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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 :)

White Balancing

G

Gary Nice

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This might be a stupid question but I really don't see a lot in the manual about white balancing the Scarlet. Since we can adjust the Kelvin setting for the specific lighting do we still have to white balance the camera?

If show, how?

Gary
 
You're shooting RAW so WB at time of acquisition is just for on-set looks. With RED RAW you have the ability to infinitely move color around in post.

http://www.red.com/learn
 
If it makes you feel better, you can shoot a white or gray card at the beginning of each clip and then just set WB later in RCX based on that card.
 
It's good practice to white balance a scene, if production gives you the time.
 
If you're shooting in fluorescent or other similar light with non smooth spectrums you might want to auto white balance with a white/grey card, rather than dialling in a colour temperature.

Search for "auto white balance" in the DSMC Operation Guide PDF - it's definitely in there.

But as Zeb says, it's tweakable in post, although I prefer to get it as right as possible in camera.
 
Terry VerHaar said:
Not that I think that is a bad idea, but I am curious why you think it necessary.
Click to expand...

For me...I always try and accurately white balance on set, that way if I'm not editing the piece, I give a good, accurate base for the editor who may or may not be familiar with RED content.
 
Terry VerHaar said:
Not that I think that is a bad idea, but I am curious why you think it necessary.
Click to expand...

If you work with the histogram, it changes a little bit with the Kelvin settings, it might stretch or shrink, based on the scene and the light. If you're tight already in terms of available dynamic -- it is better to know what you really need.

The pols will be the primarily indicator, and will of course not change with whatever you dial into the "K" field, but if one reacts to the histogram...it might have a little influence.

White-balancing -- well it needs to be known how to do it anyway, just a gray card holded in any direction without knowing which light source is key and supposed to be white... I have seen many photographers dialing the mood out of the scene ;o)
 
Dr. Sassi said:
White-balancing -- well it needs to be known how to do it anyway, just a gray card holded in any direction without knowing which light source is key and supposed to be white... I have seen many photographers dialing the mood out of the scene ;o)
Click to expand...

yup
 
I was going to comment the same thing.

A lot of Cinematographers are going to mix Warm and Cold within a shot, one to illustrate the Location/time of day and two for mood.

(in comment to the RAW situation)Also, I think most Cinematographers would agree that you want to get it close to perfect on set as you possibly can, but you might not; e.g. one reason you might not is that if you plan to window a sky that going to be blown out, so that you can expose for foreground.
 
I always (mostly) throw a white card in at the beginning of a set-up - I don't always white balance the camera with it though. The card can be used later to tweak the colour temp / tint in RCX. Of course everyone will have a different workflow.

Looking forward to seeing how the colour chart feature in Resolve 11 will work. It will 'automatically' use a MacBeth chart to create a 'balanced' grade... Though the thought of having a piece of software doing that kind of scares me.
 
Thank you Everyone. As always you are all so helpful as we all go through this learning curve
 
WB

WB

If something looks funky on the monitor I'll do the auto white to see where it lands. Often the green-magenta "tint" will be what the problem was, once that's settled then I'll change the Kelvin to set the mood back to what looks appropriate as the Auto white will often take out the mood as others point out. Always nice to see on the monitor what you want to see, even if you have the power to change it later.
 
In the Gentlemen's bubble blower thread there was a long discussion based on some tests that showed that white balancing in camera actually gave different / better results than just doing it in post... Some explained it as "red is not really raw"... don't know if thats the truth, but figured it's worth mentioning.
 
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