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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Auto white balance way off!!!

N

Nicholas Shields

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My camera auto white balances outdoors almost always close to 10K. Here's the kicker - it looks right!. When set to 5600, is way off. I know this is only meta data, but there's a real problem here. I've been asking for Red's help for a few days, but no luck. Anyone with a similar problem?... Or solution?

By the way, I've already blackshaded the camera... twice... properly.

Anyone?

Nick.
 
White Balance.

White Balance.

What happens when you open the recorded .R3D file into REDALERT! and do a color pick and white balance there?
 
I went outside and shot two shots.

#1: white card 25% center frame - auto white balance read 7383, in redalert, when selected it came up at 4900.
#2: white card 50% center frame - auto white balance read 9300, in redalert, when selected it came up at 5634.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

N.
 
Red has dropped off the planet on this one - we have a support ticket, but we're getting nothing. Anyone that could help would be greatly appreciated...

Nick.
 
I suppose the white card was not overexposed when you did the white balance?
 
No, but good question. We've been dealing with this for four or five days of outdoor shooting - all kinds of conditions - early morn, late day and everything in between.

Nick.
 
Hi Nick,

Remember me, Nick? ;-) under what conditions, and where in the world did this happen? Is this consistant, or was it a one time deal? What time of day, overcast, under a tree Oslo or LA?


Nick
PS you find the lens caps on Ducloses web site?

Edit - well the post you enetered while I was typing answered my questions.
 
I'm trying to figure out why you would even use the auto white balance?
 
I'm trying to figure out why you would even use the auto white balance?
Click to expand...

Well, good point. Nick, how off does it look, I mean 7-8k degrees is not an odd color temp to find outside. So you shoot at 5600 and it looks blue? Or is it just cool? Post some stills.

Nick
 
Because my daylight balance setting is way off. I know it's meta data, but when ten clients are standing around a monitor asking if the blue color on everything is on purpose, the novelty of answering the question is getting old.
 
I will have to post pics sometime on the weekend - we rented another rig to finish the project. We've shot in all kinds of daylight conditions - all around the clock - it rarely reads below 8K. Jacking it up to 10K and resetting it in RedAlert/Redcine was our only solution - til the 2nd rig arrived. It seems to be an electronics issue. When the footage comes in, we can white balance without issue. In the field, however, it's another story.

N.
 
same white balance issue

same white balance issue

Suede said:
My camera auto white balances outdoors almost always close to 10K. Here's the kicker - it looks right!. When set to 5600, is way off.
Click to expand...

We have the same white balance issue.

We got the camera two weeks ago -build 16 with 3.2.5 update- and started shooting a feature. Our tungsten balance looks good around 4,200, and our outdoor balance around 7,800 (10,000 in the shade is still a little blue).

In RED ALERT the metadata numbers show up the same, so I don't think the GUI is lying to me.

Seems like something is not right, but since everything is metadata anyway we're not terribly worried. I'm just trying to keep it consistent so the colorist doesn't hate me.
 
Issues here, too. Not horrible, but it definitely seems off between if you white balance in the field and then white balance with the white picker in Red Cine. We usually use the field white balance...Cine's picker seems off to me. We have not thorough testing on this yet, though.
 
It would be interesting to use a color temperature meter where you live and see what the difference is. Color Temp varies time of day, altitude and latitude.

When in Tahiti I consistently was getting color temp readings on the camera of 12k plus. There was just a tremendous amount of blue there, which is why the water and sky looks so cool also.
 
Nicholas Shields said:
Build 15 - no lens filters
Click to expand...

Nicholas,

If you don't mind me asking, why are you using 15? There are so many compelling reasons to shoot 17 and some would argue 18.

The other thing you might look at is renting a color meter and confirming against that.

If you are really set on using build 15 it would be an interesting and trivial test to set the blacks and do a awb, then quickly load 17, set the blacks and then recheck your awb, see if you get different behavior.

I'd be curious to see your results.

:J
 
JonathanF said:
Nicholas,

If you don't mind me asking, why are you using 15? There are so many compelling reasons to shoot 17 and some would argue 18.

The other thing you might look at is renting a color meter and confirming against that.

If you are really set on using build 15 it would be an interesting and trivial test to set the blacks and do a awb, then quickly load 17, set the blacks and then recheck your awb, see if you get different behavior.

I'd be curious to see your results.

:J
Click to expand...

The posts are almost a year old
 
But good timing, since I'm having the same issue! This is when shooting outdoors.

I use AWB, never a proper white balance (super blue). Use Tungsten or Daylight settings, never proper (either blue or super blue). I have to turn the manual WB up to at least 9000k before I get something remotely proper. For upstate New York, I've never had to deal with such a high kelvin measurement so I'm wondering what the issue could be!
 
In the Himalaya at ~10k ft we saw upwards of 11k in the mornings routinely. Don't be too stunned.

If you really think somethings skewed try some tests under controlled conditions and see if the numbers make sense. A bare bulb in your hotel room and a gray card should be enough to give you some idea if they are at least in the ballpark. If you have some Kinos handy they can also be a little more reliable in terms of temp.

Either way, with these kinds of problems you really gotta give us some info to go on here.

How did you determine that your color temp was off? It will always help isolate things if you have any non-perceptual test data to back your suspicions up with.

If you do a couple controlled tests with known light sources and see what you get we can all probably help you track down the issue.

Cheers,

:J
 
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