The Color Purple and Other Questions
 

I have a pd-150 and recently taped a gymnastics show. The girls were all wearing purple T-Shirts, but in the camera monitor and on the tape it looks blue, not purple. I tried to white balance by holding up a white piece of paper (moved auto select button to middle, hit white balance button and got white balance symbol, then hit select wheel and I could see white balance change--but the shirts still did not look purple.) Maybe my white card was not the right color white. It looks very white to me

1. Is there a particular white balance card I can buy that will properly white balance my pd 150?

2. I need to buy a wide angle lens. The Century has a bayonet mount. What does this mean as opposed to a screw on type?

3. To use a wide angle lens, will I have to take off the sony lens hood and if so is there another lens hood that will cover wide angle lens?

Dean Isaacs

I also notice the same thing on my pd150 with purple....but when I played back the tape thru a Sony tv in my home office the color appeared correct...but on my GE tv in the living room the color was a little more bluish as your situation. I just wonder if it's the lcd monitor in the camera that has the trouble displaying purple and that in actuality the colors (assuming a proper white balance has been done) are correct.

Have you played the tape back thru the camera only or have you tried it using a high quality monitor or tv to see what it looks like?

Phil

I tried it on a TV attached to my sony deck by s-video, and it looks blue.

Dean

Well, I can't answer the purple question, so I'll stick to what I know!
As for the WA lens, there a many different lenes out there. Century, Kenko, Canon a some others, I can't even think of them all now. As for bayonet vs. screw on, go for bayonet. Easier to put on and take off, no possiblity of cross threading, I feel it's a sturdier mount than threads. YES, you will have to remove the Sony lens hood in either case. As for lens hood to fit the WA, yes they are out there. If you use the Century WA (I have one) you have to have a MATTE BOX as the lens is not threaded for filters or hood. The Kenko Pro (I have that one also and is my primary WA lens) HAS threads and I bought filters and a lens hood for it. The sharpness of the 2 lens is, IMHO, virtually the same and the Kenko is quite a bit less to buy. I'm not saying that Century isn't good, I just happen to prefer the Kenko Pro and use it all the time on my primary camera when I do weddings. (about 40-50 per year)
Hope this helps, do a search on Wide Angle Lenses and you'll find lots of info about the various ones out there.
Don B.

Thanks for the info Don. Is this the Kenko Pro lens you are referring to?

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh2/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=203659&is=REG

Have you tried setting up your camera on a tripod pointing at a color card? Connect the camera to a monitor that you trust and see if the purple looks too bluish. If it does go into the "custom presets" and either tweak the color intensity and/or the white balance until you have an image that you like.

Hi Dean,
Yeah that seems to be the one. It has obviously come down in price a little since I got mine (of course).
Don

You cannot predict the camera's reaction to color, especially with saturated colors. It has always been a problem with video.

NTSC video is limited in the scope of colors and contrasts it can represent.

Ink/dyes/film, however, can have a larger range (Gamut) and our video just cannot handle it.

In addition, to make colors brighter, fluorescent dyes are added to fabric and paper to make them seem more saturated and brighter to the human eye.

I'd guess you cannot get there from here. Even silver-based film systems could have problems.