White Balance: The Most Underrated Tool For Cinematic Colors
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 พ.ย. 2023
- Ever wonder why Sony colors are often described as ugly? Greenish skintones and hard to work with? It's their white balance technology that trails the industry. Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Panasonic all know how to AWB better than Sony. Fuji might be equally as bad in the opposite magenta direction. White balance hacks, how to acheive perfect white balance as a one man crew, vlogging outdoors, or at home in mixed lighting.
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You have been elected camera conspiracies on behalf of all who have bought overpriced macs. We need the apple cripple hammer series. The new m3 max is unacceptable so we bestow upon you the apple cripple hammer. Cannon has lost its status as the cripple hammer king.
I always film at 5500K, and that has worked for me. Light in the morning looks warm, at midday it looks neutral, on gray days everything looks cool, which all supports the mood. In forests everything has a green tint, which is completely ok for me because the light that comes through the leaves is green. 5500K stays with me, which in my opinion ideally supports the mood in changing weather without me having to editing anything.
Same here. I want images on rainy days to look different from images on sunny days.
I mostly agree. Plus even if you're unhappy with the images you get from a 5500K setting, at least the colour balance is steady and fixable in post, not constantly changing because of auto white balance, which is tough to correct.
Appreciate this tip! Definitely going to try this out.
Yea, as long as the colors don't jump around every second, I'm cool with a little more warmth.
I keep my cameras at 5600K. It's easy to tune a bit both ways in post even if it wasn't on RAW. Ofc indoors with unknown lighting is another thing.
I'm the one who said set to 5500k all the time during the day . davinci said its wrong. But the footage looked good .that's what's important.
So many take away from this video: knowledge, comedy, and seamless microphone-sweater integration. I love this channel.
microphone sweater LMAO
11:42. It actually did look best at 5600 without correction. IMO. Great video as always. This one made me laugh especially with all of the technical jargon. I was imagining an alien (or non-camera person) watching this and saying “wtf is this guy even talking about”. 5600, grey card, toneh 2.8 with miralax 3.0 catalyst browse with a kelvin setting 18 mil at 100 zeist megabytes at 10% which equals 4% A6300.
It’s simple. I film in 12-bit 8K RAW at 800mbps for simple vlogs so I can change the white balance to anything I want /s
The Passport video grey card seems to be the most accurate. But if you tilt it, or change how the light hits it, it changes. There is no easy answer until camera white balance works as good as our eye balls. The best solution is to not move around so the light doesn’t change. Or don’t worry about it, because most people don’t really care, plus only you know what color your skin really is, or shoot in black and white.
you supposed to measure main light source property by WB card, and align it to be sure no green bounce from leaves or sand or your coat, etc.
I love the look that I get during golden hour in classic neg, slightly warmer WB and on the tint slider in camera +2-4 "pink". Kinda dreamy with DR200, very soft highlights
Do you use DaVinci Resolve? I'm very new at video and have an X-T3. When I import video files I get a video offline error. I did some research and it mentions codec issues. Resolve also seems so complicated. Again, I am new at this. So, I'm wondering if there is a simpler/easier video editing program to use. I tried Capcut because it had an automatic edit choice, but that only works in the paid version. Any thoughts about another editor that works with Fuji files?
I sprung for a “Calibrite ColorChecker Passport Video” but rarely care enough to use it.
I expose with daylight balance and fix the white balance in post. I find something neutral like my white hair or beard. Of course, if I move in a shot from daylight to artificial light, or from sun to shade, I have to choose one and accept the other being off. There's no easy fix that I'm aware of. If there is, please enlighten me.
BTW in my experience, DaVinci skews its white balance slightly yellow and your video confirms it.
The 5600K looks nice actually, a bit bluish but it makes the video more fresh.
Hi, I discovered you by chance and I find that your videos are always engaging and fun, you manage to keep me glued to the monitor from start to finish, with that shadow of mystery, thank you! I learned a lot from your videos, you have become a reference for me. Greetings from Italy Fabio
grey card is much better to adjust the white balance because it does not reflect colors like the white card. This means that if there is grass nearby, the white card looks a little greenish. The white card makes sense if you use Canon's AWB-W, i.e. priority on white.
You're the first person to explain that, makes sense.
Incorrect. White card is used for white balance, but it must be matte so that it doesn't do what you mentioned.
Grey card is for exposure.
At first, I was confused with your channel, but turns out you’re probably my favorite channel 🙌🙌
thats how he lure you to his rabbit hole , i stumbled upon his channel 3 years ago looking for a great small tripod and i was like what is this looney all about! well now guess what i watch 1st thing every morning!
@@Ozy_x lol 🙌🙌
Dude you are so funny.... each video i love watching your review, i am french but the mood of your channel is just great and refreshing ! Nice video on WB !
I am proud to say my city is free of trams. A totally tramfree city. No laundry wires clogging the frame while doing STREET PHOTOGRAPHY
and no pollution being produced hundreds of miles away out of sight at a power plant, so that the greenies can claim that their electric transportation is carbon neutral and pollution free
Yet again (at 6:10) a mysterious creature dashes across the street in the background. More mysterious yet: construction in Toronto?!
Seriously though, yet another great video!
Also, the new backpack actually doesn't look bad!
Sony gives you tech, then you deal with it later. Canon doesn't give you as much but you're happy and free later.
Using white or grey (or black) is the same if done correctly because they are the same "color", it's just a luma difference. Black is 0,0,0 middle grey is 128,128,128 and white is 255,255,255, basically what AWB does is finding the temperature and tint that would make the neutral colors having the same RGB values.
P.S.: most of the differences you were getting are trivial, meaning they might be changes at the pixel level, you might have some hot pixels, dirt or reflections
Stick with 5600k. Even in cloud it looks fine. The honest truth is that it's your content and audio that matter and they are fine. Or just use 5600k on ya Canon.
with missing sensor+lens spectral property, WB white card can do it much better.
Use your cardigan to WB. I like your cardigan, it goes very good with socks and sandals combo.
The most important thing about WB is eliminating tint. A small amount of tint can make an image look off, even though you can't easily tell what the problem is.
Warmth can more easily be judged visually if you don't have a WB reading. Tint, not so much.
Outdoors I'm usually between 5,000-5500K. Indoors (and depending on lights) I can drop as low as 3200K. I just keep it the same per scene and adjust in davinci when color correcting if need be.
🍄📽
I can relate to this rant! Confusing stuff.
I always set it to 5000. It makes sense to me, because it will reflect the way the world looks to me instead of trying to compensate everything to look perfect white. No, I’m my opinion warm light should look warm!
Managed to make it a decade into taking photos before realizing white balance wasn't just something to adjust in post, but something the camera was making a judgement on at the moment of shooting. One of my biggest frustrations is my gx85 can only nail the white balance in winter days outdoors. But my $100-from-JP olympus is right in just about any situation. (Stills here). I know you can fix anything, but like, I don't WANT to have to fix anything!
This is an excellent video about a madening topic.
White balance for me is @ 5000-6000kelvin ZVE10 also type of lense messes with the colors going cooler or warmer affecting whitebalance along with color profile choice and settings associated with it. Just find what you like color wise and use the Kelvin accordingly. No issues with sony colors straight out of camera with my settings and lense choices
I just adjust in post. Its really easy to get skin colors correct in final cut pro.
01 crop in on skin (so all you see is skin).
02 Then use the vector scope which shows a line for skin color. (yes, we all the same unique skin color).
03 Then I adjust the hue until my colors match the vector scope skin color line.
if the light conditions change during the shot, i just split the clip and do a seperate hue adjustment on the second clip.
Then I do some b-roll to hide the shift.
Nikon photographer here (don't blame me)... I can only confirm what you said.
Sunny day outside, golden fall... A half sunny, half shadowy path, Nikon WB turned the gold into iron, as the proverb says, or into silver at best... Not what you want, bad deal.
That's what RAW is good for, but I'm too lazy^^
AWB on Sony is the punishment from God for eating the forbidden fruit. You are 100% on spot here. I hate it how sony sucks with AWB, but if you calibrate each shot....man if you calibrate each shot
I see the sky was partly sunny and partly cloudy when you filmed this video. So, let's call you Kasey and The Sunshine Blend". 🙂 😉😉
I just use daylight and tungsten for some corporate indoor events. But white balance is largely a stylistic choice.
We need an AI bot in our cameras to do white balance, color levels, and contrast automatically. But not chatgpt, which would lie to you and pull tricks on you. Instead, we should name it Fernando. I would trust Fernando with my white balance.
I'm going to call any auto white balance feature a Fernando from now on.
Maybe Manuel if it doesn't work properly.
I was really interested in this topic, but at the end I asked myself what did I got: nothing! I laughed the whole time, damn, now I have to watch it again... (thanks!)
A greenscreen sombrero with LEDs in the tassles might help
earth is flat af
Zeiss 18mm looks amazing
I prefer full manual control of the WB. Auto WB is neither reliable nor stable in wildlife environments. To set it manually I use a calibrated color chart on my phone which I match against a white piece of paper, or an overcast sky. The aim is not to compensate to get 100% clinical white, but to keep some of the authentic vibe at the location.
I use everything except Auto WB. A constant steady temperature can be fixed in post, but auto usually is all over the place. When in doubt, Daylight it (5500K).
Try wearing a grey overall, track it in post in order to calibrate white balance for every scene...
Wait... a few weeks ago we were getting videos on a Saturday.... now we're getting videos on a "SUNDAY"😳!!!! Man I gotta step my game up 🤣💯 haven't even watched yet before I commented 😅
For whatever reason, the original LUMIX G9 was giving me problems with auto white balance. White always had a golden tint.
Legend has it that the protective body and lens caps you get with Sony systems can be used as grey cards as they are calibrated intentionally for this purpose.
wut?! Those are black coloured though!
@@gigihanmandarin my A7 IV and a6500 both came with grey body and rear lens caps, Sony branded.
@@DontKnowLetsGo I see,, You meant the rear lens cap!
AWB seemed a fair trade off in most cases. Yes indoor Nikon WB does seem to go purple/red .
It will be my knowledge for sure though.
Note that’s a normal sweater. Looks good with the backpack color.
Definitely give Gyroflow a go for your gyro data based stabilisation. It gives you much more control over what your doing, better output options and allows batch processing too.
I just checked the website and you have to disable*all* record time stabilization though, OSS, IBIS and EIS. Catalyst browse can still work with all that stuff on apparently
That sweater thou. No image trickery would salvage that
Just set saturation to zero... no more white balance issues!
Try changing white balance on a b/w picture and you'll see that's not case 😂
Could you possibly do a video how to expose for video? The sky in your content always look good and never blown out. While you are also always lit properly. I will using my Lumix G100 for walking videos during holidays and day trips. Roast away on my G100, but, my previous camera is just a Coolpix A from 2012. So, the G100 is a giant leap forward for me.
Hello! I can't find the affiliate link to this sweater
I just set it kinda right with daytime or light source then correct it but im not so picky cuz sometimes i want a warmer look cuz its suits the mood better, sometimes perfect wb ruins the shot cuz its way too cold but i want the yellow color from my lights or vice versa…
Btw 5600 kelvin looked the best
i laughed so hard at the blue tint when correcting blacks cuz i had this so many times
what do you mean no comments about the sweater?! you look great
You should just make a white balance t-shirt. Since you're usually filming yourself.
G9ll. What's with the sweater? It's only November.
I film dance shows in bars with the Sony A7S III. Its very poor lighting, too much red/blue, changing colors sometimes. Best tip I found was fix color temperature at 5100K, and it works ok. Sometimes the Color Corrector chart helps some. Also the new Adobe Premier Pro auto corrects SLOG3, I don't do color correcting any more.
Wait, what!? It does? So just by hitting “auto” color correction button on the basic tab works?
@@brandonleefilms-weddings Premier Pro announced in one of the recent updates (maybe 23.5 or 24.0) that they would automatically adjust SLOG3 color on import. I will look for the setting. It's ok for me for clips with crazy stage lighting. Any LUT makes those worse. However outdoors/daylight must use a lut. In PP it's File: Project Settings: Color: Auto Detect Log Video.
If you were to make a tutorial on dealing with multicolored stage lighting I would love to see.
That sweater really complements the schoolbag
Canon may not be perfect or as fancy as these other cameras, but it seems more consistent to me. My old 80D is good enough for my poor ass.
I haven't heard the term "Jabronis" since Ma$e used to to sing with the artist formerly know as Puff Daddy. Thank you. BTW, where's RatBoy?
I just choose the kelvin by eye judging from the back of the screen. I prefer a warmer and less green look, so on my Sony I shift M1 A1 or there abouts. It's never perfect, but as long as all my clips are the same I can mask out my skin in post and adjust mid tones so it's on the flesh line and then cut/ paste my color corrections across all my clips so they match.
also, just use the vectorscope to nail the skin tone. that's all you need for your vlog style
Did you set the priority in AWB to white? I get better results setting the priority to white in AWB rather than Standard (default). Also, I use a custom button to lock the AWB. Setting the WB manually or with grey cards is still best, but in a pinch AWB with priority set to white has given me decent results.
4 % looks like the sweet spot
5600K is fine, the problem is if someone's complexion isn't great then when colour is saturated to give the video more pop it exaggerates the nature of that complexion, which is totally fine if the skin is a beautifully even black, brown, honey or porcelain, but if it isn't, then it amplifies the flaws. Unless you live in the tropics, or only film at dawn and dusk, real life isn't as colourful as most people grade their videos, it kind of looks more like the overcast gloom of a Christopher Nolan film.
Some people start with lens then camera but Casey start with wind muff then sweater😂
It's 71* in Vegas today.
Love you dude, but auto white balance :) That´s your biggest problem. I se your struggles, it´s common. Graycard and then set the whitebalance to something simillar to what you are shooting, like for your video, choose cloudy. Then adjust the whitebalnce in post to set the white balance after the graycard. And set it to the grey one(always for neutral), for what you´re doing. "White" is more for studios and products(clinical stuff). Hard to explain but the reason you like the canon files is the warmth(the red) the same is why you set the whitebalance for cloudy even if the sun pops out every now and then, the warmth of the sun is felt possitiv(a bit yellow). The blue face in the Nikon is whitebalance again... It was set to either sunny weather(and in shade then you become blue) or auto and the camera thought it was sunny and then was confused. So in that instance as well, cloudy would have been the prefered setting. Hope you understand, love you anyway :)
Confusing stuff: what angle do you hold the grey card at? Angle in relation to what? How do you expose the card? How much light does it need to reflect? I know the pain my friend, still searching for the right combo. But been using the grey one exposing to 54 IRE in V-log. Not even sure it's correct but .. whatever.
Where did you buy the white balance sweater
At 6:43, your red shirt -- filling such a large portion of the frame -- is going to push the white balance to do the opposite. Just wear 50% neutral grey everything, all the time, forever. Or ... just wear a color-checker romper.
Did you need a sweater before when you were um … larger? On a serious note the difference between 5600 and 7000 on an overcast day is magically spot on with my EVA-1 in V-log (and all this time I just thought it was a shitty camera) 😆
1. Have you tried to set the Auto White Balance setting in the A7SIII to prioritize White instead of Ambi?
2. You always should grey-balance instead of white. That grey card you bought looks too dark. Get a better quality card (colorchecker passport?).
3. Always white balance at the shadow side of the face. White shouldn't be 100% white in video, it always looks better slightly warmer.
4. Sony Auto white balance is crap. :)
5. If you have red hair, try correcting for the shadows to be neutral in davinci's shadow log wheels (not primary wheels or hdr).
6. In grading, you can push-pull reds-yellows as you almost did in the video. No more than 1-3%. Push yellow with the Hue v Hue curves towards red, and push red towards yellow, until the skin looks to good and close to the skintone line (like you said with a bias that suits the face).
This!! I’m even the m50 has a “ prioritize whites” mode.
The only problem that if anything white in your frame is lot by a rgb light while your lit by something else, your skin tones will look like crap.
I think the point is: You shouldn't have to purchase a $$$ grey card and do so much correction in post just to get decent colors within the cameras own settings.
@@TerriblyCinemaddict color is much much more complex than it seems. The camera could be capturing things as they are in real life but it will look weird to us bc our brain tweak our vision and compensate for color cast too.
grey cards are not for WB, it is almost 100 years old Kodak trick for proper exposure, 18% gray. Only dedicated white flat sprectra material can be used for WB. You can try to use gray card for WB just as guess if nothing better around, but you do it 5 times worse signal-noise ratio, and almost all exposure gray cards makers not care avout flat spectral neutrality.
@@AABB-px8lc It's better than a 5$ grey card. Yes 18% grey cards were used for film, but I don't suggest you use the grey card to expose - only use it for WB - which get's you pretty much in the sweet spot. No 5x worse signal-to-noise ratio... Also the colorchecker passport is spectrally neutral which is why it costs an arm and a leg.
Auto with a couple points in Blue and Magenta, to counter the general green shift of the glass and sensor. Then I have my K set at 4800 just in case I need to lock it in any time of day and have the cold look cold the warm look warm, but without over influencing it and making it look muddy like a cloudy 5600k looks. I'm not trying to make everything look like Mexico in a Hollywood film. 😂
One great thing about Canon, they don't cripple the white balance. however if you throw on a Godox trigger it can cause the camera to turn off auto white balance! All I want is the perfect Godox transmitter! LOL..
I'm colorblind. My eyes aren't calibrated but my monitor is which was largely a waste of money.
With that orange backpack you look like Gordon Freeman from Half Life
Have you tried to White balance Auto (White) setting?
the beginning looks nice and warm.
then you turned green.
fuji and nikon looks purple.
can't go wrong with slightly wrong but slightly warm.
Sun 🔆 in the settings. Panasonic
Did that microphone grow out of your sweater? Where can i buy that sweater
So, it’s true that you get better stabilization if u manually set the focal length?
CB did well about 4%. I don’t think I’d go lower.
AWB doesn't work because it uses light that reflects off things with different colours. You should always set WB, either to daylight, or using a grey card. The white card is for setting white point and the black card is for setting black point. Used together, you get perfect colour and exposure.
Just shoot in B&W (with a Pentax monochrome K3mkIII).🤣
As long as it's daylight, 5600K is fine.
Catalyst browse exports in 8-bit which defeats the purpose of filming in 10-bit glory. We need more glory my friend. 😂
If davinci could read Sony's metadata correctly we could use BMD's gyro stabilization 😢
White card. Then I will click on something White in the edit. Then colour grade and add a little orange to my mids as it's Sony and skin is horrible! I would add a colour grade on top if I want the footage to have an artsy look to it.
Light dissent mix .. each light has a frequency..which is reflected by the subject in relation to their intensity.. this is identified by the sensor as noise..Film is a chemical process which affects each of the 3 layers of film individually .. "Mixed" is a crossover word used as an inaccurate explanation..
WB Ai should do the trick. If that's even a thing.
Are you even using a true 18% middle grey card though? Anyway, Sony is terrible. Before you even mentioned I knew it was going to shift to green while somehow boosting magenta on the skin tones lol. Honestly, I don't think anyone even notices the shifts on AWB for youtube/vlogging content cause they don't pay attention to it.
Edit: This video triggered the colorist with their 15 step programs.
With Sony I had to adjust it manually. Point the camera on anything white and adjust the kelvin until I see it white. With Fuji I don’t need to do anything.
what's with the whitebalance shift at 11:07?
Weather, shade, and other conditions. Not all light is created equal, regardless of what the constitution states. I'm in the 18% grey card cadre. Tint is what happens when you're busy making other plans. The thing many forget in the heat of the moment is non-subject reflected light, you have to change the balance from scene to scene, such is the bane of pure photography. Your camera is reading incident light and reflected light, so blocking and framing will be your friends.
My white card is actually fckin purple! So check your card with other white things. Gray card is way more accurate though.
Can you tell me what the hell is a log? It sounds like something that I make after my morning coffee… I’m a dumb lut. Which i don’t know about either.. help me.
My WB tip: shoot Olympus. OG.
I use auto to set it then switch to man so it doesn’t change. At least I can change later across the clip
What color is the sweater really?
sony color is sooooo easy for me to pick out instantly on any footage, even when corrections, grades, luts etc are applied.... I'll stick to canon LOL
Idk, I just leave it in auto with white priority. Cinema Verite
5500/5600k and live with it. It looks fine and minor variations, as clouds pass, whatever, don't really matter. Nobody sits here and watches videos just to monitor white balance changes. I'd prefer it if you recorded the audio to an external recorder and did away with your tether to the camera!
I do