Dull/Yellow/Dark footage on Canon 80D

[crittyhq]

I'm embarrassed to say I've had this camera for about 3 years now and still haven't gotten the hang of it. The first few years I was shooting (video only) in auto mode only but decided to try messing around with manual settings about a year ago because I wasn't happy with the quality of the auto footage.

The issue I'm having is that, even with proper lighting (I usually use 2 soft box lights from Amazon--20"x28" ESDDI Softbox lights 800W), my footage is coming out dull, yellow, and super high contrast (very dark in some areas). It takes hours of color correcting to get it looking somewhat presentable, and even then I’m not fully happy with it.

Here are my settings:

Frame rate 29.97

AWB-W

Shutter speed 60

Apperture: 3.5

ISO 160

Picture profile: neutral

Lens: 18-55mm lens that came with camera

What's most perplexing to me is that I have a Canon G7X from 2015 and I never have to worry about colors and white balance on it; the quality of the footage is slightly more grainy but overall it's much less headache to shoot with. Shooting the same scene in the kitchen would have looked much better (other than image quality/graininess) on the G7X with 0 fuss, just point and shoot. However, since I spent so much on the 80d I feel I need to try to figure this out. When I see footage other creators have shot on the 80D it looks so much better.

[rs-eos]

What is the color temperature of your lights? Also, when the lights are off, what is the color temperature of the ambient light or other light sources in the room?

For example, if you're filiming during the day and there is lots of daylight entering the space, that daylight may be around 5000 to 6000 K.  If there are lights on in the room, they may be 3200 K.  Then the lights from your lighting kit may either be 3200 K or something else.   If all the different light sources are each contributing to the scene and are of different color temperature values, that will be very difficult for the camera to deal with.

If instead, you can set things up where your lights are contributing the vast majority of light in the scene, then you can set your camera's white balance to match that color temperature.

Or, even do a custom white balance.

[crittyhq]

Thanks for your reply! I will double check the color temperature of my lights.

In the pics of the footage I posted, I didn't have my studio lights on (or apartment lights) but I felt the light in the was sufficient (I get a lot of natural sunlight with 4 8ft windows in a small space. When I use my lights I have a similar issue. Even though I'm sure the lighting issue could be improved by adding the lights, my G7X wouldn't have this issue in this situation. Is that just a fundamental difference between the two cameras?

Aside from temperature, the overall dullness (especially of the colors) is concerning me. I thought maybe it was a setting I had glaringly wrong.

[ebiggs1]

Video is pretty much out of my experience area. But at first glance I would say your light boxes are the problem. They  might be OK for stills and I mean close up stills but they are most likely way underpowered for video. They are almost too underpowered for stills if the subject isn't small and they aren't very close to it. For stills we almost always use three light sources. It is a common setup for lights and is called three-point lighting. It consists of a key light, a fill light, and a backlight. The backlight is called a “hairlight”. A keylight which should be the brightest and a fill light. These two should be on either side, 4 o'clock and 8 o'clock, with the hairlight in the center somewhere. Now that is very basic and simplistic but you get the idea.

BTW, reset you 80D back to factory default before moving on. Just in case there is an unwanted setting by mistake or on purpose.

[crittyhq]

Thanks for the help! Yes, I guess I have been using my light boxes as my main light sources when they should be more like fill lights. Do you think adding something like a ring light as my main source might be better, keeping the light boxes as the fill lights?

PS I didn't have my light boxes in in these shots bc I felt like the natural light was sufficient (obvi I was wrong). However, even with my light boxes I have a similar issue.

[ebiggs1]

"Do you think adding something like a ring light as my main source might be better, ..."

No, ring light won't help.  Are you asking for video or stills. You can find a lot better person for video lighting than me.

To give you an example my light boxes are 48x48 inches (for stills).

[ebiggs1]

What exactly is your concern with this photo? I loaded it in PS and did a WB correction which was slight to say the  most. I put perhaps 1/2 stop exposure correction. It looks right to me. The white looks good. The black looks good. Greyscale is spot on.

[crittyhq]

Thanks for your thoughts, maybe I am being a bit hard on it.

My concern is that that footage looks kind of "tacky"--that may not make sense, but what I mean is: a bit dull, a bit yellow, and a bit dark. I'm not sure how to describe it, but not bright, clear, and vibrant the way you ideally want video to look.

[normadel]

This photo looks bright and clear to me. "Vibrant" is something different to any viewer.

Have you done any video anywhere else, like outdoors on a sunny day, to see what you get?  Other than adding exposure to your kitchen shots to lighten them, what are you trying to do?

[ebiggs1]

Yeah, you probably need to find someone versed in video. I am of little help there.