A7SII Super Annoying White Balance Issues

V

VMT

Well-known member
I am new to the A7S series, so I am perplexed by some if its quirks/bugs.

Custom white balancing with a grey card on my camera does not seem to be accurate. It could be off by as much as 3,000K for daylight and 1,000K for artificial lights. Here's a situation...My light meter, which I consider pretty accurate, would read a grey card for day light at 5,700K, but the custom white balance in camera would read it at 8,100K.

It's also annoying that you can't custom white balance in video mode. Switching back and forth to stills mode is just a killer when you do run and gun. Is this a bug or a limitation of the hardware? I can't imagine Sony can't solve this issue whether hardware or software.
 
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I have the A7s and I've stopped trusting the auto white balance or custom grey card to shoot. I shot two scenes for my film with auto-white balance and I regret it now. The colors are incongruous, disharmonious, uncomplimentary (pick a word). I've also had funky results with a grey card. Now I only use the presets or a straight color temp and adjust it later if necessary.

If I'm not sure what to use (like indoor daytime) I switch back and forth between auto white balance and the straight Kelvin color temp and adjust until it matches in temperature only. It may not be the "correct" way to do it but the colors come out more harmonious in look.
 
The glass you're using affects WB. It changes by as much as 500K and two or three points of green-magenta adjustment between some of my lenses. A very special vintage one that I had and sold could change it by 3000K, it had a super-strong warm tint.
Also, I'm guessing you have one zero too many on all your figures.
 
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Samuel H said:
The glass you're using affects WB. It changes by as much as 500K and two or three points of green-magenta adjustment between some of my lenses. A very special vintage one that I had and sold could change it by 3000K, it had a super-strong warm tint.
Also, I'm guessing you have one zero too many on all your figures.
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Glass effects WB. But the issue is the camera is not able to set accurate WB, regardless of the lens. It's not just off by a couple hundred. It's off by a couple thousand. I use only high quality native glasses.
 
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mojo43 said:
Why can't you custom WB in video mode? It's possible...
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I have tried all movie modes - manual, aperture priority, etc - but I can't set custom WB and save it as a preset while in any of the movie modes. If I missed something, any tip would be appreciated.
 
VMT said:
Glass effects WB. But the issue is the camera is not able to set accurate WB, regardless of the lens. It's not just off by a couple hundred. It's off by a couple thousand. I use only high quality native glasses.
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With that and with the corrected numbers, you're right, it's probably not the glass: too big a difference.
Are you setting custom WB in slog2 or slog3 gamma mode? The a7S wouldn't even allow that: I have my slog2 settings on PP1, and on PP2 I have a cine4 profile in black and white that I have to move to just in order to use custom WB (yes, on the a7S custom WB works in black and white but doesn't work on slog2, it's incredibly stupid; it's black-and-white because otherwise I'd forget to switch back to PP1; on PP3 I have a copy of the PP1 profile but with cine4, which I use for lowlight).
 
I rented one a couple weeks ago and was having the exact same problem. I didn't even get a chance to see what color temperature it switched too...everything just turned neon green, I panicked, and switched back to one of the preset WBs. But thinking about it I think it has to do with the fact that I was on Slog2 and WBing in photo mode. I had rented the first A7S before and never had an issue but I was shooting in Cine4 at the time. Unfortunately I don't have the camera to test but if that's the solution it'll help me out a ton next time.
 
Yes, the neon green thing is what I used to get on the a7S very often when doing custom WB with slog2.
 
Not just that: stop recording, change gamma settings, set custom WB, go back to your preferred gamma setings, then you can record again.
 
Custom WB doesn't work in slog, or at least it didn't on my a7S, and it doesn't on my RX100 IV: it gives crazy results (9900K, neon-green look, etc, no matter what's in front of the camera).
 
I write custom user interface software for a living, so it blows my mind how something as basic as this could be overlooked. Terrible management at sony.
 
Samuel H said:
Custom WB doesn't work in slog, or at least it didn't on my a7S, and it doesn't on my RX100 IV: it gives crazy results (9900K, neon-green look, etc, no matter what's in front of the camera).
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It works in slog3 on the a7sii with the lut preview mode on. I just find it hard to set sometimes....
 
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