Hi. I have read that you can use tinted sheets of paper to alter the white balance slightly and get a different look. Can anyone help me...how do I do this? I'm interested in trying this out but I'm not sure what to do.

Thanks

Hi,

I've been playing with the same thing for a little while now and there's a few things you can do. The results are similar to what you get screwing around with the curves and/or colour correction wheels in post or throwing on various filters in front of the lens - but I have a suspicion that this is a more repeatable and easier method.

The basic idea is to shift what your camera 'thinks' is correct white - to something else; Off-white towards another colour. What this does is cause the camera to 'compensate' and push its whole colour pallete in the opposite direction to the shade you balanced off. For example;

1) Go to the stationary supplier and pick yourself out some shades of blue card/paper. Start with the lightest most 'just-off-white' colour you can get. Maybe like the old Airmail writing paper - it was just a shade off white towards blue. Start with that and then get a couple of stronger shades - (we're not talking "VERY BLUE" here - but just progressivley blue-er shades of white if you catch my drift). Then do some tests white balancing off those.

The result is your colour temp is pushed away from blue and towards red/yellow - (the opposite side of the colour wheel to Blue) warming up your whole shot. The stronger the 'blue' you balance off, the 'warmer' the scene will look. There is a point at which the whole thing just looks 'Martian' and ugly - but with the lighter blue shades you should stay well away from that.

Another approach is to balance off Green - again just off-white towards green. This pushes your pallette towards the magenta side of things and is really only useful when shooting under normal flourescent lighting. Because Flouros add a crappy green cast to your shot, pushing your white towards the magenta will correct for this. Obviously testing on the strength of green is important for a repeatable and pleasing look.

Mainly that's what I've been playing with, going with other colours will produce different results - again, whatever colour you move towards, the camera will go the opposite way.

Hope that's a start anyway,

best,

DW

Of course, if you're so inclined:

http://www.warmcards.com/

Thanks for the info guys. I remember doing something like that, I can't remeber the color we used but it looked like it had sheen over it.

Thanks David and Doug for your help. Do you this often? I can't wait to start experimenting and see what kind of results I get.

Thanks again

I use mine nearly every time I shoot (which isn't all that often) but I like the way they work.

Don't forget that instead of using different colors of cards, you can just white balance against a true white card through different lighting filter gels.

If you want to shoot under flourescents, instead of gelling all the lights, just white balance through a 1/8 or 1/4 Plusgreen, pulling your image towards magenta.

Or if you want that sickly green look of some of "Fight Club", just balance through a 1/8 or 1/4 Minusgreen, or Magenta.

Want a cool blue look, try a 1/8 or 1/4 straw or peach. Want an orange look? Try a teal filter. It helps to keep a color wheel with you, as you will end up tinting the picture the opposite color from the color of the filter.

I really like creative white balancing, as it pulls the colors into strange areas the way that traditional filtration and post processing can't. You'd better like the look, though, as there's usually no way to go back and "fix it" later.

Besides, Lee or Rosco will send you free swatchbooks of their lighting gels, so it's cheap to experiment. The Rosco swatchbook is a bit small, but the Lee is often big enough to hold in front of your DV camera's lens. How's that for cheap?

Those sounds like neat tricks, Scott. I've emailed away to Lee to ask for a swatchbook.

Thanks Doug and Scott for the info. I did a little experimenting last night and was really pleased with the different looks I got. Can't wait to try it out on a short video.

Thanks

h

Hi all,

I've seen *this* subject a few times in this and other forums. :)

Here's a page I built showing some practical examples of color balancing through swatch gels.

http://michael-morlan.net/projects/dv500/dv500_color_balancing_with_gels.htm

Enjoy,

Michael