Request White Balance advice

F

firehawk

Veteran
In this scenario, how would you guys do white balance?

Its a large wedding event building that has dim mixed lights inside. Three sides of it are all full windows.
The bride is close enough to the windows that the window facing side of her is bathed in blue sunlight. The other half of her is indoor light. So she is always starkly split, no matter how she turns.
There are two at least two cameras, and they are AVCHD, which seems to turn ugly in those scenarios even watching the video levels. And because there are mutiple cameras, they are in various changing positions relative to the subjects and windows, ie.. one camera may be facing the window side at times, another away from it or to the side. The people will be bathed in different color temperatures depending on which side you are facing. The cameras must match or else Post will be fun.

Add one more element to the mix. later, as the sunlight begins to fade, the color temperature changes and the DJ lights come on. Time to re-match! :) Then it's night.
 
When in mixed situations, my WB favors the stronger source. This doesn't always mean the source on the subject's face, but the strongest source in the frame.

It sounds like you should go with a daylight balance. Even if the subject is bathed in warm light at times, it is better for their skin to be warm and the windows look correct rather than their skin look white and the windows look like a smurf-splosion. Simply cool it off in post.

As afternoon/evening turns into night, change to a tungsten balance once the light from the windows fade. Don't bother changing to 6500k+ as the sun goes down - sometimes the world is supposed to look blue. This will also make your transition to tungsten a little easier.
 
Thank you, everyone.

Gelling the windows is unfortunately not an option for me since it's a low budget wedding video production (which I forgot to mention). Going B&W or sepia, etc. is a good idea except in cases where the client will want color.


My idea for next time was to white balance on a white card that was placed a ways into the room, still getting a healthy dose of blue sunlight, but also getting a little mixed indoor lighting, too. That way the white balance wouldn't be all outdoor, but be a little bit of a mix, so maybe not as extreme either way. Of course the deeper into the room they were or the closer to the window they got, the further to either extreme it would get, and be off. But as long as the people normally stayed only moderately close to the windows maybe it might be alright. Anyway, that was my idea. But I wanted to hear some suggestions from others before I said it. And now I have, and I thank you.

It makes sense to balance for the strongest source as suggested by Taylor Rudd.
 
93million miles away, the sun is still sooo much brighter than the indoor lighting, so the mixed source idea probably fails unless it really is as bright. Colour balance for a subject wearing white needs to be set for that person. So if the bride will be prominent in the shot, you need a white balance for that position - not somewhere else. Fine if the outside colour temperature stays constant, as in clear blue sky, but if there are lots of clouds, it can shift quite a bit. As long as both cameras are balanced to the same thing - that's the best you can do. Once the outside light has gone, then in room light, WB both cameras again. With the big windows, your biggest problem isn't WB anyway - it's exposure and deep shadows on the room side.
 
In really tricky situations like that I generally set my WB to 4500k to split the difference. Keeps the warm tones from looking too warm, and the cool tones from looking too blue.
 
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