ATW and white balance question / problem?

Deuceofspades

Deuceofspades

Veteran
Was watching some footage I shot last month at the dry lake races and it looked horrible. Could not figure out why... Today decided to take the manual, the DVX100B and go outside and run some test.

QUESTION:

I assume you guys shoot mostly manual, but do you set one of your white balance presets to "AWT" so you can (if you want to) use the ATW function while still being in manual focus and manual iris modes?

The reason I ask is because while I HAD everything set to manual, it looked very poor (faded colors, etc...) but once I would switch to AWT THE PICTURED LOOKED GREAT.

OK, so I white balanced manually at the location and looked at results, then switched back to ATW and looked at results and I was still off. meaning the ATW looked better than my white balance. I think I did it by the book (white paper, near where I am filming, filling the entire frame etc...)

SO WHY THE DISCREPENCY?

Am I doing something wrong? I used preset A for my manual white balance while I programmed preset B to give me ATW.

I await your feedbacks...
 
There are a lot of variables to answering your question, but I will be happy to tell you how I shoot.

In general I have the AWT setting the SW menu set to Off, then I shoot with the White Balance switch set to PRST. Then pick either 3.2k or 5.6k according to the type of lighting you are shooting under.

If you are at a race, there is a good possiblity that the track lighting could be non-color matched flo lights....so you might have to do a little Color Correcting in post....but it shouldn't be that far off.

I'd give it a shot and see if you like that method. Otherwise you could be setting WB all night long trying to help the camera find the right color.
 
there is a setting to set the ATW button to auto white balance only without affecting. it's in the menu
 
Deuceofspades, when you are manually balancing, what are balancing off of? You didn't mention using any particular white surface. So I'm wondering, are you just balancing from the whole scene that you are looking at? This could be the cause of your washed out colours, compared to the auto.

Do take advantage of the presets, especially when you are shooting in fully indoor, or fully natural light.
 
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