White balance & ND filter

rajour

rajour

Active member
Can someone tell why I can't white balance my new DVX on cloudy day 8am outside until I switch the ND to 1/8. It seems like I would need no filter under those conditions. Is there something wrong with my camera or is it me not understanding the technical aspects of the DVX yet? Please help. Thanks a lot.

Rajour

Oh I almost forgot...I did use the iris manually as well, I got it down as low as I could get before my screen turned black or iris closed.
So what I did was switched to ND 1/8, white balanced then switched back to ND off and turned the iris down bit.
 
Re: White balance & ND filter

Use the ND... that's what it's there for.

The DVX is an extremely light-sensitive camera. It maps out to 640 ASA. You've got to use the ND filter outside or you risk overexposure.
 
Re: White balance & ND filter

Thanks Barry, you really know your stuff...I pretty much save a lot of your stuff on to my hard drive for record keeping. Anyway, I didn't think it was that light outside for me to have to use the filter but thanks anyway. Keep up on providing the good info. Peace.

Ric
 
Re: White balance & ND filter

[quote author=rajour link=board=Events;num=1090757474;start=0#2 date=07/25/04 at 11:30:37]  Anyway, I didn't think it was that light outside for me to have to use the filter but thanks anyway.  

Ric[/quote]

Morning sun is right around 4400K which will blow out the sky pretty good. Consider getting an ND Grad to which will allow you to open up everything but the sky. Incidentally, if the camera is telling you USE ND 1/8th then by all means use it!
 
Re: White balance & ND filter

I find that on an overcast day you absolutely have to have the ND set at least on ND1/8. On a sunny day it's hard to get away without using ND1/64.
 
Re: White balance & ND filter

Barry made a thread earlier about diffraction and in order to avoid it you should put to use the neutral density option instead of closing up. So before you close it up as far as you can try nd because we all want good resolution.
Diffraction by the way is the condition when small amounts of light are not touching the focus plane due to a closed aperture. Again stated by Barry wide open aperture is also unhealthy so stay from that.
 
Re: White balance & ND filter

f/2.8 to f/11 are all perfectly good. You start losing resolution above f/2.8 and below f/11, although not a whole lot -- it's not too much to worry about. However, as you close in on f/22 (which is IRIS CLOSE by the way) you lose a *tremendous* amount of resolution. So I'd say stay away from f/16 so you can stay away from the scary edge...
 
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