Best way to color grade footage shot on different cameras in one project?

Don't rely on just color checking in post if your cameras have different sensor characteristics - that's putting a band-aid on a deeper problem. The real foundation is matching your cameras during the shoot itself. Set them side by side under identical lighting, dial in the same white balance and exposure, and record a few seconds of the exact same scene. This becomes your visual anchor for the whole project, way more useful than a color chart alone because you're seeing how each camera actually renders in context.

From there, your workflow depends on your edit software. Create a master clip from one camera as your baseline, then build adjustment layers or grades that you can copy onto the other camera's footage. Most people jump straight to LUTs, but honestly that's overkill until you've nailed the basics - saturation, contrast, and white balance usually do most of the heavy lifting. If you do want to build a LUT (or use one), test it on a few representative clips from each camera before applying it everywhere, because a LUT baked for one sensor can shift colors weird on another.

The tedious but reliable approach: grade a scene from each camera separately until they match, then note exactly what you changed. Those same adjustments will get you close on other scenes from those same cameras. It's less elegant than a one-click fix, but you'll catch mismatches that automated color matching misses.

Are you shooting the different cameras all at the same time on set, or are you cutting together footage from different shoots?

That matters because if you're working with material shot on different days or locations, you've got two separate problems - sensor differences AND inconsistent lighting. The color checker approach definitely works, but there's a middle ground that saves time: shoot a few seconds of the same neutral scene (white wall, gray card, your hand) with each camera back-to-back under identical conditions before you wrap. You don't need a full chart every time. Then in post, use one camera's footage as your reference and build your grade around that, using those neutral clips to anchor your adjustments instead of eyeballing it. Most editing software lets you apply adjustment layers across clips, which makes this way faster than grading each camera individually.

The practical trick nobody really talks about: if your cameras have wildly different dynamic ranges or color science (which they probably do), don't try to match them perfectly in the main color space. Instead, bring everything into a neutral, flatter rec709 or similar intermediate space first - basically crushing the characteristic "look" of each camera. Then build your actual grade on top of that. It sounds like extra work but it actually reduces the math your software has to do and gives you cleaner results. You'll spend less time fighting the cameras and more time on what actually matters, which is making the footage tell the story.

The color checker approach helps, but you've also got to nail your camera settings *before* you hit record - matching ISO, white balance, and gamma curves makes post-production way less of a nightmare! Even with perfect color reference footage, if one camera's shooting in a totally different color space or dynamic range than another, you're fighting an uphill battle in grading. I'd say get your cameras as close as possible on set first, then use the checker chart to fine-tune in post rather than expecting it to fix fundamental mismatches between different sensor types.