Datacolor Spyder Checkr Video: A real-world test during my trip to Japan

Introduction

Welcome back everyone and I hope you are all doing well!

Being a member of Datacolor’s Friends with Vision as well as creating photography, videography and fine art prints for several years now, made me deal with a lot of situations where accurate color representation is very critical to the final results.

Though as a hybrid shooter, so someone who produces photos as well as videos, I often have to deal with different formats and color representation between a variety of systems. Adjusting the differences in color usually costs me a lot of time in post production. Yet still, the final results often differ ever so slightly as I usually try to adjust everything by eye. Especially when working with different cameras, it can be very frustrating to make everything fit together seamlessly.

But there’s good news: Datacolor recently introduced an exciting new product, which is the Spyder Checkr Video. This is a great solution to ensure that the colors and things like contrast or white balance, are correctly adjusted in your final footage.

According to Datacolor, they designed their brand new Sypder Checkr Video to specifically solve the issues mentioned above by removing the guess work from your workflow. All you need to do is capturing a reference shot during a shoot, which then can be used in post-production to adjust the color accuracy of your clips to the Rec.709 industry standard.

All of this sounded very promising to me, so I decided to take the Spyder Checkr Video with me on my latest trip to Japan. This seemed to be the perfect opportunity to test this solution in a real-world scenario.

But before we get to the trip and how to use the Checkr Video on location, let's take a closer look at the features of Datacolor's latest release first.

Features of the Spyder Checkr Video

The Spyder Checkr Video consists of a white, very robust enclosure, which contains various color cards for different purposes.

The case itself is ergonomically shaped, which makes it very comfortable to hold and allows for a safe grip at all times. It also ensures that you don't accidentally touch the color cards. Indeed these cards are quite sensitive as they have to represent the colors as accurate as possible, based on the environmental light and reflections of your scene.

The Spyder Checkr Video case is compact and robust

The overall case is extremely compact and can easily be carried with you to any location. This is particularly useful for me when traveling, as the Checkr Video doesn’t take up any meaningful space at all.

Inside the closure you first will find a color pattern card, which is configured to the well-known Rec.709 standard. The patches on this card will later be used to adjust the colors within your editing software, by using the verctorscope tool. They are slightly reflective, to make you aware of any reflections within the scene. This is definitely a nice feature to have and it ensures that your color can be correctly adjusted later on.

Opposite the color pattern card you’ll find a grey scale card, which is used for adjusting the white balance and contrast of your footage in post.

The Spyder’s color pattern & grey scale cards

The second compartment of the the case contains a regular grey card, suitable for setting a custom white balance in your camera while on location, as well a focus star for adjusting your focus when working with manual focus lenses.

Additionally, Datacolor has included another set of color cards, especially created for photographers. So in case you’re a hybrid shooter like me, you can easily swap the grey and focus star cards for these ones. This way you are equipped for video and photo work at all times. It is really nice to see, that Datacolor provides both options in a single solution and focuses on modern creators, who often switch between photography and videography rapidly and seamlessly.

Alright, I guess that’s enough for the technical specs for now. So let’s continue with my trip to Japan and how I feel about using the Checkr Video on location.

Using the Spyder Checkr Video in Japan

This time in Japan, I was traveling with several camera systems for creating photo and video content. With me I had my daily workhorse, the Canon EOS R5, my Apple iPhone 13 Max Pro and the recently released DJI Osmo Pocket 3. Next to these, a friend of mine was able to provide me with her A7R III from time to time for this test. So all in all, this was a nice range of gear to test the Checkr Video’s capabilities.

Personally, I’m a Canon shooter since day one and I’m absolutely in love with the color reproduction of my EOS R5, whether it is for photo or video content.

But as most of you should know, each camera brand has its own color look, due to the manufacturer's own profiles, different lenses and the built-in image sensors.

Especially during bigger productions or when working with other creators, using a variety of different systems is no rarity. And obviously making it all blend together seamlessly in post usually is a big pain.

Therefore, I was very curious to see how well the different footage can be adjusted to look the same. But more to that later.

Using my Apple iPhone for quick video while on the go in Shinjuku

Testing out the DJI Osmo Pocket 3 at Asakusa temple

Checking out my friend’s Sony A7 for a minute

Using the Spyder Checkr Video on location is incredibly easy.

Once you’re all set and ready to record, simply hold the Color Pattern and Greyscale cards of the Checkr Video in front of your camera setup of choice and create a short reference clip. A few seconds are more than enough already.

Pro tip: Just make sure to avoid reflections of any kind, in order to get the most accurate reading from the patches. The best way to do so is to tilt the Checkr Video ever so slightly in all directions, while recording. This makes it very easy to select a suitable frame later in post.

Capturing a reference clip with the EOS R5 at Mount Fuji

The whole process feels quick and straight-forward. Personally, I think that's great because there's nothing worse than interrupting your creative flow by fiddling around with cumbersome tools.

Repeat this process of creating a short reference with every camera system you plan to use or whenever you change the location or the lighting setup in your scene. Doing so ensures that you have different references to choose from for every situation in post-production.

Creating a short reference with the iPhone at Shinjuku gate

If you're traveling solo like me, chances are you might not be able to hold the Checkr Video in front of the camera yourself. For example, this might be the case when working with a telephoto lens or when the scene to be captured is in the far distance and affected by different light compared to your own position.

But don’t worry, because I came up with a really nice solution for this:

The kind people from Fidlock sent me one of their awesome VACUUM system for testing purposes. This system offers a wide selection of bases as well as cases and special adhesive patches with a combination of suction cup elements and magnets.

Connecting the tripod to the patch which is applied to the Checkr Video case

The VACUUM mini tripod with the Spyder Checkr Video attached

In my own process, I use the VACUUM Mini Tripod as a base and then attached one of the adhesive patches to the back of the Spyder Checkr Video case. This way I’m able to either use the Mini Tripod’s selfie stick function for more reach in front of the lens or I can simply place the Checkr Video somewhere in the scene on the tripod.

I really love the simplicity and versatility of this setup and furthermore you can use the Fidlock system for a variety of other scenarios, like attaching your smartphone or LED lights. Also, everything is super compact and lightweight.

The Spyder Checkr Video attached to the VACUUM mini tripod at Osaka castle

Now, let’s take a closer look at how these reference shots can be used in post-production to calibrate your color accuracy across a variety of camera systems.

Adjusting Color Accuracy in Post-Production

Personally, I use DaVinci Resolve for video editing and color grading, but you can implement the following steps with any non-linear editing software of your choice.

First, let’s bring one of the reference clips to the timeline and then switch over to the DaVinci’s color tab, where all the magic happens.

A reference clip from Tokyo | Camera: Canon EOS R5 | Software: DaVinci Resolve

Important: If not already done, you have to transform your footage into Rec.709 first. As already mentioned, the Checkr Video cards are based on this industry standard. So it is important to work in the same color space of course.

First, we choose a frame in the recording in which the color patches and grey scale card of the Spyder Checkr Video can be seen clearly and without any reflections.

Now, before I start making any changes, I like to divide my adjustment process into several steps. In DaVinci Resolve we can use so-called nodes for this. These are comparable to something like layers in Adobe Photoshop.

Let’s create a node for each processing step, and also name it accordingly. You clearly don’t need these nodes at all, but I find them very useful to organise myself. Especially if I need to revisit and tweak a few adjustments later on.

Create nodes for each step before color correcting the footage

As you can see, I created the following nodes:

1. White Balance & Contrast

2. Hue

3. Sat

We’re all set now, so let’s start with correcting the reference footage accordingly.

1. Adjusting White Balance & Contrast.

First, let’s switch to the waveform view in the scopes menu at the bottom right corner as we need it for the following steps.

We then create a power window around the gray scale card of the Checkr Video in the frame.

Create a power window around the grey scale card

Now we navigate to the curves view, in order to bring the black and white tones.

Adjust the black and white points in the curves view

Expand the contrast by using the waveform view ranges

We adjust the curve until the blacks are within the range between 0 and 128 of the waveform view.

For the whites, we need to adjust the curve until they are in the upper the range between 896 and 1023.

By doing so, we now have recovered the correct contrast in the clip.

In order to adjust the white balance, we now have to stack the individual color channels on top of each other as close as possible.

Adjust the individual color channels in the curves view

Therefore, we click on the respective channels for red, green and blue one after the other and move each curve accordingly until all colors on the waveform tool lineup with each other as seen below.

This might take some practising but you’ll get used to it very quickly and it should look similar to this:

Adjusting the color curves until they line up with each other in the waveform view

If we now deactivate the power window again, we can take a closer look at the adjustments taking effect on the frame already.

Reference clip after adjusting contrast and white balance

That’s it for correcting the white balance and contrast.

Pro tip: In case you captured your reference in a shadow area like I did in the example above, while some parts of the scene are in sunlight, you might need to correct the overall brightness afterwards. This can easily be done by lowering the gain or highlights in your Primaries color wheels for example, or by simply tweaking the curves again.

Alright, so let’s move on to adjusting the hue.

2. Adjusting the Hue

First, we select the second node and then create another power window, but this time around the area of the color pattern card to isolate it from the rest of the scene.

Create a power window around the color pattern

Shift + H to isolate the power window area from the rest of the frame

We then switch from the waveform to the vectorsope view at the bottom right corner of the screen.

Pro tip: Make sure to activate the 2x Zoom and the skin tone indicator in the Vectorscope settings and bump up the brightness level as well.

Change some settings for the vectorscope first

In the curves view, we switch to the Hue Vs Hue tab as we want to correct the gradient of each color accordingly.

Click and activate each color below the curve, to make it adjustable.

Then move each individual color point on the curve until the respective points in the vectorscope are pointing in the direction of the corresponding yellow boxes like shown in the screenshots below.

Tweak each color in the Hue Vs Hue curves view

After tweaking, each color should point towards the related yellow boxes in the vectorscope

That’s it, we successfully corrected the overall hue of the clip.

Let’s disable the power window and move on to the final step, which is adjusting the saturation.

3. Adjusting the Saturation

Again, we quickly isolate the color pattern card using a power window, before we switch to Hue Vs Sat view in the curves section, since we now want to change the saturation for each color.

We proceed like with the prior node, by activating each individual color and then move the points on the curve until the individual points in the vectorscope are placed within the related boxes. Kindly see the screenshots below.

Tweak the colors in the Hue Vs Sat tab of the curves view

After tweaking, each color should be placed in or very close to the related yellow boxes in the vectorscope view

As you can see there are two boxes for each color, representing two levels of saturation. Which one you choose is up to you. Personally, I always try choose the outer ones as I like a tad more saturation to my clips.

Done, we just corrected our overall reference clip. Pretty straight forward, huh?

Let’s quickly deactivate all nodes to have a look at the before and after. Seems like quite a lot has happened here. The clip now appears much more accurate in terms of the real scene that was captured and the overall white balance and contrast are also corrected.

AFTER | After correcting the color using the Spyder Checkr Video

Again, it is important to emphasise that we just have adjusted our color according to Datacolor's Rec.709-compliant color chart. In terms of accuracy, we are on the safe side now and thus also eliminated potential weak points in our workflow. These could be things like incorrectly calibrated gear and screens or just our subjective perception of what correct color should look like, which often times is just pretty much off from being accurate at all.

Note: These settings can now be copied and pasted to all clips that were recorded at the same location with the same camera setup. Based on your workflow and the editing software of your choice, you can also create a preset to speed things up in the future. But of course, that’s totally up to you.

Comparing different camera systems

Now let’s do the exact same steps with some clips that were recorded with the other systems, like the iPhone or A7R and do a final comparison of how close we can get the colors of each by adjusting it. The following screenshots give you a pretty good idea of what’s possible by using the Spyder Checkr Video.

Shinjuku Gate - Canon EOS R5 vs. Apple iPhone 13 Max Pro

Before

After

Osaka Castle - Canon EOS R5 vs. Sony A7R III

Before

After

Kyoto Temple - Sony A7R III vs. Apple iPhone 13 Max Pro

Before

After

Mount Fuji - Canon EOS R5 vs. Apple iPhone 13 Max Pro

Before

After

As you can see, the footage looks much better after correcting it based on the Spyder Checkr Video references. Not only do the clips look more vibrant and true to real life, but the recordings from the different systems look basically identical to each other. Obviously there can be some differences in the overall brightness, depending on your personal settings, but these can be adjusted very quickly. In terms of overall tonality and colors the footage matches flawlessly now. I have to say that I’m truly impressed about these results!

All clips are now perfectly calibrated to the REC.709 standard and they can also be used interchangeably in a project without showing any significant differences to the viewer.

Alright, it’s been a lot so far, so let’s wrap things up with my final thoughts about the Datacolor Spyder Checkr Video.

My final thoughts

In my opinion, Datacolor has absolutely nailed it with the Spyder Checkr Video.

Not only is it very portable, so you can always have it with you, but they also thought about upgrading the ergonomics of the case as well as inlcuding additional cards for photographers.

It’s very nice to have a portable all-in one solution and furthermore it is very friendly to your wallet as you don’t need to buy any additional tools at all.

Using the Checkr Video on location is incredibly easy and doesn’t interrupt my creative process at all. I just have to take a quick reference shot and I’m done.

Adjusting the color accuracy in post is also straight forward and can be done without installing and learning any additional software at all.

In my opinion, the overall ease of use and flexibility, make the Spyder Checker Video a perfect solution for professional and enthusiastic creators alike.

As a hybrid shooter who often deals with a variety of systems and formats, the Spyder Checkr Video is a very welcome solution for me and I will definitely be incorporating it into each of my projects from now on.

Guys, I hope you enjoyed my review and if you have any further questions or feedback of any kind, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Talk to you soon and have fun creating,

Chris

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