White Balance. the 200 sucks

Paul Anderegg · September 15th, 2015, 05:18 PM

White balance for KELVIN, the type you would have gotten on an old Betacam, is gone. That kelvin balance is on the YELLOW to BLUE line on the vectorscope. LED and florescent lighting have introduced green and magenta to the mix. The newer cameras out there tend to be very sensitive to these hues. For instance, my Sony X70 will be VERY GREEN if I shot under those bright WHITE (bluish) street lights. My station issued JVC 790, while garbage, does NOT show this problem.

When you PUSH TO WHITE on newer cameras, it will take this green (for instance) shift, and force the entire colorimetry towards magenta, the opposite of green. While this makes everything lit by the "green' light look happy and correct, anything NOT well lit by that source will look PINK! Lets say you have a pinkish LED light, and white off it. Everything not well lit by that camera light, say the background, will have a pronounced GREEN hue now. This is why I meticulously GEL every LED light I own, with sheets of green or magenta plastic (gel), using a vectorscope to ensure the white dot is in the center when on PRESET, or manual kelvin. I tend to center my white gels on my primary cameras 3200k preset. Mny cameras "presets" are not exactly 3200k, like the X70, where "preset" is actually 2900-3000k.

Paul

Keith Forman · September 18th, 2015, 06:35 PM

Here is an example of when experience is more important than proper white balancing technique. If I had properly white balanced the blue haze look would have disappeared. That would make the light designer and director very unhappy. The White balance came in at 4000k. I lowered it to 3500k. The actor's shirt is pure white however the lighting designer had a light blue gel on the theatrical lights to create this effect.

September 15th, 2015, 05:18 PM	#16
Paul Anderegg Trustee Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: San Diego, Califonia Posts: 1,559	Re: White Balance. the 200 sucks White balance for KELVIN, the type you would have gotten on an old Betacam, is gone. That kelvin balance is on the YELLOW to BLUE line on the vectorscope. LED and florescent lighting have introduced green and magenta to the mix. The newer cameras out there tend to be very sensitive to these hues. For instance, my Sony X70 will be VERY GREEN if I shot under those bright WHITE (bluish) street lights. My station issued JVC 790, while garbage, does NOT show this problem. When you PUSH TO WHITE on newer cameras, it will take this green (for instance) shift, and force the entire colorimetry towards magenta, the opposite of green. While this makes everything lit by the "green' light look happy and correct, anything NOT well lit by that source will look PINK! Lets say you have a pinkish LED light, and white off it. Everything not well lit by that camera light, say the background, will have a pronounced GREEN hue now. This is why I meticulously GEL every LED light I own, with sheets of green or magenta plastic (gel), using a vectorscope to ensure the white dot is in the center when on PRESET, or manual kelvin. I tend to center my white gels on my primary cameras 3200k preset. Mny cameras "presets" are not exactly 3200k, like the X70, where "preset" is actually 2900-3000k. Paul

September 18th, 2015, 06:35 PM	#17
Keith Forman Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Williamstown Mass Posts: 192	Re: White Balance. the 200 sucks Here is an example of when experience is more important than proper white balancing technique. If I had properly white balanced the blue haze look would have disappeared. That would make the light designer and director very unhappy. The White balance came in at 4000k. I lowered it to 3500k. The actor's shirt is pure white however the lighting designer had a light blue gel on the theatrical lights to create this effect. Attached Thumbnails __________________ http://www.vimeo.com/keithforman/videos http://www.keithforman.com Last edited by Keith Forman; September 18th, 2015 at 09:25 PM.