Manual White Balance + Post Correction

J

jangoh

Member
Hi,

I'm a newbie to videography but took the plunge to DVX100A Pal about a few months ago. I must say I love this camera a lot and is still trying to learn about it. This forum has taught me quite a bit of things which I'm most thankful....and now I'm posting this white balancing question to 'better' my understanding of this topic.

Now I know we're advised to always do a manual white balance when we encounter a different lighting situation....so that a white object would look like white under neutral lighting. This means that our objects would be recorded as what they would look like if they are under neutral lighting.

But I want my objects or scenes to be recorded as close as what I see it under the actual lighting and not under neutral lighting (isn't it for you all too ?) . So if I do a manual white balance everytime, all my scenes would look the same but they do not depict the actual situation. My question is, when you do a manual white balance, do you almost always need to do some colour correction in post ?

If answer is yes, I assume you do a manual white balance to get a reference point so that it's easier in post (i.e, you can apply same effect to all the clips?). Then why not just use the preset at all times ? then you'll also always having the same reference point....plus all the changes in the colour temperature (i.e, warm lighting, noon sun, dusk, florescent , etc) would also be recorded and not lost.

If the colour temperature is different from time to time, can't we just let it be ....instead of always white balancing and make the white look white when actually we do not really see the white as white. When we do a manual white balance for every different scenes, every scene becomes 'neutralized' and looks the same. How can we remember to recreate the actual scenes while in post ?

My ideal is to record on video what I saw (as close as possible) without need for post correction. Is it possible ?

Sorry if I'm not talking sense as I said I'm just a newbie. Appeciate any enlightenment. Thanks.:happy:
 
I think I know what you mean. Say you're shooting at magic hour. You wouldn't want to white balance then because it would cancel out that beautiful golden color. So how do you set your white balance? I'm curious about that as well.

Also, when shooting under colored gels, you need to make sure you white balance before you put the gels on. That's something a lot of people overlook.
 
My experience is not exactly like that of Bigmagic. :huh:
In a warmly lit room, the warm look is gone after manual white balance.
So I have to adjust the colour back in post, or adjust colout temp in camera.
 
Couple of different things you can try to get the look in camera:

1) Try the WB presets and see how those look.

2) To warm something up, WB on something cool, like a blue notebook or t-shirt (or you can buy cards). To cool a shot off, WB on something warm.

Use a calibrated monitor and experiment.
 
<Just my opinion but a manual white balance usually comes out looking like what I see?>

Indeed, you are right. Manual white balancing will bring you as close as you realistically can to your actual environment. The warm tint that incandescents let off isn't actually perceived by me, but it will be perceived by my camera if I do not white balance. That is why film cameras use to use Blue filters (an 80A to be exact) to offset the warm tint of indoor incandescents. Thankfully, we do not have to spend mega bucks for that (although I still have a blue filter for exaggerating outdoor blues).
 
<Indeed, you are right. Manual white balancing will bring you as close as you realistically can to your actual environment.>

Anybody to comment further ? If true, then i must be doing something wrong when manual wb.....but it's just getting a piece of white A4 paper under the light, zoom in, and press a button !

I just wish to know what the majority of people do...(typically for run & gun situation like weddings).

1. do a manual wb & usually need not adjust in post
2. do a manual wb and adjust in post
3. use preset & don't adjust in post
4. use preset & adjust in post
5. use custom made coloured paper (or what you call them) for wb
6. use ATW
7. Others ?

Anyway, thanks for all the replies ! Appreciate.
 
I make color adjustments in-camera. The DVX is so flexible, why not?

Some use WB presets when they shoot multi camera. They make a good reference point to allow easy matching later on. For example, they'll shoot with an indoor preset while moving around indoors, even if the lighting conditions change slightly.

-a
 
I almost never do a manual white balance. The preset tungsten is like shooting with tungsten balance film, and the preset daylight is like shooting with daylight balanced film. My key lights on my subject are almost always one or the other, so I'll use the presets to match the lighting on my subjects, and let the background go where it goes, color correcting what fixtures I need to to match the predominant source. On Siren, we only did a manual white balance once on the whole film, under some flourescent fixtures with a wicked green spike that I was unable to get to to correct with gels.

We played around with color correction for the movie in post, but found that with this technique, it wasn't really necessary. Of course....I did have Barry Green setting up the cameras for Siren, so that was a bit of an advantage.
 
Believe it or not, I have gotten my best white balances from a fast food napkin...seriously! Those things are stark white. Maybe it's not the same with a DVX, but on the XL2, the napkin=reality.
 
<The preset tungsten is like shooting with tungsten balance film, and the preset daylight is like shooting with daylight balanced film.>

Wow! You like to do stuff the expensive way. For indoor you would need to buy 80A for incandescents and FL-W for flourescents. Also a UV and FL-Day for outdoors to mask the blueish tint of the Sun's rays. All those filters on the 72mm lens could run about $100-$200. I am sorry, I am just cheap, that's all.
 
cellulararrest said:
I think I know what you mean. Say you're shooting at magic hour. You wouldn't want to white balance then because it would cancel out that beautiful golden color.
Click to expand...

You white balance with your white reference in the shadows.

In a situation like that, it's helpful to think of the sky as having two sources...the sun, and then the rest of the sky. The setting sun is giving a color temp of something extremely low of maybe 1500K...and then the rest of the sky will be giving off light of a much, much bluer nature. Maybe 9000K. Anything not receiving direct sunlight is probably having it's shadows filled in by ambient light from the rest of the sky.

White balance to that light source and then things lit directly by the sun will look much like they do to your eye.
 
What is the best way to white balance in a night club when shooting a live performance? The lighting is horrible, but decent enough to get the band on stage. My problem being is that I don't have the ability to get my white card up on stage with the band prior to their performance, so I won't be able to white balance in the correct lighting. Any suggestions?
 
Bands on stage usually have a bunch of colored lights as backlights,downlights and effects lights, and the bandmembers are keyed with spotlights, which are usually daylight (or close to it) sources. The best way in this instance is to add CTO to the spots, and go preset tungsten. However, mosy moving lights (varilights etc.) are daylight sources when white, so if you have a lot of moving lights, as well as daylight colored spots, use the daylight preset.
 
<Wow! You like to do stuff the expensive way. For indoor you would need to buy 80A for incandescents and FL-W for flourescents. Also a UV and FL-Day for outdoors to mask the blueish tint of the Sun's rays. All those filters on the 72mm lens could run about $100-$200. I am sorry, I am just cheap, that's all.>

You missed my point. When i'm shooting an actor, their key light is either a tungsten source, or a daylight source, so I'll use the presets for whichever one I'm using. If there are incandescent practicals in the background of my tungsten balance shot, and they go a little warm....that's a nice effect. When you white balance you're messing with the whole color spectrum, and that's almost never necessary.
 
<If there are incandescent practicals in the background of my tungsten balance shot, and they go a little warm....that's a nice effect. When you white balance you're messing with the whole color spectrum, and that's almost never necessary.>

Ok, glad it works for you...for people like me who have no budget and the only lighting is massive incandescents, white balance or 80a is the only way to go.
 
<Doubtful>

Gen, I didn't want to say anything but that sounded odd to me as well. I have never seen a spotlight in person that approached day color temps.
 
Lakmir0 said:
<Doubtful>

Gen, I didn't want to say anything but that sounded odd to me as well. I have never seen a spotlight in person that approached day color temps.
Click to expand...

I have, but depends on your definition of "spotlight". Traditional stage/theatrical (the type a person stands behind and operates) spotlights are generally tungsten, although there are xenon models ("Super Troupers") that are usually 5600k-ish.

What filmmaker58 was talking about was what the stage production business calls "automated luminaires"...Vari-Lites, etc. These are the moving, computer controlled lights you're used to seeing in stage and rocknroll shows. 90% of these lights use a discharge HID globe that's around 5600k...but for stage use often they're not as stringent about color temperature as film/video lights.

Much of the time when these light units are used as the main spotlight on band members, and they appear white, you're looking at the uncorrected bulb at 5600k. Most of these lights have built in 3200k filters available in the color wheel, or via the color mixing mechanism...but it kills some of the output and most LDs opt not to use it unless they have a real reason to do so (which would be to match 3200k conventional lighting previously installed on the stage).

So anyway, in any modern stage/rock and roll lighting rig, there's usually some 5600k sources to go around.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top