Magic Hour and White Balance

Dahopafilms

Dahopafilms

Well-known member
I was tempted to post this in the "Lighting" thread, but having given it some thought I think it's better here.

A question: When shooting during the magic hour, is it your practise to manually set white balance according to your scene or set your camera's white balance to a specific setting?

I was on a shoot over the weekend where the DP (a guy with some experience and certainly more than yours truly) would use only two white balance settings: one for inside and one for outside - regardless of the lighting source's temperature inside or the time of day outside. I found that workflow to be entirely contrary to my usual workflow where I white balance to the scene as often as necessary to maintain similar looks throughout.

A "down side" of my approach is that you miss the deep, golden glows of "magic hour" (while still getting that lovely uniformly soft light), however using this DP's "one white balance setting to rule every exterior shot" approach, during magic hour everyone looked like they'd been dipped in a vat of Coppertone (perhaps attractive, I suppose, in other contexts).

Is there any particular preference here? I'd appreciate insights into other workflow regarding white balance.
 
Unless things are looking too crappy, I leave it on preset and W/B on post. It always depends on the concept of the film.
 
The characteristic of the quality of light at the "magic hour" is more than just its color temperature. What really matters is the angle of the light. However, that is no reason to white balance all the character out of the "magic hour", it is a part of the magic. Use of a preset is fine, so is balancing with a warm card or similar reference.
 
i've only shoot film during magic hour ...
if i was shooting video i would NOT white balance .. i'd shoot with either a daylight or tungsten preset - and that would depend on how much dirt/pollution is in the atmosphere ... out in middle of nowhere i might go daylight preset ... and near LA i might go tungsten preset ...
NOW after i review my clips ( this would be 1st time shooting video at magic hour) i might change some settings ???
 
I always use the daytime preset as I don't want the white balance to get rid of the warmth of magic hour. I also like to use the color temp controls in the DVX/HVX menus to make it lean more toward warm (or sometimes cool). In general, I prefer to use the presents and then give slight tints using the settings depending on what type of look I'm going for. The only time I don't do this is with flourecents since they vary so much.
 
Preset have nice qualities to it.

I shoot a doc once and it took place outside during the day.

Thanks to the whitebalance the Viewer could get a sense what time during the day it was.
 
I think that when shooting at magic hour, you're doing it for a reason (hopefully, at least.) You would be hard pressed to easily get away with magic hour shots passing as continuity for any other time.

If I wanted the effect, like David Beier said above, go with the daylight preset and use the color temp to your liking, or slightly use the color temp then add a bit more in post. The warm oranges and yellows often do really well on the DVX from my experience.

Don't be afraid to shoot daylight balanced with the camera facing off-axis from the West towards the North or South and add some tungsten lights with 1/2 CTB for some warm fill.
 
Your WB will totally depends on your intended result. I've shot at magic hour many times where it was supposed to match stuff from hours earlier. Compensating with lighting and WB can get you there.

If you want a golden/warm magic hour look you need to have a baseline WB setting. That means don't WB to compensate 100% for you low outdoor kelvins, otherwise the effect won't be nearly as dramatic. Dial in your color temp if available. If you're shooting tungsten film, I recommed the LLD filter. All the color correction you want and none of the exposure loss.

I.
 
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