White Balance Issue

L

LucidDream

Member
Hi, I have had my DVX for about a month and this morning I used it for the first time in the field (For Money) We were doing a shoot in a conference center at a hotel.

I went to white balance and every time I did, it came out looking kind of green, when I switched it to auto, the white balance looked fine. I ended up having to change the color temp in manual wb mode to make it look right. What gives?
 
Same here. I white balanced, at least I think I did, and my footage came out very warm, sort of on the orange side.
 
Hi,

it seems like we cannot get pure white balance just using a white background on the DVX?

Like in photography, the white balance is taken using a 18% grey card.
I'm not sure about video...

I have seen people using counter tints to correct the white balance, like Blue/ Green cards..

So anyone wants to verify this?
 
white balancing on blue will make your scene look warmer... and actually nicer. they are called "warm cards" if you buy them, and they usually have 3 shades of blue.

Why can't you white balance on a white background? I thought people use white cards for white balance, and I read somewhere that grey cards are something about checking exposure? Could someone clarify that?

I whitebalance fine with a white background or white paper. Then the shaded blues are my faves because of the nice warm images it produces. You can get the same warm effect by setting your color temp to a warmer tone.

Take care,

JM
 
Well, getting a nice warm tint for a dramatic piece is great if that is what you want, but spending $2,500 on a camera and getting green images when I do a manual wb for a commercial shoot when all cameras have to match and the fact that my friends chepo pd170 had no issues in the same room, under the same lighting conditions, in infuriating! :)

Also I have been a network television director for nearly 8 years, in the studio, we use a plain old white card to white balance, I don't see why it would be any different in this case.
 
I whitebalance with a white card fine.

Did you check that your scene file settings is not set in a different value such as for color tones, etc? And that you are not on a preset (like flourescent preset, etc)
 
When shooting multi-cam situations it is often suggested to use factory preset 5600 or 3200 to get the cameras to "match". Setting a manual white balance can give you a better color - but it won't help you much if your cameras look different.

Flourescent (sp?) lights can give a green and unflattering tint. In this case you probably should do a manual wb. Just make sure the all camera's are balanced to the same white card in the same place.

I've used the dvx for years and setting the white balance really shouldn't be a challenge. Don't be afraid to adjust the color temp (in menu) if that helps you achieve the color you like. I would recommend not taking it too far though. You can also always color correct in edit to warm things up or cool them a bit. Good luck.
 
One of the problems could be that your white background isn't pure white (or a pure gray).

I'm actually a photographer and just getting into video, but the principles (I believe) are the same. An 18% gray card is used for exposure settings, as 18% gray was determined to be an average scene, and camera meters use this value to determine proper exposure. However, they can also be used to set white balance since they are made to be a pure shade of gray. The camera will pick up any subtle tints that may be imperceptible to our eyes, so there are specially made white cards specifically for white balancing. Not only will this give a better white balance, but using it for each shot/camera will give much more uniform results.
 
I set scene file one to factory settings just to be sure that I had not changed anything, also keep in mind that my friends pd170 looked fine and he was wb on the same white card I was so it was not the lighting. Also, I have been white balancing much more complex cameras than the dvx for years and never had this particular problem so I don't think I am being a camera tard...


On the other hand, it has been known to happen :)
 
Most of my wb problems over the years have been the result of either:

1. white surfaces that were not truly white
2. overexposure while white balancing

When possible I only white balance to a DCS Labs white card (or warm card), fully filling the screen and exposed at 70%. A "true" 18% grey card (not some el-cheapo) should work identically well. I don't personally like the Warmcards brand because they are not as well-calibrated as the DSC Labs product.

The DVX will look different than the PD170, depending on the scene files, because of the built-in differences in the gamma and color matrices between different brands. I would be much more surprised to learn that the cameras matched than that they didn't, even with a manual white balance. Did you A-B the camera outputs on a calibrated external field monitor or compare shots later in the edit bay? If you shoot a color chart and view that in your edit software with the scopes, you could learn a lot about what's going on between the cameras and between manual, preset, and auto white balance settings.

I don't shoot scene file one, but I've used scene file five a lot, and that scene file really emphasizes saturated reds, even when manually white balanced. It's built in to the scene file as part of its "cinema gamma". Is it possible that scene file 1 has a green emphasis, especially under some funky fluorescent lighting and a non-standard white card? I would say it is at least possible.
 
Green makes me think Fluorescent lighting was in the room.... hmmmm did you say conference room at the hotel?
 
The stock scene file #2 comes from panasonic to work under flo lighting. Of course you can edit any scene file to suit.
 
I dont think that it was a camera problem or lighting issue.

Check your menus and see what the settings are in the auto sw menu. That can override your WB settings at times. Make sure that auto wb is off!

Also check and see how you have your WB switch programed. There are many different configurations for the switch so make sure yours isn't set in some crazy way.

I honestly think that your menu settings have gotten off somehow and you didn't catch it.
 
Thanks everybody for the replies. I reset the camera via the factory reset button under the view screen, everything seems fine to me now, I am so familiar with a studio environment where nothing really changes that much (Camera Wise).

This is a whole new ball game.
 
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