White Balance Setting at School Play

[kmcgrath]

I will be taping my daughter's school play, and I'm not sure about setting WB on my DVX. My instinct is to use the default tungsten setting and hope for the best. Usually I do a manual WB, but the lighting is likely to change so much, I'm not so sure. Or, I could keep it at the auto white balance setting. Any advice??

 

[Ralph Oshiro]

A manual white balance to the primary "white" light on stage would be most "accurate" (either to a Tungsten followspot, or to the dominant stage "base" light). But if you don't want to worry if you picked the "right" light to white balance on, just lock it in at your 3200K preset and forget it. The stage lights may be a bit warm, but that just makes your daughter look a little warmer and cuter! The only exception would be if your school has expensive 5600K followspots, which is unlikely. These would look "bluish" even to your naked eye--if they have these, then lock it in to your 5600K preset.

 

[kmcgrath]

A manual white balance to the primary "white" light on stage would be most "accurate" (either to a Tungsten followspot, or to the dominant stage "base" light). But if you don't want to worry if you picked the "right" light to white balance on, just lock it in at your 3200K preset and forget it. The stage lights may be a bit warm, but that just makes your daughter look a little warmer and cuter! The only exception would be if your school has expensive 5600K followspots, which is unlikely. These would look "bluish" even to your naked eye--if they have these, then lock it in to your 5600K preset.

Thanks NBC Shooter, this is extremely helpful info for me. I seriously doubt that they have the expensive 5600K lights, so I will go with the tungsten wb preset and set it and forget it. Thanks again.