C500: How to do proper white balance in camera (c500 II)

S

seanadl

Active member
Hi guys,

What is the best practise when it comes to manually white balancing on the C500 ii?

I have a color checker/gray card - I have the shot set-up, lights all on, interviewee in position. From what I understand, you should white balance in the conditions you are shooting in. Therefore I tend to have the person I'm shooting hold up the card where they are sitting/standing and I point the camera at it. However, what if the card is too far away for it to completely take up the whole frame? I usually can't zoom all the way in. Should I just whack the card right in front of the lens? If I do that, am I not then taking it out of the shooting conditions (i.e. away from the light source)?

Sorry for such a basic question.
 
If you are on sticks just walk up close enough with the camera for a WB. To avoid that issue I use one of those twist-fold reflectors if I'm using white for a balance. Something like these.

Chris Young

Twist fold flecky.jpg
 
i'll check those out. Is there any consensus on preference over balancing on a white card vs grey card?
 
seanadl said:
i'll check those out. Is there any consensus on preference over balancing on a white card vs grey card?
Click to expand...

Historically, we always used white(or as close to it as we could get), but there are times white will give you a bad balance(appears too cool/blue to the camera) in certain environments/lighting conditions and the image will be way too warm(VariCam’s had a bad habit of going yellow). Of course, we used this “trick” back in the day to slightly warm up an image, by using cards that were slightly blue(or “bright white” copy/printer paper), but you don’t always want that, especially when it goes too far.

But I carry a grey card and color checker chart in my truck, all the time.

Side note: I actually think I still have a set of Warm Cards in my truck. I believe it’s a neutral white card and maybe three or four shades of blue and my set may actually have the green cards, as well, that were used to take green out of the WB/image.
 
Ahhhh man...WARM CARDS! When I started reading this thread those immediately popped into my head. I initially purchased those back in my Panasonic 410 and HPX500 days. I think I still have mine as well in one my production crates.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top