white balancing with work lights

renegadewill

renegadewill

Well-known member
I've had trouble recently with white balancing my dvx with work lamps. Could it possibly be the board I am white balancin. Could the board be just off white to a almost warm to make my dvx go cold. Should I get some white balance cards, instead of using an old used display board from a school project.

What a some decent and cheap white balance cards, and from where?


thanx
Will
 
Best thing you can get are photo gray cards from Kodak or other sources. They come in a pack with 2x 8.5"x11" cards and a smaller card. They have 18% gray on one side and white on the other side. You can and probably should use the gray side to white balance to.

Also, since it's middle gray, you can use the card to set accurate exposure as well. Just line up the card like you would for white balancing, turn the auto iris on and let it adjust, then switch back to manual iris to lock in whatever the camera set for exposure.
 
Also, why do you think the white balance is bad? Because it doesn't look right in the LCD? On your computer? Are you sure everything is calibrated properly? The white balance could be working fine, but your viewing environment may not be right.
 
Porta Brace sells white cards for about $5 (I think B&H has them), and every PB camera bag usually comes with a free one. B&H also carries other white, gray, and warm cards as well (warm card is slightly blue... white balance to that and warm your image up).

The other trick is to get a gel sampler from RoscoLux (it's a swatchbook). These are handy for balancing tricks. If the picture's a little cold, or even if it's right on and you want it warm, hold some 1/8 or 1/4 CTB in front of the lens when you white balance and it'll warm up the image quite nicely. And if it's too warm, put up some CTO to cool it down.
 
I was under the impression that I could just laminate some white A$ paper and use that as a white balancing card - is this not a good idea..??
 
The thing about work lights, like those you can get at Lowe's or Home Depot, is that they are not color balanced and their color temperature will actually change over time as the bulbs get some age on them. If you are going to use 500W work lights, replace the standard bulbs with some GE FDN, frosted glass, halogen bulbs. They are color balanced at 3200K. They cost about 13 bucks each and have a 400 hour life.

http://www.filmtools.com/fdn5012quarh.html
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top