C100: C100 Mark II Custom WB Issues

S

sigmund

New member
When setting a Custom WB with a white or grey card with my C100 Mark II, the result ist always wrong. If it should be around 6000K the interpretation is 10000K. The result is a too yellow picture. On the other side the daylight WB preset is too blueish. Best works AWB or manual K settings.
Has anybody else having issues with Custom WB of the C100 Mark II ?
Many thanks for suggestions.
 
I am having issues with the white balance as well, I have to leave the A or B custom white balance setting by dialing to a built in setting like Tungsten or Daylight, then coming back to custom white balancing before it will actually figure out the white. It is really strange.
 
Me too. Balancing a 5600 source, the cam will only register 4400.
Odd. Have to dial in K manually to get it close. Even then it's not a true 5600.
 
YES! I so am, and I thought I must be doing something wrong or something. I even had the thought "well maybe with this camera, I have to use a grey card and not a white card". So obviously it's a bug, then. The C100 doesn't have the same problem, I take it? That needs to get fixed.

I've just been dialing it in by Kelvin. Granted, coming from the AF100, I can get it pretty good by Kelvin. That never would have worked out well with the AF100. But still, I'm looking at my footage right now from a shoot. And I'm going to have to fix the white balance on some of the shots.

So, what's the best place to report the bug, then?
 
I manually dial in white balance anyway. One of my biggest problems with Sony cams is they often don't let you manually dial in the Kelvin and if they do it's buried in a menu. What, you want me to bring a white balance card to every shoot as a one-man-band while in a hurry? Yeah, let's pause the wedding while I grab a guest to hold the white balance card in front of the camera. Or, Ms. Bride, can you please stand still while I zoom in on your dress to white balance? Yes? Oh, thank you. Wait, you're dress is off-white. No, I don't mean that as an insult to your dress. Stop hitting me!!!
 
Problem with dialling in comes when you have different light colour temperatures all competing with each other - this is when white balance to a card becomes the best option
 
Bad news. I was going to start a new thread on this next week when I am not shooting but I think I have gotten down to the source of the problem. It started when I was reading and responding to the recent thread "Which C100 Would You Buy Now?." Here's what happened and I will go into greater detail next week (maybe):

After a year of tweaks I had my C100 looking great but did not write down the settings. Then I fried the mother board and it came back looking like they do when they first come off the assembly line in Japan. ugh. So I have not been happy with the WB on my Caucasian interviews since. I realize that just because I have a daylight source such as my Diva Light, 1x1 LED Bi Color, a HMI, etc. it is not necessarily 5600K. I don't have a color temp meter but am thinking of buying one. I'm so old I can look at the mix of light, wet my finger and hold it up, and guess close, but what happened is:

I called Macie's in Boston. 90% of you all are so young you probably don't know about them, but in the Golden Age of camera work we all had to send our big $50K ENG units in to get "set up", something the dvxuser crowd doesn't do. We now tend to be DIY, either out of a feeling we know how to tweak or cheapness. So for 20+ years Roger Macie was the Go To tech and they would tweak your beta or varicam to look it's max best. In fact, NBC, if you wanted to shoot Dateline, you had to have your camera set to the "Macie Standard" or what we now call profiles, scene files, etc. but it was set up by high end technical pros using scopes, not just for your camera BUT THE LENS ON IT. In those days we used the same $12K lens ever day, perhaps we'd rent a wide angle now and then. But that's the rub, what this thread is complaining about is probably the lens coatings affecting WB. When I used to shoot film I had to only use "matched primes" or the color correction would be more difficult. The editor could not cut one shot against another unless the lenses were "matched". The point is every lens sees the color of the world in front of it differently.

So yesterday I called Macies and I asked the price of me sending in the C100 to get it "set up", max best, best DR, NR, etc. for the majority of conditions I work under, perhaps 25% talking heads. Maybe also send in my Small HD AC7OLED monitor to have it matched so I am WYSIWYG in the field, since I am finding it too complex to set up. Here's what I learned and I am rephrasing it so no one gets in trouble but Canon does not have in the 100 & 300 line, to keep the cost down, the ability to set different profiles as per each lens' coatings you are using, and that greatly affects color temp WB. Period. So, if I do send in for a set up I will probably include my Canon 70-200 f2.8 because that is my default interview lens to have a shallow DoF, room size permitting. I was informed that to optimize my WB it would be useless if I did not have the camera set up for that lens, just like the old days. Basically he said the camera has to be taught what is a true white (through the set up) and every time I put a different lens on it the camera will react differently when the WB is hit.

That's what I will do when I find an extra $500 laying around and a week I don't need the camera. Think of it like Abel having a setup service although Macie works on C300s and have never had a C100 because they basically service the broadcast crowd. Dicking around with all these scene profile recipes I have found on this board is dangerous in the hands of a non-engineer without scopes, and taking the particular lens into consideration. We're all guessing. The tweaking capability of a 100 or 300 by a normal DP is a recipe for disaster as I think we found with the WB issue.

In the old days the professional broadcast camera settings had two sets of menus: USER (guys like us) and ENGINEER. You knew to NEVER dick around with the Engineer menu. That was for Sony, Panasonic or Macie technicians.

Here's Macie's site:

http://www.macievideo.com

Somehow, since the DSLR wave, we have devolved into do-it-yourself tweakers. So in sum, I feel it is our screwed up menu settings, which is our fault, PLUS the problem of each lens seeing white differently. And we shouldn't blame the manufacturer.

Thoughts?
 
nedcam said:
Basically he said the camera has to be taught what is a true white (through the set up) and every time I put a different lens on it the camera will react differently when the WB is hit.
Click to expand...

Isn't that basically what you do when you custom WB to a white card? Your telling your camera 'this is white' and every other colour temp adjusts accordingly. I know your of the era of using warming and cooling cards to quickly adjust WB on the big Sony Betas. I still will pull those out occasionally with my FS7 if I want to warm or cool quickly rather than dig into the menu.
 
We use to WB on whichever crew member had the most faded blue jeans. Then my bud DP Doug Jensen of Boston invented Warm Cards which was brilliant. Now it's harder to use them because with still lenses we often can't fill the frame 100% as the Canon manual requests. But when we hit AB on a white card I don't think the C100 is compensating for the lens that is on it, that's the gist of what I got from talking with the technician.

I agree that we should be able to point the camera out of the box at a white (or grey) card and hit WB after doing the ABB but since I am not satisfied with that look, especially with a Caucasian under non-mixed light, there has to be something amiss with the way the lens is passing the spectrum onto the sensor, correct? And the only way to have that remedied is by a pro with scopes setting it up, right?

My only solution is to send it in for a pro to set it up right. Every time I add or subtract I am worse off. I've tried uploading Abel files, etc. When I get it back I will experiment with WB on all my lenses under the same condition and report back if the color temp is different, which I am 100% positive it will be.

P.S. I think there is a definite problem with WB when keying with my Kino Flo Diva Light, my theory is that because they are flourescents they don't hold the temp. I don't have that problem with my Lowel Rifa tungsten soft light. And as to my Bi Color LED, I don't trust that either. Until I buy a color temp meter I don't trust them, only an old fashion tungsten bulb. I do prefer to key with daylight since so many locations have background windows I can't kill, but maybe that is why I'm getting funky white folks? After all, on exteriors with no man made lights, the flesh tones are right n.
 
Last edited:
Canon is usually pretty good with dialed in WB. It is one thing I miss about C series cams.

I guess it all comes down to time spent getting it right in camera and time spent in post. Lately I've been fortunate to be doing my own post so I shoot Cine EI. which only has 3 preset WB 5500,4300,3500 and just warming in post. Its worked well so far. I find the presets on any cameras I've used don't look quiet right.

Doug is such a great source of knowledge.
 
Read carefully your post s I am looking for advise. But then I remember : when I got my c100 mk I 2 years ago, it had a slight blue shift. On this forum I found a lot of ideas to correct this, for examples with the cowpunk 's profiles. I was happy with it, and thanks to the forum for all that.

Then canon realized this, and with a firmware update, it was all gone. It was the. Recomand to use only the cinema pp, which was the.pn looking okay, and not the pp on this forum which was then looking odd.

Few days ago I sold my mk I to get a mk II (I had my reasons, here is not the place for this debate) but I have to admit I am a little afraid about the comment about the odd white balance on the mk II I read about on this forum.

But then I'm saying to myself: if there is a real problem, canon should fix it soon with firmware update as they did on the mk I, shouldn't they ?

thats what I'm hoping. But hey, I'll only have my MKII In a few days so I guess I'll judge by then, with scopes and all.

Ps: don't agree totally with you. Back in the days I always loved to tweak the engineer menu because it was the only one with real paint options. If done correctly, never had a big issue with it, but always tried to tend to s look I liked. You only have to test carefully BEFORE a shoot, and not while shooting.
 
For those of you who are complaining about WB. Have you done this:

1) Press Custom Picture on the side of the camera.
2) Unlock it
3) Scroll down to FINE.
4) Scroll down to WHITE BALANCE
5) There you will see R GAIN & B GAIN which you can now play with to dial out the green or whatever you don't like.

If you know what you're doing you can experiment with those two. That's how I got my C100 to look good in WB but lost my settings when I blew the mother board. So write down your settings once you get it sweet. However, as I mentioned in an above post, a highly qualified tech guru told me that you'd have to make a setting for each of your lenses, and I am not that good.
 
nedcam said:
since I am not satisfied with that look, especially with a Caucasian under non-mixed light
Click to expand...

I can only assume there is either something wrong with your camera or lighting setup if you are unhappy with its ability to accurately white balance skin. Having just finished a tour across the united states and Japan, wherein I shot a handful of minidocs on individuals from different areas. I can say confidently after reviewing the footage that the skin tones of each individual(Caucasian, South american, African and Mexican) came out absolutely stunning.
 
I haven't had any WB issues with my c100ii. I do recommend doing a black balance, anyone who hasn't. When I eventually did a BB, I was much happier with the colours. Before that the camera's choice of WB always seemed a little cool.
 
Hey Leo Grey,

What key light did you use on your travels? I am going to experiment and stop keying with my supposedly 5600K Diva Light bulbs or my LED 1x1. I think they drift. And I do BB at the beginning of the setup up but not every time I change ISO or power up the camera. If I had to BB every time I did those things I would sell it.
 
As Frame Farm Media said Canon is usually pretty good with dialed in WB. And even in mixed light, it works well with 5D3 I feel. In this point, I was thinking color science from canon is amazing.
So I just wondering why C100 mk2 doesn't have it especially if I think about cost. I hope firmware update will solve it.
Yes we can adjust in menu. But in my opinion, basically it's not my work. Canon have to do it for this cost of camera. It's very important work for camera company I think.
So I will send some email to Canon for request it. I hope someone who think WB from mk2 take some action to canon as well. Otherwise nothing gonna be changed.

I heard WB from C300mk2 is more better. of corse price range is totally different between C100Mk2. But C100 mk2 is mk2 but not mk1. So there is no reason to C100 mk1 has more better WB.
 
nedcam said:
What key light did you use on your travels?
Click to expand...

couple of westcott flexlites and custom modifiers(cutting edge quality that is worth every penny). Have little experience with Diva's(only the 4x4's which are wonderful but not portable). Are you bb'ing with the lens cap on?
 
Yes cap on during ABB. Today I keyed with my Lowel Rifa Light, pure 3200K, and the WB and flesh tones were right on. So...I believe my issues may be the flourescent bulbs of the Diva Light (very portable), and the !x! are not truly 5600K. Also, I like going back to the Rifa, although it's hard to control background spill, because I love that wrap around look on faces and I have never gotten such a soft light from LEDs, no matter what the diffusion.

But I will be sending my C100 into Macies anyway when I have the time and money to spare.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top