Can't seem to figure out white balance!

T

thedigitalcurrent

Active member
Not sure what I am doing wrong here. I shot a gray card at a wedding, lined it right in the middle of the vector scope in fcpx, and my image still looks off. What am I doing wrong? I think the final image looks way to yellow...

EDIT: I just remembered this was shot in Panasonic V-Log L so maybe vlog just sucks.....? I have heard it has sort of a pinkish hue. Still looks yellow too tho....

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er, the area of constant hue has to fill the frame. the camera has no way of detecting which bit of the picture it's supposed to use as a reference. You either need to zoom to fill the frame, or move the camera closer.

All my cameras use white cards. Grey serves the same purposes, but tends to not cause the camera to change aperture, which white does - white is brighter, so the camera closes the iris to compensate. The issue I've found a few times is that you can easily see white is white, but grey is far harder to assess by eye.

I've usually got a bit of A3 white card which is a quick room in, and defocus to make sure creases or longer marks don't spoil the result. Then a prod of the button and it's done. it MUST fill the frame. Of course, you seem to have shot without white balance being set and are attempting to essential fix it in the edit. Far better to sort it before you shoot. your method of going into the frame afterwards and then colour correcting is a reactive process. The daylight introduces shifts, but not necessarily constant ones, and maybe even the grey card is being lit from multiple sources - which one is right?

I've always thought results are better doing it traditionally and not trying to repair it electronically afterwards.

In some of those shots you have a white wedding dress - di you try using that?
 
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A scene shot at sunset will appear cold if you grey card it

Technically correct maybe but not right to the eye.

Use feel - take out a bit f blue and add a little red after you have got the greycard grey?
 
Skin tones look a little magenta but not all that far off.

Since you have a grey card in the clip ... why not use it in post. Use the white balance dropper to sample the
card and see if that changes your temp and offset.

I routinely set my balance with an Expodisk ... filter that I hold over the end of the lens in the light I am filming.
But I also capture a Grey card so that I can correct or check in post ... normally the grey card is off by one point
or two.

And it does come down to feel ... occasionally I will re render a file if when I view the finished clips it looks off.
 
Hate to tell anyone to spend money but the fancy version of this is the X-rite card (or similar) that has white on one side and all the colors on the other. I haven't done it myself but using one of these, you shoot the color side under the same lighting conditions as you're shooting in and there should be a utility in your NLE to correct the color in your image according to the card. So instead of just an overall white balance adjustment, it tweaks individual colors by different amounts.
 
I was kind suggesting that the white card approach in the camera is the best way to start. The article on colour correction is a kind of repair job, and I've done the same thing myself, but also had shifts like you mention - my fault for confusing the issue. Apologies. I'm sure that going on to a small area of grey can work, but it does rely on the grey being neutral, and I wonder if the colour process used to create the grey is the issue. Even white printer paper seems to often be off-white, compared to another, so are you certain the grey card is calibrated, and hasn't been printed on a CMY printer where one of the colours has faded more than the other?

Of course it could be like me - I seem totally useless with adjusting colour by using rotating wheels. Just never been good at it.
 
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