White Balance on the F35

Y

yachacha

Well-known member
On a recent project, I was shooting under fluorescent lights in an office building, motion sensor lights couldn't be turned off. We were using 3200k Kino Flo's with blue gel, If I white balanced the camera on a gray card it looked surprisingly good. It was far off from 3200k, but once the camera made the adjustment, the color begin to look very accurate in the monitor, no hue, it looked how it looked to our eyes.

Halfway through the day I started to get a NG timeout error on the auto white balance. We were moving back and forth between the same rooms so the lighting hadn't changed. I originally thought the error came because the scene was too low light, and I would bring up the light levels and the WB would hold. I know it is suggested that if you get this error you should try to start at 5600 on to begin the white balance. The lighting was definitely closer to 3200k. The thing is that it seemed to become more frequent the longer we were shooting through out the day, until finally in the afternoon it would not auto WB even though we tried bringing the light way up, using a white card or starting at 5600.

I believe the lighting was just too far off 3200, or just at that edge where the camera will auto adjust to. Every time I pressed WB, the camera would correct to looking good under the lighting conditions, then it would flash the error and jump back.

Or it had to do with heat, it seemed to happen both times in the afternoon after a full morning running the camera. I try to switch the fan to MAX when I am not shooting but that usually gets overlooked.

Anyone have more insight onto the F35 WB process and what might cause it to give that error. What was strange to me was we had gotten good color temp settings in the same setup, then later in the day he camera wouldn't adjust to it.

Is there any manual way to adjust the color temp? I know there isn't a menu with a number like 3200 k you can just dial up or down, but on one of the matrix or shading pages, is there a setting that can adjust this.
 
Like I said, it was a weird mix of lights. The small light over the lens was to light up his face like a computer screen.
IMG_0135.jpg
IMG_0124.jpg
IMG_0126.jpg
IMG_0130.jpg
 
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I am sure I'm telling you how to suck eggs here, but you sure you did the grey balance properly - ie. filled the screen with enough card, got the exposure on the card right?

There is a hell of a lot of different greys in those pictures and I am sure a camera could easily get a bit confused.

Personally, and this is just me, I go by the sainted rule of treating the F35 like a film camera. I choose either tungsten or daylight, I will *not* custom WB, but shooting a grey card and then grading afterwards is what you'd need to do.

Also, it might just be the camera these pics were taken on, but the angle at the top shows lights which look much closer to tungsten and the ones in the bottom pics look much closer to daylight.

My F900 used to have a 4300K setting on its wheel, which if I still had it would probably be what I'd go for in here. I can't recall if you can manually enter a number into the F35 (a la F3) but if you could I would have just done that.

Florry lights usually have more green/magenta issues than colour temp anyway
 
-- Error Message, Custom Mode --
F35 manual, p43

"the error message “AWB: NG” will be displayed on the viewfinder screen for approximately three seconds. If this error message is displayed, try white balance adjustment again. If the subject has a higher color temperature, use an optical filter or set 5600K to ON, then try white balance adjustment again. If the error message continues to be displayed after several attempts, the camera requires internal inspection.


If the automatic white balance adjustment is performed on a system where the Select FPS function (see page 62) is available, set a value that is greater than half the maximum FPS value as the FPS value. If you do not, the error message “AWB: LOW FPS” will be displayed, and automatic white balance adjustment will not be available. Example: With S23.98PsF, as the maximum FPS value is 24 FPS, set it to 13 FPS or greater before the automatic white balance adjustment is to be performed. Although the maximum FPS value is 50 FPS with S59.94PsF, set it to 31 FPS or greater."


-- WB Temperature Presets, Custom Mode --
Setting; F35 manual, p43
"Select the memory A or B, using the subdisplay or the remote control unit (default: preset memory). Perform automatic white balance adjustment."


Choosing; F35 manual, p49
"White balance memory Displays the currently selected white balance memory.
W:A: Memory A
W:B: Memory B
W:P: Preset memory
you can change the setting using the subdisplay or from a remote control unit."
 
Thank you for the detailed response. Your are probably right, we were just messing around with weird color temps. I agree that shooting the card and correcting in post would of been an easy time saving fix and 3200 is a good reference to start with JM, just like the film days.

those photos were taken with my iPhone but it shows the lighting setups a little bit better than the screen grabs.
 
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No problem, HTH

For what it is worth, if I was just moving between two rooms with the same lighting, I wouldn't even think of re-balancing a custom WB - otherwise you are just creating potentially masses of work for your colourist...
 
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