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White Balance and Other Color (colour) issues

Is the Autel Evo II Pro Colour Case Manageable?

  • Yes

    Votes: 6 60.0%
  • No

    Votes: 1 10.0%
  • There isn't one, its an internet conspiracy theory

    Votes: 3 30.0%

  • Total voters
    10

sdharris

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Hi all, apologies as I guess I bet this has been asked a couple of times before as its noticeable on quite a few review videos, and Autel promotional videos.

Most videos appear to have quite a warm tone to them, and in some circumstances very severe magenta, I know Autel have released a LUT for their LOG footage and OriginalDobo or Bob has released one as well, and while his version is better it still looked a bit strange to me, have to question whether here in the UK it would work as I think he is in Florida and the weather and light is very different! I don't mind a warm tone, actually prefer it over DJIs cool tones but it does look very severe.

I am intending on using an Evo II Pro as second / backup drone for commercial work, especially due to it handling higher max wind speeds than a Mavic 2, but in reality, is it viable or do you spend too much time trying to correct the colour in post?

I would also be interested in still image quality and whether that is manageable in post.

No biases intended, I do fly more DJI but I have dabbled in Yuneec in the past, I am asking because I have not really seen an Autel Evo video without a colour problem and I am wondering if people fly Autels for the fun of it, and not necessarily worry about the result.
 
Color has been great for me so far, with one glaring exception. There exists a condition where if you point the camera down toward water that runs up against especially green trees, the water will become royal purple and nasty looking.

I do wish the colors had more control to them out of the box. The deep blue skies Skydio is able to achieve is something that has remained elusive.

Edit: I forgot to add this is with the 8K version, I can't speak to the Pro at the moment.
 
Hi all, apologies as I guess I bet this has been asked a couple of times before as its noticeable on quite a few review videos, and Autel promotional videos.

Most videos appear to have quite a warm tone to them, and in some circumstances very severe magenta, I know Autel have released a LUT for their LOG footage and OriginalDobo or Bob has released one as well, and while his version is better it still looked a bit strange to me, have to question whether here in the UK it would work as I think he is in Florida and the weather and light is very different! I don't mind a warm tone, actually prefer it over DJIs cool tones but it does look very severe.

I am intending on using an Evo II Pro as second / backup drone for commercial work, especially due to it handling higher max wind speeds than a Mavic 2, but in reality, is it viable or do you spend too much time trying to correct the colour in post
I

Like many cameras the recorded colors can be biased by changing the manual settings for white balance once one determines what one is looking for in given lighting conditions.
 
OK so on your recommendation I laid my hands on the EVO II Pro today to try. Noticed immediately anything below f4.5 is pretty terrible for sharpness on the right-hand side of the frame, above f4.5 its OK and this is pretty normal for any camera to have softness in the corners at lower apertures but wondered whether that was consistent for everyone?

Colour in normal modes is OK, auto white balance did a decent job to be fair to it. Haven't tried LOG footage but did notice a curious thing, when you enable LOG in video you wouldn't expect that profile to be moved over to still images as its a bit redundant with RAW images but it does seem to transfer to the still image mode, and if you make a mistake and swap it back to normal colour in still image it moves it back to normal in video. Hence the reason I didn't get any LOG footage, I thought it was in LOG but it had moved it back to normal.
 
Are you not setting the color temperature in White Balance menu? For daylight shots, I use 5600K and they look very natural.
 
Are you not setting the color temperature in White Balance menu? For daylight shots, I use 5600K and they look very natural.

I didn't need to, not sure what the others do, but I also tried a white balance card and a colour card for video. There does seem to be a bit of a colour cast compared with other cameras.
 
I didn't need to, not sure what the others do, but I also tried a white balance card and a colour card for video. There does seem to be a bit of a colour cast compared with other cameras.
Is there a way to lock the WB on a white or grey card? I would do that if possible.
 
Is there a way to lock the WB on a white or grey card? I would do that if possible.

I don't think you can do it while flying, but in post you can do it. I just hold a grey card in front of the camera while its about 5 foot of the ground and snap a picture of 10 second of video. then in post white balance on the card.
 
I don't think you can do it while flying, but in post you can do it. I just hold a grey card in front of the camera while its about 5 foot of the ground and snap a picture of 10 second of video. then in post white balance on the card.
OK. I've never done it that way so I gave it a try on a video from a previous flight using some arbitrary surface as "white". Works great! Thanks. What editor are you using?
 
OK. I've never done it that way so I gave it a try on a video from a previous flight using some arbitrary surface as "white". Works great! Thanks. What editor are you using?

Glad it worked, I've recently moved from Final Cut Pro to Adobe Premiere.
 
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This is a great "Pro" tip to use a grey card. I did a lot of theater video work, under...well...theater lighting, which is quite challenging to white balance for video.
Using the grey card, you can set the WB to be close, then use in post to color correct.
Never thought of doing this with a drone. Good one!
 
I did some testing earlier with a colorchecker plugin for Premiere which reads the colorchecker passport from a frame of video -
. Not the most exciting subject in the video so apologies.
 
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I did some testing earlier with a colorchecker plugin for Premiere which reads the colorchecker passport from a frame of video -
. Not the most exciting subject in the video so apologies.
Interesting comparison. The venue has a good selection of colors, textures and light. I like the Autel E2P LOG with Autel LUT & ColorChecker clip best of all. It is very natural looking and highly detailed. However, it seems a bit oversharpened as evidenced in the trees. Did you apply the OriginalDoBo LUT after using ColorChecker? The Mavic 2 Pro with DJI LUT clip is pretty (mainly due to the sky and reflections in the water) but lacks detail, especially in dark areas. Is Colorchecker much better than a white/grey card?
 
Interesting comparison. The venue has a good selection of colors, textures and light. I like the Autel E2P LOG with Autel LUT & ColorChecker clip best of all. It is very natural looking and highly detailed. However, it seems a bit oversharpened as evidenced in the trees. Did you apply the OriginalDoBo LUT after using ColorChecker? The Mavic 2 Pro with DJI LUT clip is pretty (mainly due to the sky and reflections in the water) but lacks detail, especially in dark areas. Is Colorchecker much better than a white/grey card?

Yeah I agree the Autel LUT with the ColorChecker is my preferred and the most natural. Aside from the colour changes the footage is straight out of both Autel and DJI, I think it's recognised elsewhere the Autel is very sharp, perhaps overly sharp and the DJIs are always very soft and heavy in contrast like you say, shadows are not there as default bu you can pull them back, most people prefer the soft and to sharpen selectively in post.

In order to get the colorchecker to apply I organise the adjustment layer so that the LUT is applied then the colourchecker correction. I think the problem with the doBO LUT is it's too warm and perhaps suits a Florida sunset and not 9am in the UK or to be honest anywhere else. Its more an export LUT I think.

The colourchecker passport is pretty good, I could knock up a comparison with the grey card only if you'd like to see the difference.

p.s. I'm not a colour grading expert by any means, just trying to get something useable with minimal effort!
 
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Brilliant, I will also try my colourchecker .
ive struggled for a year with horrible wonky warm colours and then sometimes randomly it’s perfect.
but lately it’s been worse.
are you shooting 10 bit 4K 30p
 
OK so on your recommendation I laid my hands on the EVO II Pro today to try. Noticed immediately anything below f4.5 is pretty terrible for sharpness on the right-hand side of the frame, above f4.5 its OK and this is pretty normal for any camera to have softness in the corners at lower apertures but wondered whether that was consistent for everyone?
This doesn't sound normal at all. This sounds like a decentered lens. Softness in the corners is common wide open, but not one side of the image.
 

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