Outdoor white balance setting
 

I'm sure you EX1 owners are aware the white balance preset is 3200°
I don't want to use ATW.
In many cases I don't have time to do a white balance when outside.
In "the good old days" I'd set a camera to 5600° and maybe even grab a shot of something white and do a with balance in post.
In addition if I'm dealing with multiple shooters I'd have them all set to 5600° so I could match the cameras more easily in post.

I see in Picture Profile one can create White/Preset White and dial in a number. I do wish I could set that to the white balance Mem A or B(ATW) position. Alas Preset White as it is, goes to the same switch that 3200° would be on.

Using the menu or even the direct on LCD to change the Picture Profile seems awkward, at least more awkward that flipping a switch or hitting a button.

I'm trying to thing of a graceful fast way one can switch from 3200° to 5600° (or whatever else one decides to use as an "outdoor/sunlight" setting.

Any thoughts?

You can "fool" position A or B into a 5600 setting with some blue gel (full CTB). Find a white wall (without too much green or magenta bias) inside in incandescent light or in sun that is reads below 5600. Defocus and cover half the lens with the blue gel and hit the white balance button. If the resulting number is too high, slide the gel off the lens, maybe only covering a quarter of it and try again. If the number is too low slide the gel to cover more of the lens. Double up on the gel if necessary. When you finally hit 5600, you now have a reasonably accurate daylight preset.

Alternately, you can use CTO gel if you are balancing with a source that's way over 5600, like outdoor shade.

This doesn't work well for multiple cameras, unfortunately, as it's a bit of a fudge and all of the cameras will be balanced slightly differently. You could come up with a controlled target that gets the camera to 5600 (a wall lit with 5500K Kinos perhaps) white balancing all of the cameras to this same wall would get them pretty close.

This is really one of the cameras 2-3 dumb dumb dumb design flaws.

You could create an exterior white balance you like and keep it stored as say B.

Or you can get quick using Personal preference settings.
Let's say you set up a look that you like as PP1, and you have been indoors on preset 3200. When you go outside, you have to quickly get into the PP1 color settings and switch the preset from 3200 up to 5600. It sound like a bit of a pain in the butt, but it can be pretty quick. The nice thing is you can easily make that warmer or cooler depending on preference - i.e. make 6000 if you like or 6500 if you want it

You have to be in a PP setting to do this I think. I don't own the camera yet but I have played with it and that seems to work.

It bugs me though as its just a stupid stupid stupid design.

Why do they give you all a myriad of ways to get into ATW but fail to give you a simple outdoor preset switch?

Lenny Levy

Is there any chance that this could be addressed in some firmware upgrade? Or can this be done via one of the programmable buttons?

Eric, what you're suggesting is exactly what I want to avoid. I simply what a camera (or multiple cameras) to flick a switch and be at 5600°

Jira, one issue is that one can't assign a Picture Profile to an assignable button.

The easiest thing I can think of is set up a Picture Profile and then either switch PP by menu or direct on LCD.

I could share such PP with other operators through the card but that's not as easy as everyone having it built in.

Having to go to the PP button and switch or the LCD direct is ok but it's not as "instant" as a switch flip.

Even if I could put the PP on one of the assignable buttons would be ok since it would then just be a button tap but you can't do that.

All I really want to do is dial in 5600° and put in on the White Balance switch in A or B position and there's no way to do that.

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Since the PP sets up the dial-in WB to Preset, the simplest firmware fix would be to allow the user to save the dial-in number to A or B position instead. This way one could do a PP with 3200° on Preset and 5600° on A or B or the WB switch. Simply put, allow the user to set the dial in WB number to A or B.

Sony, Juan Martinez, are you listening? I think the above is the simplest fix.

Yes, there is. Well, maybe not on position A or B but nder the WHITE section of the Picture Profiles you can set the PRESET value to whatever you desire - the default is 3200. The WHITE switch setting (ON/OFF) can be in either position. Then whenever that Picture Profile is active all you have to do is set the external WB switch to PRESET and you get, for example, a 5600 deg WB.

My F350 XDCAM HD has a button on it for selecting 5600 and I too wanted a similar capability for the EX1. The procedure above gives me that capability.

I usually have 3200 deg saved to position A on the switch leaving position B for specific situation WB.

Carroll Lam

Carroll, I think you're misunderstanding me.

I know you can dial-in WB on PP for the WB Preset. If you do that, you no don't have the 3200° in Preset.

I want to be able to switch from 3200° to 5600° at the flick of a switch or button. I can't do that.

On page 101 of the manual - White Switch is either ATW or MEM B and there is no way I see to make MEM a dialed-in number. Only Preset can have a dialed-in number so you're faced with EITHER 3200° default or a Picture Profile with Preset set to 5600°

The ONLY way I see is to change PP profile on the fly while leaving the camera switch in White Balance Preset. That's awkward to have to toggle with PP button and menu or direct menu access on LCD with jog button.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you but your description still leaves me with an either/or choice, not both.

See page 73 of the manual.
Preset White can be dialed-in but nothing else. You either have default 3200° or whatever (5600° in my case).
You can't have both.
You can't put 5600° on MEM A or MEM B.
You can't send PP to an assignable button.

This is very annoying, on the z1 it was a simple menu setting to switch the preset between the 2..

This seems like something they could offer in a future firmware upgrade. Maybe they could make it assignable to a USER control.

That's probably true. I was just trying to convey how I set things up so I can use the external WB switch to switch between 5600 and 3200 with just that one switch.

I personally have the PRESET position programmed to 5600 as I mentioned below. I use PP1 basically all the time with the only difference between it an no PP being the fact that PRESET is so programmed. I have an in-house lighting setup that gives me a 3200 deg WB for storing in MEM A and I use MEM B for "on-the-spot" WB settings.

I could have left PRESET at the default 3200 and setup lighting conditions that would give me 5600 deg for MEM A. I just found it easier to create 3200 deg lighting.

So, with this setup all I have to do to switch between 5600 and 3200 is flipping the WB switch. Nothing else required.

That might not meet your needs but it fits mine fine.

Carroll Lam

Carroll's method seems like it'd do the trick for most people. There will be a lot of us who will be shooting using the PP's so if you set all your different profiles to be 56k your good to go.

True one can shoot something at 3200° and store it to a MEM position. It would be SOO much easier if you could simply dial it in and store it there though. As a fall back it would be ok if one could use an assign button for a PP.

If you lose that setting by mistake out in the field or want someone else to set their camera to it without having them use your card to install it, you'd face some challenges.

I wonder if one can set two different white balances on the shot transition buttons with a transition time of zero. I haven't looked at the closely enough but the WB it uses I believe must be on a preset so that probably prevents that as a solution.

So close yet so far.

Solution
 

Shot Transition
I set up a Picture Profile with Preset WB set to 5600°
Current camera setup with Preset WB set to 3200°

Store one setting in Shot Transition A. Call up PP and store in Shot Transition B.
Have speed set to Off.
You can now toggle between 3200° and 5600° by using Shot Transition.

While it doesn't seem obvious that you can store PP in a Shot Transition, you can store two different camera setups. Even if you need to use Shot Transition for something else all you need to do is call up the PP with 5600° and store it again in Shot Transition.

Excellent idea.

But if you change any other settings, I assume you'll lose them when you do the transition, no?

True, it will recall all the camera specifics. Of course, that's the idea behind the shot transition control. This function is VERY useful! This would make it very unfriendly for the need to change from one WB to another.