AWB?

Chasen

Member
So I'm filming a show last night, not lit very well. I pointed the camera to a guy wearing a white tshirt and hit the AWB button to white balance the picture. Halfway through the set, everything has a blue tone to it, by the end when the put on the house lights everything is green. Do I need to hit that AWB button every 15 mins for lighting conditions or does the DVX have a fully functional Automatic White Balance? It's a pain to hit that button every so often.

What could help this as far as in camera settings, Color Temp? Color detail? ect.
 
Re: AWB?

AWB isn't an auto function -- that's ATW -- Auto-Track White. Not recommended.

The lighting conditions obviously changed throughout the show, and yes, you need to reset your white balance every time it does. It may be a pain, but it needs to be done. That's part an parcel of being a pro.

The blue probably resulted from an influx of daylight or HMIs in the studio. The green when the house lights came up probably means the house lights are fluorescent.
 
Re: AWB?

AWB is allways autotracking...the problem is that there is a long time constant (sometimes 1min.) involved. So relative fast changes in the ambient light spectrum are not being immediately corrected.
 
Re: AWB?

Maybe if you have a blister on your finger it is.

Btw, never use auto-white-tracking unless it's absolutely necessary. Thankfully most white balance problems can be fixed in post, though. (I'm sure there's a way with expressions to have a sample "white" area in after effects be constantly adjusted to "real" white even as the white balanced changes, but I don't know any java or whatever language AE supports.)
 
Re: AWB?

It is when you a shooting a 45 min show with the camera 5 feet above your head on a tripod. When you tap that button the color and balance either drops or lightens, It looks strange when you watch it. Thanks for all your input though.
 
Re: AWB?

Be careful changing the white balance at an indoor show that has lots of colored lights.

Do a general white balance using as much neutral light as possible and, If the environment itself is not changing, you will want to record the effects of the changing light colors on stage without trying to compensate for it.
 
Re: AWB?

That depends on how it’s changing. If it’s changing because it’s supposed to, for artistic effect, then sure. But if it’s changing because the lighting changed, but the colors are supposed to remain constant (like if someone opened a window or turned on more “uncolored” lights for brightness), then you have to compensate or your colors will be screwed up.
 
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