BenQ reached out to us to sponsor a video
about their SW271 monitor,
which is marketed as engineered for photographers
and great for video editing too.
But what does that mean?
Well, it means it has hardware calibration support,
fantastically accurate colors,
covering over 99% of the Adobe RGB color space,
and it's 4K to boot.
So then, with a tool like this at our disposal,
we thought, well, hey,
why don't we take this opportunity to take a look
at how we have done a less than perfect job
of color correcting some of our own videos here at LTT
while offering you guys three tips and tricks
for taking our color correction,
and maybe yours too, to the next level.
And since I can't tell pink from periwinkle,
I've enlisted the help
of our very own director of photography, Brandon Lee.
There you go.
Okay.
So taking a look at our backlog
from the last six months or so,
I was able to identify three common,
let's call them shortcomings,
that I think we could improve on.
The script is not moving at all.
What the heck?
Number one, foreground to background color exposure balancing.
This can be really challenging,
especially if you're shooting outdoors
like we were in our recent ASUS AI Mesh video.
Let's freeze frame there.
We did an okay job balancing the exposure here,
but it could have been better.
The image is overexposed overall,
but it's particularly bright in the background
compared to Linus.
What we should have done
is brought the background highlights down
to make Linus and the laptop stand out more like this.
Number two, color consistency throughout the video.
If your colors are inconsistent,
then scene changes are really jarring
and distract the viewer.
We were guilty of this
on our TechLink announcement video,
where we quickly jumped from location to location
and each spot had a different dominant light source.
In this case, the biggest issue is white balance.
At the beginning, we start in Linus's office
where he's being lit by a daylight balanced Aputure 120D.
The daylight balance is 120D, 120D, 120D, 120D, 120D, 120D, 120D.
Daylight from the outside
is mostly being stopped by the window shades
and the white balance on the camera is a little warmer
because I personally think it's a good fit
for the friendly tone of the video.
But then we move to Nick's office
where the guys are being lit by much warmer overhead lights
and the shades are open,
so we see blue daylight behind them.
To keep the color ideal for this shot,
I split my white balance between the cool daylight
and warm overheads,
otherwise their skin would look really orange.
But in a fast-paced shooting environment,
you have to make these changes on the fly
and they're not going to be perfect,
which is okay as long as you close the gap in post-production,
which we didn't do this time.
We release a video every day, all right?
Give me a break.
All right, that's fine
because I've done the color correction now
and watching the before and after,
you can see that it's a smoother experience
since the scenes have more unity.
And finally, number three, color grading.
This is the process of deliberately altering the colors
in the pursuit of artistic expression
rather than neutrality and realism.
But here's the thing,
in order to do a color grading properly,
color correction has to be done first.
If your starting point doesn't have consistent
and neutral colors and exposure,
then color grading will usually only serve
to make your videos look amateurish.
Our camping battle station video is a good example
of a video that is ready for color grading.
It's nicely balanced,
but it lacks that wow factor to take it to the next level.
Tweaking the green and yellow tones throughout each shot,
as well as the adjustments to the overall contrast,
make the video pop just a little bit more.
We did actually color grade our murder box video.
See how those warm colors shine through?
But in my personal opinion,
we could have worked in a bit more color contrast
by pushing cooler colors in the shadows
to contrast the warm orange mid-tones.
There we go.
So that's it.
Brandon's top three tips for taking your videos,
our videos, to the next level.
Back to you, Linus.
Thanks, Brandon.
Now, are we really doing the newscaster bit?
Okay, whatever.
Now let's take a closer look at the SW271.
So first and foremost, it comes with a shading hood.
This not only helps cut out glare,
but perhaps more importantly,
makes your monitor, and by extension you,
look like a super badass.
It even comes with this little door in the top
for your spectrophotometer or your colorimeter,
so you don't need to take the hood off
when you need to calibrate the display,
which you can do with the included
Palette Master Element software that, in our case,
made the already great out-of-the-box color accuracy
even better thanks to hardware calibration.
It managed Delta E values,
under one, well under what's perceivable by the human eye.
So thank you, 14-bit 3D lookup table.
It also comes with this little puck control,
right for the face, puck controller,
which not only makes the on-screen display easier to use,
but also lets you set shortcuts,
like switching between sRGB, Adobe RGB,
and advanced black and white modes,
and it nests nicely into the stand
in this little nook right here, keeping it nice and clean.
The stand, by the way,
is very sturdy, mitigating screen wobble
while still affording a generous amount of swivel,
elevation, tilt, and even 90-degree pivot.
Although it should be noted that your shade
will not function quite the way that it does
when you have it in landscape mode.
Incorrect.
This gives a-
Actually, it has more parts that you can use
to put it in the other mode.
Oh, really?
Yes.
Oh, cool.
Nevermind, I stand corrected.
Now, in terms of IO, we've got two HDMI 2.0s,
one for the DisplayPort 1.4,
as well as DisplayPort over USB type C,
which can also deliver both data and 10 watts of power.
Plus, there's a no-rotation required USB hub
with an integrated SD reader
that you can check out here on the side.
So, a big thank you to BenQ for sponsoring this video.
Big thank you to Brandon for providing me
with some much-needed color correction tips.
You guys can check out the SW271 photographers monitors,
as well as other monitors in this lineup,
like the SW320,
the SW2700PT,
and SW240,
which is just 400 bucks,
at the links below.
There's one for B&H Photo and one for amazon.com,
where the first 50 people can get 10% off
by using our promo code.
Then, after you buy one,
you can get a $25 gift card just for writing a review.
And if you have more color correction questions,
make sure you leave a post on our forum,
where you can chat with a giant community,
which includes, believe it or not,
some professionals and enthusiasts,
as well as some trolls.
I'm not gonna oversell it.
So thanks for watching, guys.
If this video sucked, you know what to do.
But if it was awesome, get subscribed,
hit that like button,
or maybe check out the link to where to buy the stuff
we featured in the video description.
Also down there is our merch store,
which has cool shirts like this one,
and our community forum, which you should totally join.