No filter - How much can video editing software do?

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MikeyIdea

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Location
Bangkok
# of dives
200 - 499
Greetings Ladies and Gentlemen,

I dive around Koh Kood and Koh Mak eastern Thailand sometimes and will now start to dive with my daughter too. I thought it would be nice to video the beuty (the reef mind you :)). I dive less than 10 meters deep most if the time and don't expect professional quality - yet. I will start with a Liquid Image 305, and change up if/when I get caught into vidoeography

Filter Problems Though: I should have a blue filter but I can't find a vendor who keeps both the 305 mask and the 370/372 filter in stock. The Thai importer only imports the mask but not the filters... :(

I'm pretty OK with Corel Videostudio and can get Sony Vegas if that is better but the big question is: How much can these video processing applications do? Is it wasted time taking video without filter or can I spend (unnecessarily long...) time afterwards to correct with good result?

Thanks
Michael
 
I am a video editor by profession, using primarily Avid Media Composer and occasionally I have a Final Cut Pro project, so I'm not overly familiar with the softwares you are considering. However, any editing software worth purchasing will have color correction tools that are fairly simple to use and will yield wonderful results. Additionally, at 10m or less, you should have no problems shooting without a filter. If you are planning to do a lot of close-up work, consider adding some proper lighting equipment to your photography arsenal and the issue of color correction will go away.
 
I have never used the software you mention, but someone has: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FR0cQp7gVQ

Lightworks free edition (my favorite) is worth a look too, if you are happy with 720p mpeg4 output. Paid versions have more features (1080p, dvd, ...). One doesn't need to be pro to use that software (I am not).
 
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Vegas Video Pro has tons of color correction tools. Vegas comes in 3 or 4 levels, I have the Pro version. I don't know how much color correction you get with the consumer software versions.

I'm a professional videographer (although I work on land) but I have shot some stuff underwater. In my opinion, a filter on a camera is much better than adding a tint to your footage while editing. Two reasons:


  1. The camera filter makes the colors "pop," while in editing, all you are doing is adding a tint to your footage.
  2. Garbage in, garbage out. You want to start with the best possible footage. Not shoot bad footage and plan to fix it in post.

In 10 meters, you probably want a red filter, not blue, because the water column is filters out the red first. A red filter will make your reds and yellows much more vibrant. If you add a red filter in editing, you're just going to tint your pictures red. Just google some images of UW photog and you'll see images compared with and without the filter.
 
Shooting video that has been WB'd at the time of recording is far superior, and if anything, you definitely want a red filter rather than none. My experience is that video shot on the sunlit reef is decent to great down to about 30 feet and is even good enough to use without much editing. Beyond that, you of course, start losing color and trying to recover that color is much harder.

I'd love to see some examples of color correcting video which was taken with no red filter corrected by someone who knows what they are doing. My experience as an untrained person has been pretty poor with trying to, essentially, add color to video. It may also depend on how much the camera captured in the first place. While I could recover some color, perhaps even quite a bit, it still ends up with muddy colors, muddy reds and screws up other colors like changing them to purple. The main problem is you can't just add red to everything, or perhaps the same amount of red to everything.

Again, I'd love to see someone who knows what they are doing with examples of blue video or even video with red filter but not WB'd corrected, correct it and see what we get.
 
Did the OP say what kind of camera they were using? Manual White Balance would be very difficult because every few feet of depth would change the hue, however slightly. I think it would be one of the few situations where I would prefer Auto WB to Manual.

I'm not a color grader, but I do have to do color correction on video footage. Color correction on footage shot with constant color is time consuming. Color correction on footage shot where the depth is constantly changing would be either very expensive or a real labor of love. I'm not talking about slapping a software filter onto some footage, I'm talking about doing a color by color tweak.
 
You do know we're talking about one of these right?

Capture.JPG

Michael,

Lee Filters sells red filter material in sheets. So if you can find it - or something similar there in Bangkok you might be able to fabricate your own inexpensively. It's sold in photo stores - not dive stores.Colour Compensating - Part of the Technical Filter Range from LEE Filters <- it's probably one of these. Cut a disk and velcro it on.

Do a search here for posts by RonScuba - he spec'd the right Lee Filter part # once.

Most sub-$100 video editors have some color correction tools. I know Vegas Movie Studio - not Pro - the consumer version does. Vegas Movie Studio HD: Using the White Balance Tool - Steve's Digicams
 
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in editing, all you are doing is adding a tint to your footage.

That's not true. Real color correction involves a lot more than just adding an overall tint. You can control the color balance, black level, white level, setup, gain, gamma, overall saturation, hues, and the saturation of literally millions of individual colors for every tonal range of the image. There's a lot more to it than just tinting.
 
FWIW: The Vegas color correction tools are baffling to me. Adobe Premier has an autolevels which is similar enough to Photoshop's I'd use it...but Premier doesn't support 3D (as I have it installed) so I don't use it. This leaves me with this solution:



 
And that's the best solution. There is really no substitute for a well-lit shot. But even then, skillfully applied color correction will achieve the color "pop" talked about earlier. Color correction tools can indeed be baffling. They are complicated and require a good skill set and the proper equipment. Most film and video post-production houses employ "colorists" who do nothing but color correction. It's an art.
 

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