How 'bout a Scene File Thread?

[Barry_Green]

Yes. Barry's book mentioins not to use WB presets.

The recommendation against the white balance presets is because the COLOR TEMP function will not work if you use a preset white balance. It only functions in auto or manual white balance, not presets. So if you're trying to replicate the same look I got with the scene files, it requires you to use manual white balance (or auto if you're a masochist).

And for his scene files he says to use Auto Iris if I am not mistaken. I don't quite understand the reason for the latter, though.

Same reason but different setting: the scene files take advantage of the A.Iris menu setting. It only functions if you let the autoiris system set the exposure. Obviously you could then switch to manual and "touch up" the exposure if desired, but the idea was to use the autoiris and A.Iris level to bias the exposure one way or the other to achieve each scene file's distinctive look.

 

[DavidBeier]

One thing that scene files neglect is color temperature / white balance. You can obviously still get results very different from what is shown in David's screen grabs if your WB is off.

Maybe Panasonic should consider adding WB to the scene files, allowing a color temperature or DEFAULT to be selected.

Well, if you look at my things I actually do have color temp settings. In general, I just go ahead and white balance with a plain white card (or white wall if I don't have a card) and do my alterations using the COLOR TEMP option in the scene file settings. You can push it pretty damn far one way or the other and it's better to start with a clean white and then mess with it in the settings than try to do otherwise IMO.

 

[Barry_Green]

I just go ahead and white balance with a plain white card (or white wall if I don't have a card) and do my alterations using the COLOR TEMP option in the scene file settings. You can push it pretty damn far one way or the other and it's better to start with a clean white and then mess with it in the settings than try to do otherwise IMO.

That's what you have to do. There's no way to predict the light conditions any particular shot will be conducted under; having a white balance setting in the scene file makes little practical sense. In daylight, for example, the prevailing color temperature can range from about 2700K on up to about 10,000K! You have to conduct a proper white balance in order to have a common reference point to go forward from.

 

[THoff]

The option of having the WB included in the scene file would be valuable for controlled lighting conditions so that you can recall settings if you need to reshoot something.

 

[Bryy]

Any documentary settings anyone knows of?

 

[Phil Maker]

I think there are certain people who are interested in making money by selling favorite scene settings or "looks", so they probably wouldn't be too thrilled about having a sticky on the subject where you could access the info for free.