Shooting at night - White Balance

R

rickshawrider

Carbonite Member
Hi

80% of the footage I shoot is at night, on busy city streets lit by tungsten lamps.

I have set my WB settings to AWB - can someone tell me if I'm going to have continuity problems with this setting? I have reviewed footage but it seems OK - Is there a better setting to use when shooting at night in low light conditions?

Another question - red seems to reproduce poorly. Shooting a vividly red neon sign produces a rather bland orange colour. Any advice?

Cheers
 
..dont use AWB unless you dont want a constant color for any given light or setting. you need to pick the most prominant color ..whether thats a mixture of differnt lights or whatever, and manually balance to it if you want consistant colors.

the issue with AWB is that you could be under one light and it would look white, but when you move the cmaera a litte another light may be more prominant and he light your under would go red or green or whatever.. so then the guy under that light will look green or whatever.. you want whatever color the light is from one angle to be the same color it is from another angle.. even if its not the strongest or most prominant light in both angles. that way when you go into color correction.. or if you dont at all.. either way youll have consistant lighting that inst changing the color of a scene based on which angle -distance- or composition or framing you shoot it at .

all the lights wont look white.. but overall the section of the scene that you took an ambient white balance to should look pretty white. .. if your shooting med or CU to ecu's you should be fine.. the wider you go the more light color range youll have to contend with.


but if that doesnt matter to you.. well then go for AWB.
 
I want the tungsten orange glow from the streets. AWB sounds like a pain in the arse - I need as constant a colour scheme as I can get. Should I WB on a pale white-blue board? Can I WB effectively using ambient light?

one important question - is it possible to somehow SAVE wb settings so when I power on again I don't have to re-wb?

thanks
 
the camera will save up to 2 manual white balance settings. one under the A and one under the B setting on the white balance switch .. they will remain after it is shut off and turned back on.

white balance on something that is white otherwise you will not be white balanced.. and the colors will be off. if its a mixure of light then the lights will stil have some color to them the closer to the scource you get from the point where you did a mixed temp balance. it may not be the exact color you want, but either you shift the colors of your whole scene to get the lights looking colored. or you balance the scene and let the lights fall where they may. the subjects are more important than the street light colors so id go for having them balance properly so you can correct them accordingly...again letting the street lights just fall in line unless you wanted to mask or seperate somehow and correct them seperately.
.. you can balance with ambiant light as long as there is enough of it for thr camera to effectively whit balance.. you need a certain amount of light before it can get a proper reading and adjust itself accordingly.. you can strengthen the light by zooming out and using a larger white board to balance on, or you can move closer to the strongest scource to get more light.. you can also decrese your shutter speed to 1/24 to get more light..or i think you can also switch into 60i to get more light sensitivity ..then switch back.
 
3200 ºK preset

3200 ºK preset

I am shooting a night doc and I always shoot in 3200 ºK preset. This help me because i have contiunity in all the shoots.

good luck.

Image6.jpg
 
Rick,

If you want your reds to look red, you should set your white balance to daylight (~6500K). The warmer you set your WB (i.e. lower color temperature), the more the reds will shift towards orange. You've been setting your WB to the tungsten lights (~3200K), so that's why your reds shift to orange.

Also, check your iris. If the picture is over exposed, then the reds will appear pale. But if you want to expose for skin tone and not for the neon sign, then you'll just have to live with a washed out neon sign.
 
HorseFilms said:
Damn, Barry. How many copies of that book did you sell?:huh:
Click to expand...
Oh, not that many. Although, it finally cracked the Amazon top 10 list!*

*err... well... top 10,000 that is. Last I checked it was the #8,573 best-selling DVD on Amazon's DVD sales charts.

Hey, it's a start! ;)
 
Seriously, congratulations on your success, Barry. I learned a lot from your book/DVD and I'm really looking forward to your lighting DVDs.
 
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