White Balancing for Video

iamlance

iamlance

Well-known member
Let me begin by saying I understand the importance of white balancing and do it in every shot where the lighting changes. My question is how to do it correctly. What I've been doing is positioning a white/grey card close enough to the camera that it fills up the screen. However, the light shining on the scene is not always the same a couple inches away from the camera as it is 6 feet from the camera.

Photographers have it easy, as they can simply do a test shot with it barely in the shot, and later use an eyedropper tool to correct the white balance in post.

How to filmmakers set the white balance this precisely? Does having the card a couple inches from the camera work well enough? I use a Canon t3i.
 
The reason I'm asking is because I don't know how well a small card will work. The sizes for sale on Amazon are as small as a credit card, 3x5in, or 8x10in on average.
 
Does T3i have a 'Custom WB' setting? If yes, then do this;

You don't need to buy anything. Use a piece of white paper or a white towel. Place it so it is lit by the key-light, move your camera/zoom-in to fill the frame with the white paper, expose it to middle grey, take a photo, set the photo for use as 'custom white balance' and change white balance setting to 'custom'.
 
For the Custom WB setting, Sony only requires the grey card to fill the centre mark in the EVF, but Canon requires that you fill the entire image with a grey card. Very inconvenient, that's why I used a white cap instead back in my T2i days. Not as accurate, but good enough in most cases.
 
When trying to work quickly but still wanting to have a reference, I shoot a DSC Labs OneShot chart at the head of each scene so I can quickly match shots in post.
 
If you need a full-frame white balance and the light is different at your (distant) subject than it is at the lens? I just walk the camera over to the subject.

I don't get in a lot of situations where a preset won't work though - outdoors the shade/sun/clouds presets tend to work fine in most cases, indoors I'll either be daylight with gels to correct to clean 5500k or tungsten. If I'm the editor/director, I'll adjust WB for the look I want, not dead accuracy (yeah, you can grade DSLR footage but I try to get in the ballpark I want, say if the edit or scene is going to be cool or warm, etc). I've used the fluorescent setting with Canon cameras unusually often, in many cases it gets rid of the "canon orange" on skin tones.

Light's changing a lot (sunrise/sunset) then I'm running up to the subject and manually balancing if the light's different on them - but usually outdoors the light on the subject is the same as at-camera. Using a big piece of white board can make it easier, but do some tests... foamcore yellows over time for instance, and many white papers have blue in them for brilliance (which I sometimes like as it warms up the WB a bit). Interviews I'll often WB with a 1/8 or 1/4 CTB over the lens, warming and repeatable all day (for Nikon anyway, Canon usually goes too orange).
 
Include a shot of the grey card in all of your footage. Whether you balance it correctly or not, the editor having it in there will use it as a reference and correct any white balance problems.

Use grey, white is too reflective and affects the camera's white balance reading.

You don't need to fill the whole screen. Just a small part of it. The editor can crop everything else, leaving only the grey card in the shot, and color correct accordingly.

Getting a correct white balance in the field is great. Getting a reference for the editor is a must.
 
lniles said:
Include a shot of the grey card in all of your footage. Whether you balance it correctly or not, the editor having it in there will use it as a reference and correct any white balance problems.

Use grey, white is too reflective and affects the camera's white balance reading.

You don't need to fill the whole screen. Just a small part of it. The editor can crop everything else, leaving only the grey card in the shot, and color correct accordingly.

Getting a correct white balance in the field is great. Getting a reference for the editor is a must.
Click to expand...

Just don't rely too much on post correction unless you're capturing very robust footage!
 
Yeah, the t3i has the custom white balance option. I also have Magic Lantern on it, so customization is even easier. I just don't want to move the camera around to white balance. I could always through a zoom lens on the camera and do it that way. That's an idea. The DSC Labs Oneshot chart is way out of my budget. We don't color balance our films precisely enough for anything of that caliber.

I would rather have it correct on set, but could do it "good enough" and fix it in post. I've never added a reference shot of a white balance card before. I could try that. I've only done the "take a picture and use it as a custom white balance" option, and then color corrected any shot differences.
 
I shot a charity concert for free this week (Emmylou Harris, damn it she nailed it for a 67 yr. old gal!). One rental fell through, shot it with a AC-130, a Nikon D7100 and a Canon T2i. My edit is not perfectly matched but nothing jarring, only you guys would notice. So post is doable with decent 420 footage (though white balance is another story in most correction cases. And I did grab a chart a while back and made a profile for the Panny that's pretty close to the Nikon at least....)

I'd think swapping lenses would be more hassle than moving the camera (but I usually have an FF and matte box, but the whole rig pops off the tripod or crane easy enough). I've often grabbed a small scrim jim, that's about 3' square, and balanced from that in a pinch.

I believe Resolve has a one-touch color matching if you shoot a standard color chart, and resolve is free (but there's a learning curve).
 
My setup is fairly simple: no rig, matte box, or gasp, even a follow focus, yet; just a camera on a tripod or crane. So popping it off is fairly easy. Does a scrim jim act as a good makeshift white balance card?
I did not know that Resolve had that capability! I might have to look into getting a cheaper standard color chart then.

I may just be lazy, with not wanting to move the tripod and everything to get closer. I guess I'll have to get over that.

However, I still am needing a white balance card. Do you prefer a 2" x 3", 4" x 6", or 8" x 12". Tiny, Small, or Large.
 
White balance was so vital when I was starting out, I've never paid any attention to people using large format camera. Having to use grey cards moving the camera towards the subject to fill the frame? Have the manufacturers lost the plot? It doesn't take much to add a button to do an electronic zoom to a small part of the frame and adjust the gain to expose a white card! Never occurred to me you dslr/large sensor people had so much grief from such a basic process. Thank god I've never moved to these formats. White balance on video camera is so simple. Zoom, de focus, prod button, zoom out, refocus shoot. No white card? Use a shirt, or piece of A4 printer paper. The idea of disconnecting the camera, moving it towards the subject and finding a grey card because the camera can't cope with white is just amusing, turning a ten second process you can repeat simply, into a real chore!
 
paulears said:
White balance on video camera is so simple. Zoom, de focus, prod button, zoom out, refocus shoot.
Click to expand...

You're doing it slightly wrong Paul. You should really be underexposing the white reference to mid-gray - or use a gray card. No need to defocus either.
 
paulears said:
White balance was so vital when I was starting out, I've never paid any attention to people using large format camera. Having to use grey cards moving the camera towards the subject to fill the frame? Have the manufacturers lost the plot? It doesn't take much to add a button to do an electronic zoom to a small part of the frame and adjust the gain to expose a white card! Never occurred to me you dslr/large sensor people had so much grief from such a basic process. Thank god I've never moved to these formats. White balance on video camera is so simple. Zoom, de focus, prod button, zoom out, refocus shoot. No white card? Use a shirt, or piece of A4 printer paper. The idea of disconnecting the camera, moving it towards the subject and finding a grey card because the camera can't cope with white is just amusing, turning a ten second process you can repeat simply, into a real chore!
Click to expand...

Well, for me this really comes down to aesthetics and utility. I shoot with an AC130 often, and that's my WB process when needed. I wouldn't want to do a fast-paced event or a news-type thing with a DSLR, BMC, etc.

But when I want something just gorgeous, it's DSLR or BMC-type cameras. If I limited myself to a "video" camera for ease of white balance, I doubt I'd be in this business. I assume things like the AF-100 that are hybrids to some extent might make WB easier, but the primary thing video cams offer (in this regard anyway) is the crazy zoom range - I've never seen a similar lens for super-35 or full frame as far as wide-to-long usefulness. And a dedicated WB button, with DSLRs you usually have to shoot a frame and then choose it as the WB source.

Handful of footage grabs - I've never been able to a DVX, HMC or AC series camera to look quite like this stuff. And it seems like more than just DOF to me.

awaydear+TC-alt-1080.jpgDSC_8276.jpgcosmic-joke-vimeo copy.jpgDSC_7599.jpg
 

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I guess I'm just doing what I first did in the 70s, and we used white cards - and often quite grubby ones, and defocussing evened them out, helping with the odd crease too. Not a grey one in sight back then, and no problem with levels - in fact, back then getting the card bright enough was more common - white balance failed being a frequent pop up message on the first auto white balance cameras.
 
I can't speak about standard operating procedure in the 70s:) But with a white card, and a modern digital camera, you need to stop down to avoid clipping, which can give you a false read.
 
My JVC 750 has no problems whatsoever, and delving into the manual I never read, the only warning is not to use anything reflective - just white! My older 100 series were the same, as was the 5000 and 500 before them, and the same on my Sony betacam which is still in the store somewhere.
I've also double checked the manual for the Panasonic 3700 one of my clients has that I use from time to time - identical info - choose white, no need to stop down, and Sony say the same thing on a broadcast camera I'm familiar with.

However - I've just realised the question was asked in the HDSLR section, and this I missed, getting here via a Google search rather than direct - so I have no experience of the differences these cameras have - I'll duck out now.
EDIT I've looked at a couple of DSLR manuals and up pops better to use grey card, and drop the exposure.

At the risk of derailing the topic - can anyone explain why DLSRs need a totally different technique when the old video camera one worked so well?
 
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Just guessing, but maybe it's to avoid clipping? When product shooting I was balancing to my speedo strobes (I noticed my old softbox fabrics seemed a little yellowed) and it took a while to get a good read since the white card was clipping so badly.
 
The DSLR method does seem more tedious than the old video camera process. I wish we had the ability to white balance while zoomed in on a part of the screen. I have no clue why they don't add that feature, as it seems so simple and obvious.
 
We're starting to see that, people have mentioned it for some cameras. I think the problem is most DSLRs use a still image since there's no dedicated WB button.
 
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