vimeo.com, if you haven't already.

Originally Posted by eddypolak

Finally if I captured some representative stills and put them up on my FlickR account would folks here be prepared to have a quick look?

Sure, but without seeing the object in question it'll be hard to say whether you're getting accurate reproduction of "reality" or not.

As a professionally-trained video editor, let me just say that a lot of time and money is spent getting colours right, even from high-end broadcast cameras. This wouldn't be the case if colours were simply "true" straight out of the box. It is a subjective thing, though, and what might look good to some doesn't to others. The colour sub-sampling employed by consumer-grade camcorders is a bit hit and miss to be honest - and a well-calibrated monitor will show this immediately.

[chrishull3]

Originally Posted by eddypolak

Thank you for the responses! However there does not seem to be much concensus on what colour fidelity to expect. As all posters are clearly speaking from experience and are knowledgeable I an not sure what to conclude. It does put me in a quandery given the crazy cheap price I got the camera for. If i'd bought full price i'd probably return it and try a replacement.

I suppose if I saw output from another HF100 that was markedly better than mine I'd know what to do. Is there somewhere to go for this, other than YouTube, where camcorder enthusiasts go?

Finally if I captured some representative stills and put them up on my FlickR account would folks here be prepared to have a quick look?

All your help is much appreciated.

Regards

Only you know if the reds are correct ,if you send some digital camera stills that are correct with some cam stills we can check them out, i have found green to be the worst colour for slight variences even since hd cams.
Broadcast hd tele gives acurate colour even its live and no time for CC obviously these machines cost upwards of 25 times as much money but consumer stuff looks good to me nowadays if the cams working right.

[eddypolak]

I am learning a lot here and already much the wiser. I will try and upload some still camera pics and some corresponding cam video captures in the next few days.

Thanks again for your input!

[eddypolak]

I don't need to upload anything! Thank you Andrew for the tip re Vimeo - exactly the kind of site I was looking for. Check out these two videos of scale model cars. These are not toys and I know myself being a motorsport fan that the paint colour should be quite accurate for models like these.

First video - Diecast cars collection - HF100 on Vimeo Pink Ferraris especially noticeable at :24s just like I've seen with filming the real things.

Second video - http://www.vimeo.com/4404420 The red Ferrari looks perfect (well good enough for me). The blue on the Williams is also much better than the lilac version in the first video.

I've sent a Vimeo comment and maybe the creator will tell me how the clips differ and whether the colour grading was where a correction was done. Meanwhile I think you can see the from the first video that this is not just a case of not getting the right shade of red. The colour is way off. But at least it's not just my HF100!