C100 and white balance

[Kathy Smith]

Originally Posted by Gary Huff

I think it's a lot harder to separate all the elements of a shot in order to focus on one specific thing. Just because it's a test doesn't mean it has to look like that overall.

My tests still follow proper composition and camera movement, even the ones no one else ever sees.

OK sorry I am not doing good tests.
Here is another one I did. This is what I would consider good white balance. No people, just straight on tripod test. Is this what I should expect from this camera?

Snow - YouTube

[Gary Huff]

The snow is white. That's good. Outside of that, this shot doesn't say a whole lot.

[Kathy Smith]

Originally Posted by Gary Huff

The snow is white. That's good. Outside of that, this shot doesn't say a whole lot.

Ok I just care about white balance. So this would be ok. Thanks.

[Daniel Epstein]

Originally Posted by Kathy Smith

I'll ask a generic question. Is there any kind of white balance issue which can't be fixed in post?
Also does anyone have a chart with all the possible light sources one may encounter while filming and their K temperatures? I could google it but all the ones I find are not exactly what I'm looking for.

There is almost no white balance issue that can't be fixed to some degree but it helps to start in the right direction if your not shooting raw. Some people have the skill to make almost anything watchable. Doesn't mean it couldn't have been better if you started with a good image to begin with. The exceptions to this are light sources which have such strange spectrum that the other colors are not big enough in the signal to adjust in the correction.
The clip you showed in the office was in very difficult lighting situations to come up with a good compromise. The snowy scene doesn't reveal very much except the camera looks fairly normal. It might help to increase the contrast a little in the settings as every thing looked a little light on my computer.

[Seth Bloombaum]

White balance must show good skin tones - everything starts there. There's a lot of things the eye will forgive, but when skin doesn't look like skin not much else matters. Develop an eye for this!

In the office test shot, there are two colors of light. In my opinion this particular situation can be OK for many shots, in that the window light (cold source) is just showing as a backlight or kicker, depending, giving some colder highlights. Then there's some window light bouncing off the monitor he's looking at, that I think is making the area around his eye blueish, but a little tilt on the monitor might fix that.

One thing to avoid in such shots is actually showing the window, in most weather it will be dramatically blown out when you expose for faces.

But this white balance is much too yellow and warm; the base/fill light that is providing the primary illumination of his face is nice and soft... but so warm. The WB needs to match the primary source for his face (and skin tones!).

Fix that first, then see how things look with the blueish back highlights from the window. Do a custom white balance, not the Kelvin wheel. Hold the white or grey card or paper so that your body is shielding it from the sun, it's only illuminated by the room lights.

That's going to tell you the most about the camera's ability to WB to match a scene.

In this kind of scene, best results come from choosing one of the sources and WB to it, then shoot so skin tones are mostly front-lit by that source. Most commonly, subjects/characters are closer to windows than the camera is; in that situation you WB to the room lights that are providing the front light of the subject.

[Ken Diewert]

Kathy,

Gary rightly points out a few things... then you say that that wasn't the footage that you were talking about. There are people here sincerely trying to help you with WB.

The office shot was clearly shot under florescents out a window... that's a shot to avoid on any day (unless an alien was shaking hands with the president - and you don't have time to move them away from the window). Move your subject to the other side of the office and use the daylight as a key, and use some bounce for a fill (or a dimmable 5600k light). You should be able to kill the florescents (at least one bank).

I did a shoot recently with a 5600k fresnel 'faking' sunlight coming in a window on a wall in behind the talent, and lit the interview subject at 3200 to give them a little color.

And your snow shot should be a straight 5600 or there abouts.

[Noa Put]

Gary rightly points out a few things... then you say that that wasn't the footage that you were talking about. There are people here sincerely trying to help you with WB.

The composition and movement of the camera was criticized while that was not the intention of that quick test shot, it was to know how to whitebalance that particular shot. Ofcourse you can make it all picture perfect but this is a tricky situation to get a right whitebalance because you have different color temperatures to consider, in some occasions you just have to be able to deal with that and get the color right, my opinion still remains that a expodisc is the easiest and fastest way to get a whitebalance you can work with afterwards.

[Kathy Smith]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

The composition and movement of the camera was criticized while that was not the intention of that quick test shot, it was to know how to whitebalance that particular shot. Ofcourse you can make it all picture perfect but this is a tricky situation to get a right whitebalance because you have different color temperatures to consider, in some occasions you just have to be able to deal with that and get the color right, my opinion still remains that a expodisc is the easiest and fastest way to get a whitebalance you can work with afterwards.

Originally Posted by Ken Diewert

Kathy,

Gary rightly points out a few things... then you say that that wasn't the footage that you were talking about. There are people here sincerely trying to help you with WB.

The office shot was clearly shot under florescents out a window... that's a shot to avoid on any day (unless an alien was shaking hands with the president - and you don't have time to move them away from the window). Move your subject to the other side of the office and use the daylight as a key, and use some bounce for a fill (or a dimmable 5600k light). You should be able to kill the florescents (at least one bank).

I did a shoot recently with a 5600k fresnel 'faking' sunlight coming in a window on a wall in behind the talent, and lit the interview subject at 3200 to give them a little color.

And your snow shot should be a straight 5600 or there abouts.

The snow scene was 6200, Auto WB.

[Kathy Smith]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

The composition and movement of the camera was criticized while that was not the intention of that quick test shot, it was to know how to whitebalance that particular shot. Ofcourse you can make it all picture perfect but this is a tricky situation to get a right whitebalance because you have different color temperatures to consider, in some occasions you just have to be able to deal with that and get the color right, my opinion still remains that a expodisc is the easiest and fastest way to get a whitebalance you can work with afterwards.

Thanks, Noa.

Is this one better?

New WB - YouTube

[Ken Diewert]

Kathy,

If you're forced to shoot in that kind of light, you could pick up a couple decent daylight balanced, dimmable LED panels, and a bounce card or two and kill the florescents. I have some nice Ikan 576 that run off v-mount batteries. Quick, easy, run cool and and quiet, and they are bi-color (variable from 3200-5600).

Noa... I just picked up an expodisc to try out. I'll let you know what I think. Thanks for the tip.

[Noa Put]

If you're forced to shoot in that kind of light, you could pick up a couple decent daylight balanced, and a bounce card or two and kill the florescents.

Kathy wants to know how you can get a correct whitebalance in such a situation with the c100, not what to do to change the lights to make it easier on the camera. :)

[Jon Fairhurst]

Seth nailed it - it's about skin tones. Add one additional consideration - artistic intent.

Consider a scene in a dark control room. The face is dimly lit by a bluish white light and is dominated by red lights from the control panel. In this case, I'd leave the fill slightly blue and let the red dominate.

Personally, I love mixed color temperatures. I generally put a 1/4 or 1/2 blue gel on my hair/back lights. I balance to the fill/key (tungsten) to let the blue accents come through. This gives the feeling of light from a window in a room even when there is no window visible in the scene.

For me, single color temp shoots with perfect white balance and relatively high exposure have a clean/pure corporate feel. One might choose a pure, single color temp, but be aware of the look that you are choosing.

I regularly shoot a corporate speaking event. The main room lighting is LED, which has a higher temp than tungsten. I use a couple of tungsten ellipsoid stage lights - one front right and the other rear left of the podium. (I don't balance them as they would lose too much light.) We color balance at 3100K, which is slightly on the high side of the tungsten key/fill. Is it perfect? No. But it's adequate as skin tones look natural. After shooting many of these events, this is our established look. Were I to change to single-temp lighting now, people would probably ask me why I messed up the color. :)

For narrative works, one can go far away from neutral. Put kickers behind a sofa. Gel them in blue/red/green/yellow/whatever. Use colored Christmas lights in the background. Have a candle and keep it yellow. Show a natural gas flame and keep it blue. Typically balance the main skin tones, but let it go green if illuminated by an emergency exit sign.

Of course the classic case is sunset. If you custom WB, it's just another scene. Set the WB to 6500K and the reds/oranges come through.

It's good to know the technicalities of perfect white balance but don't let it limit the art. :)