White Balance

[Graeme Nattress]

When you shoot RAW, you see correct looking video through the monitor. I don't see why you think anyone would be unhappy - they're not going to see off colour video.

Graeme

 

[Stuart English]

White Balance.

White Balance.

The one operational clarification I'd offer to this is that the images through the viewfinder and monitor ports can look off color if you don't set white balance or hit the Auto White Balance from time to time. Again this does NOT affect the RAW data, and WB information IS stored with the RAW data as metadata, but adjusting (or having the camera recalculate) white balance as you shift between different color temperature lighting conditions - such as indoor to outdoor - is the only way to prevent a color cast in your viewfinder and on your on set monitors.

 

[Paul Wizikowski]

And thats the beauty of this camera. Flexibility. We can each choose our own workflow.

Something to think through though that was brought up by Bachman was the need to sometimes shoot a shot through varying color temperatures. (ie. going from indoor to outdoor, or vice-versa, and having to use the available temps) In this situation one could in REDCINE dial in one or the other but not keyframe between the two. Because REDCINE doesn't support keyframes. The only option would be to do two passes of the material. One for each color temp and then blend them (dissolve or the like) in your NLE.

Any other suggestions?

 

[Graeme Nattress]

Doing two versions of the shot is best, as then you're deferring the blending decisions to later - always a good thing.

Graeme

 

[Zakaree Sandberg]

white balance = amature

 

[David Mullen ASC]

On what planet? Auto white balance isn't used that often on professional video productions except in emergencies, but white balance is a common tool of video production.

In film, when you shoot under greenish fluorescents and shoot a grey scale under them and ask the dailies colorist to correct-out the green, essentially you are doing a form of white balancing, just not in-camera. It's just that white balance is a form of video production, whereas the RED camera is designed to act more like a film camera. But it's not a question of amateur vs. professional.

 

[Steve Gibby]

RED One was designed to act like a film camera when you need that, and act like a video camera when you need that. Flexibility and adaptability were the developmental mantras.

From a pure technology standpoint, RED One's technology pedigree is, in descending order of relationship:

1) DSLR
2) Video camera
3) Film camera

White balancing is an integral part of the workflow for DSLR and video work, and with RED One being largely based on those technologies, it follows that white balancing is important in RED One usage when shooting 1080p RGB and 720p RGB. When shooting RAW, chroma info isn't baked in, but rather stored as metadata, so adjusting of color parameters in REDCINE is easily done.

In his post #14 Stuart English verified that RED One will have white balancing capability, even a form of auto white balancing. Welcome to media convergence.

 

[Pat Cooksey]

On what planet? Auto

In film, when you shoot under greenish fluorescents and shoot a grey scale under them and ask the dailies colorist to correct-out the green, essentially you are doing a form of white balancing, just not in-camera. It's just that white balance is a form of video production, whereas the RED camera is designed to act more like a film camera. But it's not a question of amateur vs. professional.

As you know, In film we have always white balanced by putting filters in front of (or behind) the lens. Or by choosing a film stock balanced for the lighting conditions (tungston or Daylight). Minor corrections have always been done in post by the color timer or by the telecine colorist.

This system has worked for over 70 years (since color).

I appreciate the ability of RED to whitebalance in RGB. But for RAW I would evaluate the actual color caste unaltered in given lighting conditions and then, when shooting use an appropriate CC filter. That way you are always in the ball park. Remember, even most video cameras use a filter wheel to ball park it as well as white balance.

When shooting video (digital or otherwise) I always prefer the white balance presets over using a card, Unless I am trying to match precise colors between different localions. In the end, If I am editing my footage, I am going to do a scene by scene color correct as my last step anyway.

And I like the idea of the Redcine workflow because I like the idea of being able to do a basic color correction before handing my footage off to a client. It gives me back a measure of control over the look.

By the way, In my research no one has mentioned whether or not RED has the capacity to playback the recorded footage in camera.

Pat Cooksey
Atlanta DP
www.motionvisuals.com.

 

[dalemccready]

Dale, it was a joke kiwi, dont mean to make it sound offensive. But hey, it does happen. In our case its actually been hard to get good DP's over the last couple of years both here and in Welly. Weve been burnt by some bad ones over east as well and they werent cheap either. Maybe we should give you a bell next time we need a good DP in Auckland. You reel looks hot!

Tony

No Worries...and I travel to Perth! Did a feature called Teesh & Trude there a few years ago with DVCpro50. Came out all right. Was a nice town. Good for cycling in my spare time, and so many hot girls!

 

[Ralph Oshiro]

Yes there is a White Balance control. When you shoot RGB the white balance is usually "baked in" but when you shoot RAW the white balance is just used to create a color neutral feed for the EVF and other monitor outputs.

Whew! Thanks for clearing that up, Stuart!

 

[Steve Gibby]

Here's an aggregation of recent posts by RED Team members concerning white balancing with RED One:

“when you white balance it sets the gain of each channel to be equal”; - this is not strictly so. Perhaps it is in “video” cameras, but that's not how white balance really works in terms of color science. Because it's a perceptual thing, you can't really do proper white balance in RGB, but you can in a perceptual spaced based around how the eye works. White balance then becomes a 3x3 matrix, rather than R, G, B gain values. End result is a much better image that you can set in degress kelvin quite nicely. That's how the current white balance in the REDCINE is working - you type in the color temp of the scene, and bamm! you're balanced. Want it warmer or cooler, just add or subtract a few hundred kelvin."

Graeme Nattress
DVX User RED forum
10/31/06
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=76635


"In-camera you can set the white balance in degrees kelvin or white balance it by pointing it at a gray card. As indicated, in RAW mode this information passes as metadata and is not applied (you can override) until the post RGB conversion process.

REDCINE will also allow you to "auto" white balance.

There will be all sorts of monitoring aids to help with focus and exposure. We are not ready to tell much more yet. Come see us at NAB Casey (and everyone else)!"

Rob Lohman
2/7/07
DVi
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=85275



"You could shoot a warm or cool card, but you'd probably be better off shooting a grey card, and then dialing in the kelvin shift you need to warm or cool the image.

It's not limited to the Kelvin scale of colour temperatures as there's also a tint control that allows your white point to move along iso-temperature lines perpendicular to the plankian locus in CIE 1960 u,v space.

And you've got R,G,B gain controls, and a custom matrix where you can insert whatever you want.

But really, while balance is for just that - to subvert it to something else is a hack you need on cameras without easy or sufficient controls. I'd think that's a hack you no longer need with RED."

Graeme Nattress
2/7/07
REDUser
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=85275



"Yes there is a White Balance control. When you shoot RGB the white balance is usually "baked in" but when you shoot RAW the white balance is just used to create a color neutral feed for the EVF and other monitor outputs. In addition its then recorded as metadata, so you are free to use that value - or anything else you prefer - to correct a color cast in the RGB data derived from the RAW data.

The color temperature used to factory adjust the sensor for neutral colors is 5000K, then the White Balance circuit is working out the necessary math to re-establish neutral colors for other color temperatures (or you could use a color filter in the optical path). We have presets at 3200K and 5400K, you can dial in any alternative value you wish, or you can have the camera calculate it for you i.e. Auto White Balance."

Stuart English
5/2/07
RED User
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?p=38479&posted=1#post38479




"The one operational clarification I'd offer to this is that the images through the viewfinder and monitor ports can look off color if you don't set white balance or hit the Auto White Balance from time to time. Again this does NOT affect the RAW data, and WB information IS stored with the RAW data as metadata, but adjusting (or having the camera recalculate) white balance as you shift between different color temperature lighting conditions - such as indoor to outdoor - is the only way to prevent a color cast in your viewfinder and on your on set monitors."

Stuart English
5/3/07
RED User
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=2196&page=3

 

[Steve Gibby]

By the way, In my research no one has mentioned whether or not RED has the capacity to playback the recorded footage in camera.

It does...

 

[Ralph Oshiro]

When you shoot RAW, you see correct looking video through the monitor.

Thanks, Graeme. Obviously, I wasn't clear on on this issue before.

 

[Joel Kaye]

Here's an aggregation of recent posts by RED Team members concerning white balancing with RED One:

Great post Gibby. I've been following fairly closely and I didn't remember any of that.

 

[Gbabymogul]

On what planet? Auto white balance isn't used that often on professional video productions except in emergencies, but white balance is a common tool of video production.

In film, when you shoot under greenish fluorescents and shoot a grey scale under them and ask the dailies colorist to correct-out the green, essentially you are doing a form of white balancing, just not in-camera. It's just that white balance is a form of video production, whereas the RED camera is designed to act more like a film camera. But it's not a question of amateur vs. professional.

David, how did you white balance the Elisha Cuthbert flick?

I noticed on the bts you taped frame lines on the monitor. Guerilla style, baby.

BTW, i thought you did a good job with the material, which needed more work, IMO. Couldn't you have thrown in some happy flashbacks ? (kidding) How long was the post for that ?

:beer:

 

[David Mullen ASC]

That movie, "The Quiet", was shot on a Panavised Sony F900, more or less donated, or at least rented to the production for dirt cheap. It was an under 1-mil feature co-produced with the University of Texas in Austin.

For HD features, 90% of the time I use the preset white balance and the filter wheel. To give the day scenes a cool look, I used the "C" filter instead of the "D" or "A" for a halfway balance. I had some scenes in a cafeteria under Cool Whites where I white-balanced to correct out the green cast.

Because the camera package was a deal, it was incomplete (Panavision was cleaned-out of HD gear for because of TV series shooting) and the HD monitor came from a local company and it didn't have a frameline generator, so I masked off the monitor to match the cropping to 2.35 that we were doing.

Post was sort of extended because the movie kept being re-edited after it was bought by Sony Pictures Classics / Screen Gems (I forgot which Sony label it was finally released under.) The cut that went to the Toronto Film Festival was very different. Some of the early post was done at UT Austin but it was finished at FotoKem and then transferred to 35mm anamorphic by EFilm.

 

[Gbabymogul]

Thanks for the info.

I suppose shooting a similar flick with RED you'd just dial in the color temp on camera (and shoot a grey card for reference in post) ? Or would you load LUT's ?

I only mention the framelines because we previously had a big thread about framelines (commercial needs) and when i saw the bts on your film, it seemed some of that fuss over the issue was a load of palaver, depending on your needs. It put the issue to rest, for me.

I would have liked to see the Toronto version of the film. Jamie Babbit seems like a risk taker. That's always a good endorsement to check out her films. Like you, i try to check out as many digital films as i can (to get a feeling for the possibilities).

:beer:

 

[David Mullen ASC]

The question for a camera shooting RAW is how to get dailies for offline editing to be timed somewhat to look close to the final intention. I guess if the camera stores intended color balance as metadata, then an HD or SD downconversion for dailies would contain the correct look.

 

[Alexander Nikishin]

Thanks for the info.

I suppose shooting a similar flick with RED you'd just dial in the color temp on camera (and shoot a grey card for reference in post) ? Or would you load LUT's ?

You'd shoot RAW with a grey card prior to every change in lighting conditions.

Then set your color temp. in Redcine.

If you needed a dialed in looked during shooting, that's when you'd ingest a LUT to the Red to be fed out to the set monitors. The Pana Genesis uses a similar, non-recorded LUT system they call Pana-log.

 

[Bachman]

The question for a camera shooting RAW is how to get dailies for offline editing to be timed somewhat to look close to the final intention. I guess if the camera stores intended color balance as metadata, then an HD or SD downconversion for dailies would contain the correct look.

David , I would feel reasonably confident that I could correct any white balance in post, the only thing I would want is consistency