Why are we so forgiving to the lousy ATW?
 

I wrote about this one before, but while a couple of EX1 users did confirm my observations, the thread was far from conclusive. In the meantime, my camera has undergone an overhaul at the Sony Center (sending it in, I asked explicitly to "repair" the ATW not responding, or responding inconsistently, to colour temperature changes). Alas, nothing has changed when it came back - i.e. :

- when in ATW mode and pointed towards day light, it will increase the reading from say 2400 to 4800K without much hesitation, but

- when pointed back to where it should be some 2400K, it will take from 1 to several minutes until it reverts back.

Can you confirm this, and does the EX3 operate the same way (please don't tell me anything "auto" is for amateurs; there are situations when you just need to rely on ATW).

Also, after the servicing, I've noticed another phenomenon I hadn't seen before: the Push White Balance button (AWB) acts inconsistently with the ATW system. Suppose the ATW stabilized and set to 3400K (which I assess as more or less correct setting for the actual light temperature); when I press AWB it will go down as low as 2200K, only to revert back to the 3400K within a couple of seconds after releasing the AWB button ! Shouldn't both measuring systems give the same results, or am I missing something here?

[Edit]
Never mind... I may have misinterpreted your question. Ooops!

I find it is pretty much crap too. My cheapo SR11 and every other "Best Buy" camera I've had was able to handle (for example) walking from inside to outside with little trouble. The EX3 will just sit there and sit there.... finally it will correct itself... I adusted the speed of the shockless white but never seem to get it to work as good as the SR11..

Now I just either live with the funny color or constantly stop what I'm doing to adjust it again.

Maybe I don't use the EX3 in the same shooting situations as you, but...

I find that I never use the ATW. I will set to the A setting, push the white balance button while framed on a white card, but then I will go back to Preset and adjust it so that it's set to the same color temperature.

If I had to walk from inside (tungsten) to outside (daylight), I guess I would set A for inside and B for outside and then flip the switch at the opportune time. But honestly, that's a shot I've rarely done before.

My point is, I never shoot with the camera in ATW so it's constantly adjusting for white balance. If you watch the Vortex Media training DVD, Doug Jensen is pretty harsh about advising never using it.

But maybe you have a critical need for using it, and in that case, yes I agree, it doesn't work very well.

Sorry Piotr, but I've got to tell you that ATW really is for amatuers. :-)

Just because you don't want to hear it doesn't make it any less true. In 28 years of shooting there has NEVER been a situation where I needed to rely on ATW. Not one.

Why are you fighting against something that you can't fix or do anything about? ATW is no good and and never will be any good, so why bother?

Focus your energy on learning to master the other white balance functions and you'll be much better off in the long run.

Doug

I think we are so forgiving because it is not a function that is often used in a professional camera. I agree that it is slow and not incredibly accurate. What it comes down to is that Sony probably believes that it is a less than important feature of the camera.

I'd like to see the camera have a quick white balance preset switch (switching btwn 3200 & 5600) and the ability to dial in specific white balance settings on both A & B in the PP settings.

Yes! Now THAT would be useful features.

I'd be happy with a dail or at least let us grab the color temp in the direct menu and scroll up or down until we like what we see.

A situation with ATW that has caused me problems more than once is when pointing the camera at lush greenery, in the middle of the shot the white balance unexpectedly goes magenta or blue.

So I'm kind of afraid of ATW, but I honestly haven't experimented with it as much as I should have. Is there no success by turning shockless white off, of adjusting the ATW speed?

I will defend my standpoint. The technology is there (my V1E never let me down with ATW), only it hasn't been properly implemented in the EX series.

Of course I agree that inability to instantly switch between 3200/5600, or dial in any specific value other (faster) than by modifying the currently used PP are even greater omissions (BTW, on the V1 the latter it is also possible "on the fly"), but nevertheless - ALL those shortcomings contribute to the White Balancing being perhaps one of the weakest point of this otherwise great camera.

I have never used ATW and would never rely on it. What drives me crazy is that there is no way to switch quickly between 3200 and 5600. every other Sony camera has this option built in. Why not the EX is beyond me.

I used to dial in the withebalance alot on my XL-H1, one of the very few things I miss about the camera

Sorta bi polar of sony on this. It takes away from the run and gun nature of the small form "high end" camera. Instead it makes it more of a small form version with much the same hassle of the larger camera. But we love it anyway. :)

If I were to ever need the ability to set the white balance on (several) moments' notice I would go into "Picture Profiles" and dial in the white balance. Auto adjust white balance has never worked or been advocated by any shooter I have spoken with.

Now that I am thinking about it... What I should do is have a duplicate Picture Profile of my common setting and use the duplicate one for tinkering with white balance.

Unfortunately, there are just 6 of them available.

Not quite sure what you mean, I find it easier to run and gun with a larger camera than my EX-3. The layout of buttons and switches is so much better on Sony´s full size cameras.
Change whitebalance instantly with the flick of a switch

Even the Z7 have the "standard" ND filter switch all of the full size cameras have.
Why not on the EX series?

I'm not talking directly about the white balance switches. Just that the EX cameras are suppose to be the smaller, cheaper, easier to lug around, XDcams... yet because of some of the choices they made it's only smaller and cheaper, not really more convenient. :)

It's a good question to which we know the answer. Sony does not want to give away all of the "professional" functionality of their high end cameras.

I have hung onto to my PD-150 and every time I pick it up I marvel at the exquisite placement of the key functions that I shooter needs to know without thinking. Over time you can see how the usability of Sony's "entry" pro cameras has diminished over time and I do not view it as incompetence or design by committee issues. I think it is intentional.

I see, agree with you on that

Maybe, but I have to say the Z7 that I used today feels less "stripped" than the EX series does. If it´s intentional as you say, it certainly is very inconsistent

Actually this bolsters my point. The closer the camera comes to usurping a pro camera's abilities in terms of "specs" the more the 'some' the outward usability of the camera decreases.

Then I guess the EX1 is an amateur camera. Sony put ATW in there didn't they? Who did they market the camera for? Chevy Chase and The Griswold family?

John

John,

If the EX1 is an amateur camera because it has ATW then so is the whole XDCAM product line. Even the $22,000 F355 and $30,000 PDW-700 all have ATW.

Does it work any better on those cameras? Who knows. That's exactly the kind of feauture I'd never use on any camera under any circumstances.

I don't know why they even put ATW on any of the cameras. I guess Sony falls into the same trap that has led Nikon and Canon to put every bell and whistle they can think of on their SLRs just because the other guy has it. Keeping up with the Jones. But the net result is a bunch of bloated, confusing, poorly thoughtout features that actually make it harder to get good results if you don't know any better -- and sometimes even if you do.

I agree that the EX1 and EX3 should have a 3200/5600 toggle switch for preset white balance. That was a big oversight by Sony.

So, I have two identical PP that I use 99% of the time. One has preset white at 3200 and the other has it at 5600. I can jump between them in less than 2 seconds by using the Direct Menu. It's not as easy as a dedicated button, but its close -- and I don't find myself using preset very often anyway -- let alone having to change it in a big hurry.

The best way of setting white balance will always be to do it manually with a reference card anytime the light changes. "Auto" anything is never good on a pro camera.

Doug

I found the WB setting awkward to begin with but now I’ve gotten used to carrying a white/grey/warm card with me as well as using that assign WB button at the front of the cam and the switch at the side – I can sort my WB in a few seconds (never needed to alter the WB any faster than that). All my work is outside and I have to deal with a constant WB change and ATW just doesn’t cut it unfortunately! I think my adopted method is quicker than changing to a pre-subscribed Picture Profile and more accurate IMHO. You can pre-set two WB setting on the side of the camera if you so need to do so!

Piotr is right about the bad ATW of the EX1. There are some situations when you don't have time or the light situation changes during the filming and this is where the weak auto mode of the Ex1 can produce you very bad footage. Especially when you give the camera to somebody without good filming skills.

My old PD 170 did a way better job on ATW and other auto functions than the EX1. I could give it for example to my wife who has not much knowledge about filming, and let her film an interview somewhere. With the Ex1 I can't do this.

However, I still hope the next version of the Ex1 will be without these problems.

I suspect the issue may be a little more complex than has been considered.
CT defines the light emitted by a black body at that temperature. Many light sources don't obey that simple concept. What is the CT of a sodium vapour lamp for example, whatever it is that number alone would tell you very little about the nature of the light source and good luck getting most cameras to correctly WB under those lights.

The EX cameras seem to be doing much more complex WB adjustment than say a PD170. Press the WB button on 170 and it has the answer in under a second. The EX takes seconds, it may well be building a new set of matrix settings rather than using a single value based on CT.

Certainly whatever the EX is doing takes so long as to render any chance of a functional auto WB remote.

Bob's post above excepted, I assume everyone bitching about ATW has exhausted all menu possibilities. Actually I assume the opposite because I know it's easier not to.

Piotr's original complaint is that it takes from 1 to several minutes to revert back to the tungsten temperature.

- I set shockless white to off
- I set ATW speed to 5
- I put the camera on the tripod and aimed at a white card.
- I toggled the Zylight Z90 between tungsten and daylight presets.

It took 3-5 seconds to begin ramping in either direction, and another 3-5 seconds to completion.

1.) Lock the camera in manual, gain, shutter and iris.
2.) Switch on the brightness indication readout.
3.) Press the white balance button on a daylight illuminated white card while on ATW.
4.) Point the camera at a tungsten light.

The ATW operates with hysterisis.

A.) If the brightness is more than about 85%, it will not ramp to the tungsten temperature. If the brightness is below 75-80%, it should.

B.) Until the brightness drops below about 20-40%, it may not ramp to daylight from the tungsten temperature.

The green/magenta balance of the light influences the responsiveness to the conditions A.) and B.) above. More green hastens the ramp to daylight. Less green hastens the ramp to tungsten. It may be that ATW is tracking green channel levels.

(The Zylight Z90 is a dimmable on-camera LED light with variable temperature and green/magenta corrections.)

I was able to pan around the room with mixed lighting and observe the ATW was tracking up and down as should generally be expected. It's possible to confuse it. It's possible to be confused by it. But as Bob noted above, it seems to operate within some rules similar to TLCS. It's probably more sophisticated, and possibly more computational, slowing the response. But I have to assume it works toward a situational goal, of allowing the shooter to walk through a hallway, pan around a tungsten lit room with daylight coming in the windows, and hold the tungsten preset while not getting tripped up by the daylight. As such, I think it's probably intended to complement the TLCS, which has spot and backlight presets as well. If you're going to use it, you should probably use it with TLCS and auto focus, and let it do it's thing. Start by turning Shockless White Off. Set ATW Speed to 5. From that starting point, you can further dampen the response as you feel it merits.

And for those of you who like to argue against automation settings without ever trying them, have at it. My opinion is that if these automation settings can be made to match the conditions I would choose if I was manually setting for the situation, then the extra hands freed for multitasking should cause shame for any professional ignorant of that benefit.

Thanks for a thorough test Tom. I admit I haven't tried my ATW because I rarely use it, but its BS to attack Piotr for wanting it to work correctly.
On occasion ATW may be the best setting for a "professional result", I know I've used it when walking between rooms or from outside to inside when I need to keep rolling.

I think ATW should work correctly but having said that I would never think of using it unless a particular situation arose. I remember using it on a Digibeta back in 2003 to walk from outside to interior following talent - it did the job. Have not used it on my EX1 but may now check it out.

On the odd occassion that I have wanted to quickly adjust white balance I have simple pressed the WB button on the front of the camera (whilst using the camera in a pre-set mode) and this seems to have been quite successful even though the camera was not aimed at a white card. I'm sure that it wont be suitable for all situations, but it does work on many.

Without a white/gray/warm card (or any object with this spectrum), filling your frame, this can be very misleading - this is what I mentioned in the second part of my original post in this thread.

Also remember that out of the 2 methods (dial-in vs. AWB), only one can make for the green/magenta cast.

Piotr,

In theory I would agree with you, but in practice I have found this often to be acceptable. On thinking abou it, by pressing th WB button are we nt manually doing what the AWB should be doing?

I agree that it's not ideal, but it is better than relying on AWB when such a feature is needed.

Geoff

I observed this as well, and I do feel that to be one of the compromises of ATW. I've seen it favor to stay between 3400 and somewhere around 6500 on the high end.

When I was doing the white card tests, it occurred to me that the WB button was more like a reset of a logic implementation that had taken on a sort of inertia, or tendency of a setting in motion to remain in motion, or the tendency of a setting at rest to remain at rest. But as best as I was able to determine, the key variables were scene brightness, green channel level, damping (ATW speed). An impatient frustration could be the result of misunderstood, overly damped response when ATW speed is low and/or Shockless White is enabled.

I would just comment on Piotr's opinion that ATW is inferior to his V1, and my own recollections about AWB on the XH-A1. When I did the tests, I was looking for something "broken" in the response that would indicate a recursive loop, or trapped condition requiring a reset (WB button). And I thought I found it, until I was able to establish the out of bounds conditions for when the scene brightness was too high for Tungsten, or not low enough for Daylight, and so the ramping would be held. And then I found the role that the green channel plays in the trigger.

It's plausible that the EX1's more sophisticated algorithm in the end doesn't work as well as the "simpler is better" approach used on other cams. Without offering apologies for ATW, we have to exhaust all the possibilities the menu settings offer, and try to understand the situations the ATW was intended to aid.

Bump
 

Tom, I don't know if this reply will move this thread back up to the top again, but I wanted to add my $0.02 to the discussion. I'm struggling with this ATW issue right now and it's making me nuts. I have a client who wants me to do some walk-thru's of model homes and by "walk-thru", that's what he wants.....one continuous shot from the driveway all the way through the house and back out again; no cuts or edits. I NEVER use this camera on Auto anything but for this project, it seems appropriate and almost unavoidable.

As others have noted (especially Piotr), ATW seems braindead most of the time. I used your settings (Shockless White OFF, AWB speed 5) to see if I could force the EX1 to react quickly as I would need it to do if I was walking, say, from a sunlit room, down a hallway and into a tungsten-lit bathroom. Unless I'm missing something in the menu, it won't make this adjustment....no matter how long I wait.

However, and this is the weird part....if you start with the tungsten-lit room (3200k) and do the ATW setting using the front button and THEN walk into the daylight-lit room, the camera will make the change just fine. However, it won't work going the other way (6500k to 3200k)!! I even tested this at my desk by placing the EX1 in the middle of my desk and pointed it toward a white card at the far end of my desk that was illuminated by a desklamp (tungsten), pressed the ATW button and got a 3200k setting, spun the camera around toward the end of the desk that is lit by indirect sunlight (6600k) and the camera adjusted within seconds. However, if I repeat this test and first point the camera at the 6600k end of the desk, press the ATW button and get the proper white balance, spin the camera back toward the 3200k end of the desk, it just sits there staring at that same white card and does nothing! No change to the white balance....at all. I gave it over a minute or two and nothing changed.

And, if that isn't confusing enough, the camera will only make ONE change in ATW. If I start the shot on tungsten, move to daylight and then back to tungsten, the camera will NOT adjust back....it stays on 6600k. So, it appears that you get ONE adjustment and that's all. I'd be very curious to see if anybody else here gets the same result.

As I said before, I don't want to use Auto "anything" but this client wants one continuous shot and I'll be passing in and out of rooms lit by both daylight and tungsten and probably a fluorescent-lit laundry room or two as well. And, to add insult to injury, he showed me some test walk-thru's that he shot with his crappy little Sony Hi8 camera and he had no problems with these transitions. But, he wants to hire me so he can have these houses in beautiful 16:9 HD (which will all be downsampled to web videos anyway).

I know the carpenter never blames his tools for a crappy product, but this is ridiculous. If I had the money, I'd probably go out and buy a cheap HD camera for these projects just so I wouldn't have to fight with the EX1. Any suggestions?

I don't use ATW anymore, even for run and gun stuff. What I wish the EX1 did better was auto-focus. I don't use auto-focus very often but there are times when it would be beneficial if it were quicker. My little HC9 has a much quicker and accurate auto-focus. Of course it's dealing with a much smaller lens, but since we're 'wishing', that's what I'd wish for.

Dave,
simplest suggestion and how it's very commonly done in your scenario is to light everything daylight. Easy enough to change the practicals indoors to daylight. Keep several daylight CFLs in the kit bag and your problem goes away. Keep in mind that a film camera has no ATW.

Thanks for that suggestion, Bob. Unfortunately, given the nature of this job (No Budget, No Time) I'm shooting these things VERY quickly which usually means no additional lighting added. At some point, my client would simply give up and shoot these things himself. I need the money right now so I'm simply trying to get this $6000 piece of....um, this camera that shoots beautiful images to simply behave like a basic Auto Everything consumer camera. Trust me, I never bought this camera with the intention of using it like a point n' shoot camera but times are hard and I need to make this work. I'll have a very limited span of time available at each site so changing all the practicals makes perfect sense, but....

I must be missing something here because my EX1 has exactly that switch.

I really am curious if anybody in here can reproduce the test I did to see if this is a bug in the camera or a "feature":

1. set camera for Full Auto (with ATW enabled, too)
2. set your White Balance in an area lit by daylight
3. start the shot in that lighting and move into another area lit primarily by tungsten (you don't even need to roll the camera....it works this way all the time)
4. the ATW will fail to adjust to the tungsten lighting by itself

Conversely, if you do the test by starting in the tungsten lit area and move into the daylight lit area, it will automatically adjust (the speed of the change depends on the Shockless White and ATW Speed settings you are using).....and it will only make ONE adjustment during that shot....it won't change back if you return to the tungsten-lit area.....werid.

I think several things that in the "direct menu" or whatever that's called really need to be separate buttons and not virtual controls and not the cut-down version of that functionality we get with the switches on the side.

White balance setting, at least pressing the white balance button, seems to work pretty well when I try it on my EX3.