White balance in nightclub?
 

I am doing some band shoots in a showroom nightclub. With color spotlights and darkness everywhere, I have been using the indoor preset on my Canon XHA1s and full manual exposure.

Usually tungsten pre-set or a manual white balance from a 3200 K light works extremely well.

Re: White balance in nightclub?
 

"Usually tungsten pre-set or a manual white balance from a 3200 K light works extremely well."

I agree 100%.

Any house lights in the club are likely around 2600 - 3000K

Re: White balance in nightclub?
 

Just to pile on what others have said, DON'T use auto white balance. The colored lights will make the AWB shift the definition of "white" and skin tones will be wonky. The A1 has a way to dial in an exact Kelvin temperature so you aren't limited to the 3200K preset. If you notice skin tones in white light are too warm on camera versus what you see with your eye, that's a clue that the house lights are warmer than the 3200K preset and dialing it down to 2800K or 3000K will help. Unfortunately, the A1 viewfinders are so bad you won't be able to tell this until you get it on your NLE.

Re: White balance in nightclub?
 

We shoot on 5400k in a club where we shoot video 2-3 nights a week. Because the lighting is 50% LED

But in some other clubs we found 4k because of the mix of LED and tungsten.

Re: White balance in nightclub?
 

I would go with the advice from photographer Joe McNally, who said something to the point of, when in situations where you're never going to get a perfect white balance, go for good skin tone, and let everything else go to he'll in a hand basket. There's only so much you can know until you get there. I would just get someone up on stage, and get the lights on, and go for good skin, while still paying attention to the overall ambient look. There's also the added advantage, that i don't think anyone expects to see perfect white balance from concert style footage. Typical viewers have come to accept that there every color of light imaginable blinking, flashing and strobing, and people faces are going to be sorrow of different colors. Go for an overall good look, that keeps in mind that sometimes the blue light will be on and they'll look blue, and sometime the yellow lights will be on and they'll look yellow, and so on.

But like spmeone already said, stay the he'll away from AWB. Every Time the stage lights change, the WB will change trying to neutralize it. It would be a train wreck.