Warmcards Complete 2.0

E

EIREHotspur

Well-known member
Stocking up on some accessories for my EX3 and this is next on my hitlist.

Anyone used these.....I suppose the only issue is quality of the cards themselves. thought they would be a handy addition.
 
It sounds like you are referring to Vortex Media's Warm Cards 2.0

I bought them straight away with my EX3 and they have performed as advertised. From personal use they are very effective in setting white balance. A real time saver, so that one does not have to fiddle with white balance in post. Subsequent discussions on the DVInfo EX forum have confirmed that these cards are of the best quality using state-of-the-art blue channel compensation and printing techniques. So they are a no brainer, cheers!
 
Good for you Cheez but I want something thats goin to last so was glad to see Barry's review.

I don't mind paying for something like this because it is a once off as long as you take care of them.
 
whatever floats ur boat... mine have lasted quite a while. they are printed on cardstock. best thing is i don't stress about them. if i lose em i print more...
 
I don't stress over my Vortex Warm Cards. I've had them for 5 of 6 years. I just carry the 1/2 warm loose since I use it the most and it's still in great condition.

Now that I have the 1/4 warm upgrade I'll carry that one always.
 
The cards are very durable, they're tossed in my gear bag unprotected (I use them too often to get them out of the carrying pouch each time) and I have no worries they'll last for many years. I'm finding I use the 1/4 and 1/2 warm cards most frequently (as well as the white). I like warmth, but the 1 and 2 usually make things look too red for my taste. I'm still fairly new to them but I feel neked without 'em.
 
Depends on your approach. If you run and gun and don't need the the best footage quality they're fine. They are a quick and dirty tool just like auto white balance is.

If you want the best image quality, you'd manual white balance the camera to a test chart, not a white card, if your camera allows it. The EX3 does. There is innate error in using any white card. A warm card is like trying to make a right with two wrongs.

But to reemphasize, it depends on the situation.
 
Why then don't they market these Test Chart's alongside if they do a better job?

Can you point me to some good ones you have used?
 
Several reasons: in ENG to manual white balance or chip a camera does not apply when your scene and light source can be changing every minute.

Auto White, that is, pressing the white balance switch on your camera attempts to yield an an approximation of neutral colors. This approximation will contain some errors. A warm card will pronounce these errors. Of course it is hard to see by eye until you have an opportunity to compare to the camera properly calibrated. A DIT on set with a capable camera, by default, will never balance a camera by pressing the white balance switch.

To reiterate, the approach taken depends on the situation, the production format.

Also keep in mind a camera must allow manual control over blacks, whites, black gamma, white gamma and knee to be manually adjusted by use of a test chart. Manual calibration is not done with the flick of a switch. It is a learned skill vs. the need to quickly get passable pictures by auto white balancing.

To answer your question, DSC labs makes good test charts. If I was going to white balance it wouldn't be with anything but a DSC.


Cheers
 
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I see what your saying.....organized shoots for say films or documentries would enable planned time to correct settings with cards but shooting weddings etc where you need quick changes.....I think I'd stick to doing it through the Picture Profiles manually judging by the eye and fixing in Post if need be.

Will check out them cards.
 
I use warm cards and love them.

One thing not mentioned so far in this thread is that they are matte laminated. Meaning if you spill something on the cards, get a smudge or put them completely underwater...they will survive. Try that with card stock!

I have the whole vortex set and love them. I often will use the Picture Profile color temperature/ "White" setting but I find using the warm cards (I usually use the plain white side because that's how I have my picture profile setup) yields better results MOST of the time.

Sometimes the camera can get confused in mixed lighting and that's when I use presets. Or in a run and gun situation where there really isn't anytime I have my usual settings:

2200K - Dimmed indoor lighting
3200K - Bright indoor incandescent lighting
5600K - Outdoor sunny
6300K - Outdoor overcast
8000-9000K - Outdoor shade

I've come to these numbers after years of working with RAW digital still files. This is usually what I use when on shoots but if there is time I will use the warm cards. Some of the best $100 I've ever spent.
 
Just make a swatch 3" x 3" of 1/8 and 1/4 CTB and Green and CTO and just cover the lens when you white Balance. Easy. Or just get a full small swatch of gels from a dealer.
 
This is going to be really geeky:

I went through some training a while back. Thank you Christina Fox, it was a brilliant couple of days for us.

We did a little experiment at the time: we shot some stuff white set off 'something in the environment', off 'a bit of paper we had on the clipboard', some white walls, and a DSC 'warm whites' card set - the neutral white.

I can absolutely, categorically and emphatically state that the DSC Labs Neutral White card produced the best results. By far. Bar none. I was so impressed, I bought a set.

I lost it a while back, mourned its loss. I got the Vortex Media cards.

They're tough, I love the neck mounted lanyard version, they work well and as advertised. Unlike the DSC Labs collection, I've used the 'cool' end of the Vortex cards. If I am really honest, I miss the DSC version's pure white, though. I do feel their 'pure' white is better. At the moment.

It may be possible, in theory, to do all this in Picture Profiles, but we're talking crazy circumstances here. Using the pre-set white balance is okay, but by white-setting off a known card, you're getting subtlety in areas of shadow that you just don't get any other way.
 
Matt,

Are your referring to the DSC CamWhite here: http://dsclabs.com/cambook.htm ? DSC definitely makes THE industry standard stuff. But my experience with Vortex Media's warm cards have been very positive. I shoot pretty much all my interviews with Warm 1/2 on my EX1. If I'm shooting Panasonic I'll use the white side of the cards but with Sony I am pretty much balancing to Warm 1/2 95% of the time. I rarely if ever have to bump saturation in post which retains overall video quality.
 
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