Color bars, what is it good for?

[ohnogodzirrah]

I recently got some footage and at the head of the reel was 10 seconds of color bars that were generated by the camera. What are these good for? I can understand shooting a color / gray chart on the set that is reflective of the lighting but these camera generated color bars... What is that good for?

[NoahKadner]

Calibration. But if you don't know that already- disregard...

Noah

[ohnogodzirrah]

Well, I understand that. But I can generate these in FCP - Is there some advantage to having had the camera generate them?

[NoahKadner]

Yeah it's kind of the whole point of calibration. Every camera/editor will output a slightly different looking set of color bars- hues, brightness levels etc. So if you understand what those bars *should* look like then you can quickly recalibrate and correct and footage that comes after those bars to be as expected. Like I said, if you don't know this already then it's not a big deal. But if you do, it would be one way to make your footage take a huge leap forward in terms of accuracy and quality.

Noah

[ohnogodzirrah]

OK, cool, that makes sense.