White balance during "magic hour"

diego1235467

diego1235467

Well-known member
Ok, so I've asked this question before, but I'm still having a lot of trouble with this.

How to you white balance during magic hour in order to preserve to orange glow? I've tried manual WB, and the image ends up blue. If I then adjust the color temp, it never looks right.

I tried both presets, and the image either looked blue and the sun wasn't orange enough, or the whole image was extremely red.

Color correction seems to make most of the image orange, but the sun never looks like it did when I tried to capture it.

On one instance, the sun was completely red, and I mean red. Using manual WB, presets, and color correction, it never looked right. It always ended up either too orange, and the image either too red or completely blue.

How to I WB during this time in order to preserve the original colors as accurate as possible?

*UPDATE

I just tried white balancing inside my house, and that doesn't work either. The lights are obviously slightly yellow, and white balancing to a piece of paper make the image blue, while wood cabinets look almost red. Increasing the color temp make the image look warmer, but nowhere near accurate, and the cabinets get even more red. The presets aren't accurate at all either.

I'm finding it damn near impossible to get accurate colors, and it's infuriatingly frustrating.
 
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Remember during magic hour the daylight color temperature drops really fast. In the past I have balanced through 1/4 blue and 1/2 blue gel on a white card. Experiment with this. It may solve your problem.
 
You can get gel swatch books for free from pretty much any place that sells gels. Just hold the proper color in front of the lens and white balance through that onto a white card.
 
I find my still camera gives more realistic colors (for the most part). Here are some comparisons of my stills (AWB), and DVX footage (MWB and 3.2k Preset).

Still with flash (AWB)
stillsheetflash.png


Still (AWB)
sheetstillawb.png


DVX (MWB)
sheetvideomwb.png


DVX (3.2k)
sheetvideo3.png


The sheet is way too pink in the DVX footage. The real color is much closer to the still. Increasing the color temp after MWB makes the pink even more red, or the color temp looks more orange or yellow than the actual light.

Still (AWB)
bathroomstillawb.png


DVX (MWB)
bathroomvideomwb.png


DVX (3.2k)
bathroomvideo3.png


Again, the wooden cupboard is too red in the 3.2k, and in the MWB, they turn red when I bump up the color temp.

This is really frustrating me :-/
 
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Go to Rosco's or Lee's website they will send you free sample books. Or if your in Denver anytime there is a Barbizon lighting office there, they will give you free sample books.
 
diego1235467 said:
Any other suggestions until I can get a sample book?
Click to expand...

I looked for such an offering, but I found references that the 'free' samples are no longer available, as too many people got the 'free' sample, but that generated no follow on business...

All that was on the Rosco site was sample 'books', which I presume to be a printed page with a color swatch on it... as opposed to an actual gel to shoot through.

I don't know what an assortment would cost, but that may be the way to go...
 
So will I have to put up with the crappy MWB and presets until I get some gels? I just don't understand how the camera pick up such inaccurate colors :-/
 
Hi - I don't think you need any gels - you're doing something wrong when white balancing - sorry to state the obvious.

If the lights are orange, blue, white - that's the whole point of telling the camera what white looks like.

Sorry if any of what I say is so obvious to you it doesn't apply - I'm just trying to cover the obvious points.

Is the white card white? For example - if it has an orange tint your WB will show blue., if it has a blue tint your wb will show orange.

Are you filling the screen with it?

(My favourite possibility) you have not exposed the shot correctly before taking a WB.

Also - are you exposing the card and taking wb under the same light conditions as shooting. ie if you have a mix of lights take the WB where the merge.

Sorry about this one - you are pressing the WB button at the front of the camera aren't you? Not just flipping the toggle switch off the presets?
 
HPXUser: Here goes.

The card is indeed white. I put it under the light in the room, fill the screen, check my exposure, and press the button. The lights are a little orange, so when I white balance it makes the picture look much cooler. This wouldn't be much of a problem since I can warm it up in camera or in post. The problem is that colors throughout the room look way off, i.e. the blanket looks too pink, the cabinets look too red, etc.

During the sunset it's the same thing. The light hitting the card is orange, therefore making the card look orange, so when I WB, everything ends up looking blue and I fail to capture the golden/ red look of the sun.

Update: I figured out what's going on with my indoor shots. The Chroma settings were messing with the colors, making the oranges look really red. What should my scene file settings be set to in order to have a "baseline" setting which won't interfere with the colors, etc.? I plan to change the look entirely in post. Here are my current settings.

DVX100a

Detail Level: -3
V. Detail: 0
Detail Coring: 0
Chroma Level: 0
Chroma Phase: 0
Color Temp: 0
Master Ped: -3
A. Iris Level: 0
Gamma: Cine Like V
Knee: Auto
Matrix: Cine Like
Skin Tone DTL: Off
V Detail Freq: Thin

1. Is there anything I should change with these setting in order to have the better looking footage (aside from color settings)?
2. What exactly do both Chroma settings do?
 
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diego1235467 said:
During the sunset it's the same thing. The light hitting the card is orange, therefore making the card look orange, so when I WB, everything ends up looking blue and I fail to capture the golden/ red look of the sun.
Click to expand...

Whatever color the card appears to the camera when you white balance, is what you are telling the camera should be white. So in this case as HPXUser stated, with the card appearing orange, the camera will add blue in order to capture what it now thinks should be white.
 
Hold the card in front of the camera (which is facing the sunset) and zoom in - that way the sunset itself isn't lighting the card - you will get a true representation of white from the card and the sunset behind will show it's true "redness". But in that situation to be honest you should probably use the outdoor preset.
 
I've tried the outdoor preset, but it just doesn't look accurate. That's the 5.6k one, right?

As for MWB, so I should basically WB in the shade? Because during the rest of the day, am I not supposed to have the light source hitting the card?
 
Set your WB to the Daylight preset. Set your manual exposure so that the sky area (NOT the sun) looks right. This should accurately reflect the actual colors of the sunset sky. I would do the color correction in post, where you can more easily control specific color ranges.
Cinelike V enhances contrast, which may not be what you really want for a sunset shot, where you need to preserve as much latitude as possible. The regular Cinelike setting may be better for you in this instance.

Hope this helps.

Ken
 
diego1235467 said:
I've tried the outdoor preset, but it just doesn't look accurate. That's the 5.6k one, right?

As for MWB, so I should basically WB in the shade? Because during the rest of the day, am I not supposed to have the light source hitting the card?
Click to expand...

Yes - the "rest" of the time you are trying to achieve WHITE from the available light (even if blue or orange) - so you light the card and then say to the camera - even if this looks blue/red to you treat this colour as white.

With the sunset one you want to preserve the redness - lighting the card with that redness and then setting a WB will tell the camera to try and compensate and make that red more blue.
 
I'll try this tonight and update.

As for my settings, do they all look good for normal shooting (not specific to sunsets)? I need to have it set so that I get the best possible image. Any changes I should make (besides chroma settings)?
 
I have always had fine results by just setting the camera to the daylight preset for sunsets.

Actually, I cannot remember the last time I manually white balanced. I always use 3.2k or 5.6k.
 
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