Best way to white balance on the AF?

T

tommygdawg

Well-known member
Hey all,


I've had the AF for quite a while now, and I'm only just getting around to asking this question. What's the best way to white balance on the AF? I don't typically like to use white cards with auto because I feel so out of control, I realize I can go in the scene settings to adjust the saturation (I think that's what it adjusts), but this can kind of be a pain going back and forth between menus to get the white balance. Then there's the PRST function where you can manually adjust color temperature, however when I use this I tend to get really odd color casts and I'm not sure why. Anyone else experience this or have some thoughts?

- Tommy
 
Using a white card is the only way to assure that the white balance is actually correct. Anything else is just guessing and approximating. I never use the presets if I can avoid it, because the presets may set the balance between red/blue well but they don't take into account any other color shift that may be present in the lighting conditions -- especially problematical under fluorescents or HMI's. The tungsten preset is okay for when shooting under actual tungsten movie lights, but when in general indoors conditions you have no idea what the actual color temperature of the lights overhead might actually be -- they could be 2700k, they could be 3100k...

If you want your colors accurate to the light you're shooting under, the best way by far is to use a white card and manually white balance.
 
When I say that I use the "PRST" button, I misused my terminology. I set the white balance switch to PRST and then use the function button to manually go up and down through color temp. 3.0k, 3.1k, 3.2k, etc. The only other method I know of is to have the camera automatically set white balance by pushing the AWB button on the front. I just always feel so out of control when using auto white balance.
 
But using the manual dial-in approach still doesn't account for any color shift present in the lighting, it just changes the red/blue axis. You will get more accurate results (potentially substantially better results) by doing a true manual white balance off of a real white card.
 
How do you do a "true manual" white balance? Just by pressing the AWB button on the front of the camera and letting the camera do it's thing?
 
yep, and if you hold it you get a black balance. I do it on just about every setup unless I'm going for something cast one way or another. I pretty much always balance with the white card
 
Knew the black balance, I've always tried to make sure I do that one. So, the question I have is, what's the best way to shoot something with a specific color cast to it? For instance, I just shot a short film that takes place in a book store and I wanted that real warm, almost golden hue to the image. So, I tried to dial in a warmer look using mainly the function button, as you can imagine this gave me a lot of issues in post. So, what's the best way to do this? White balance so everything is a normal color cast and then grade it to a golden look? Or do it the way I did it, where I manually set the color temperature to a warmer look using the function button?
 
My way to do it would be to light with regular lights, white-balance to that, and then filter the lights to give the color cast that you want.

The other way to do it (much cheaper) is to use Warm Cards. Light the way you want, then white-balance to a warm card instead of a white card.

You can also get an app for an iPhone that does the same thing as Warm Cards.
 
yeah... I know what you mean. I usually do it in post but one time I was working with a DP, going for a warm look, we had all tungsten light, he used a 3200 preset and 1/4 CTO on the light. It was warm OK. It was all pretty baked in though. I didn't like it because there was not enough color contrast. It worked though.
 
Barry_Green said:
My way to do it would be to light with regular lights, white-balance to that, and then filter the lights to give the color cast that you want.

The other way to do it (much cheaper) is to use Warm Cards. Light the way you want, then white-balance to a warm card instead of a white card.

You can also get an app for an iPhone that does the same thing as Warm Cards.
Click to expand...

What are the pros and cons to lighting with filtration and using warm cards?

hscully said:
yeah... I know what you mean. I usually do it in post but one time I was working with a DP, going for a warm look, we had all tungsten light, he used a 3200 preset and 1/4 CTO on the light. It was warm OK. It was all pretty baked in though. I didn't like it because there was not enough color contrast. It worked though.
Click to expand...

I guess the thing I've been trying to figure out is finding the balance between shooting flat and shooting for the final look. I've always thought getting the closest thing to what you want in camera is best, at least with these 4:2:0 8bit cameras, because you often have so little wiggle room in post. How far do you tend to push the footage when you're shooting for grading?
 
I am totally not a grader at all. I like to get the image as close in-camera as possible, especially when dealing with a highly compressed 8-bit 4:2:0 codec. Your instincts are spot-on.

I know the fashion today is to shoot flat and grade later, and if that's someone's thing then hey, that's their thing, but I think it's infinitely better to get it as close to "right" on-set the first time, rather than just delaying all decision-making to post. You will find lots of folks who disagree with me on that though!

As for filtration vs warm cards -- using warm cards means electronic balancing of the image, filtration means physically altering the light. It's infinitely faster to use warm cards than to go sticking gels on all your various fixtures, obviously... I'm just used to it, and to me it's just that if I want a warmed-up scene I know I'm going to use (say) 1/4 CTO to get it, rather than faffing around with dialing in kelvin and whatnot and counting on Magic Bullet or post-tweaking every scene...

I say try the warm cards route and see if it works for you, because it's ridiculously easy to do. Certainly a lot simpler than gelling individual light fixtures (although that of course gives you the flexibility to make certain light sources warmer or cooler than others, which can be a powerful tool in your arsenal).
 
The method that has worked for me is using an X rite WB card which is actually a grey card with equal parts RGB/ WB on one of those carfs with luma set to 70 ad a base reference. With mixed sources this method might not work as well, especially with green a flos and tungsten mixed, then usually I switch to VAR.

The X rite cards have gotten me the best results over time and I always travel one with my AF kit.

I recently sot a 4 episode series for Universal sports about endurance athletes prior to the olympics. every interview and lots of doc footage was shot on the AF with the internal codec using X rite cards for WB in some pretty funky lighting situations and I could not have been happier with the results
 
It's definitely a balance. I have found that it depends on what I'm going for. I have no problem de saturating the color and deepening luma contrast in post. There is no penalty in that. It's when I want to go the other way, boosting midtones or saturating color that I have to be gentle. So for instance, B.Press is clean and sort of crushes blacks but I can replicate that in post with a slight curve so I don't worry about that so much. So for a narrative thing I might shoot Cine-D or even HDNorm. That said, B.Press pops and if it is a commercial thing and I know I want that clean look. It's a good choice but those deep blacks will be "baked in." I'm always wrestling with these type of choices... so not sure this helps :)
 
Mark Smith said:
wow, I tried those with the AF and It was color cast city . I never felt like got a decent WB with an expo disc and I was really hoping I would. What is you system for WB with an expo disc?
Click to expand...

I just aim it at the key, usually from a handful of feet away, & so far have never had a color cast. Tested it against a proper white card, & to the eye the results were identical.

Much of my work is on the road, & my carry-on(s) are jammed, so I prefer the compact, & rugged, ExpoDisc over a white card. I normally WB two cameras, sometimes more, for multicam, & white cards make me a bit nervous. It seems if they aren't angled exactly the same the results may vary.

What were the conditions you had issues with? I could test mine in those, & see if I have similar problems.
 
Bern Caughey said:
I just aim it at the key, usually from a handful of feet away, & so far have never had a color cast. Tested it against a proper white card, & to the eye the results were identical.

Much of my work is on the road, & my carry-on(s) are jammed, so I prefer the compact, & rugged, ExpoDisc over a white card. I normally WB two cameras, sometimes more, for multicam, & white cards make me a bit nervous. It seems if they aren't angled exactly the same the results may vary.

What were the conditions you had issues with? I could test mine in those, & see if I have similar problems.
Click to expand...


I work on the rod almost all the time. The xrite card works for me about 85% of the time and it works perfectly when it does, I have no issues with overexposure and colorcasting. When I tried the Expo discs I saw much more unattractive color casting, an this was in daylight outside my office. I might have to go back and try again maybe I gave up too soon.

When the xrite cards don't seem to work for me its usually in some mixed light environment especially with Flo's and then my fall back is to bump into VAR and toggle through till i get something I like on the monitor.

I'll give the expo another shot but I'm not counting on it.

I did try the Expo on my C300 and the results were much better than what I recall I got with the AF.
 
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