Hi, I am constantly finding that when filming and monitoring via the LCD what is see is nothing like what I get, say its in a church, a bit warm in color, I set the camera to 3200 , and it looks perfect on the screen, yet in post it's looks like 4000K to 4600K and then the skin tone is off. My EX1 is - What I see what I get. Why with the PMW-200 it so so far off. I Have also tested it with a Small HD 7" Monitor and the out put is different to the LCD. Why ?.

Robert, the best way to ensure accurate color reproduction any time you are shooting under man-made lighting is to set a custom while balance using a white card or a WarmCard. If you dial-in your own white balance setting with the menus, you are just guessing. And not only that, the camera only allows you to manually adjust the white balance for wamer or cooler, but that is only one axis of the white balance. Without the ability to also control the green & magenta axis, you are NEVER going to get a correct white balance by dialing in the color manually.

Personally, I would never judge color or exposure by any camera's flip-out LCD because they are not good enough for those purposes and will only lead to problems -- as you have seen firsthand. Another problem is that the color your eyes see is influenced by the ambient light. Try holding a piece of colored gel over one eye for a few mintues, take it away, and then look at the difference between what your two eyes are reporting to your brain. Which one are you going to believe?

On the other hand, If I take the time to correctly set a custom white balance with a reference card I am guaranteed to get a perfect white balance every time -- regardless of what the LCD shows or how my eyeballs perceive it. I guess that discipline comes from several decades of working with B&W viewfinders before color came along. Anyone who worked in those days knows you had to be be very strict on how and when you set the white balance. Yeah, a color VF is nice to have, but I wouldn't trust it for critical decision making.

Just adding to what Doug said, you would benefit by calibrating your LCD as that will get you close and it sounds like you aren't right now. Here's a good tutorial:
Calibrating your viewfinder or LCD. | XDCAM-USER.COM (http://www.xdcam-user.com/2012/06/calibrating-your-viewfinder-or-lcd/)

There is a green/yellow shift issue with some of the newer Sony camera LCDs like the 200. It's been reported from owners that have both an EX1 and a newer camera in their possession.

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/sony-xdcam-ex-cinealta/513348-pmw200-lcd-colour-shift.html

The point I was trying to make is that whether or not there is a color shift on the LCD is irrelevant to setting a proper white balance and recording video with correct colors. Those are two separate issues. It doesn't matter how out of whack the LCD looks like, there is no excuse for not recording perfectly white balanced video if someone follows the tried and true white balancing techniques that have been used for decades -- even with B&W viewfinders.

If the LCD sucks, then I recommend sending the camera back to Sony and getting it repaired or getting a refund. But in the mean time, that should have no bearing on recording proper colors. Two separate issues.

Thanks Guys, Looks like i will get out the warm card i purchased from Doug. I there is a white card in there. So just let me confirm, if i am in a church, get someone to hold the white card where the B&G Stand , white balance on that and don't worry about the color setting or look in the LCD. in camera it should be pretty close.

Robert, that should work great. It's worked fine for me for 30 years!
Good luck.

Guys,

using neutral white card is the best option when one has a time for it. But I often dont have time or someone to hold the card at events. Than I need to balance on some "white" object that can be very inaccurate and I need to check a result on LCD/VF. Or I need to know if white need to be balanced after moving from one room to another. LCD on EX1/EX1R was good enough for that but LCD on pmw200 crappy off...

Personally, in over 30 years of shooting, I've never run into a situation where couldn't be bothered with white balance, focus, or exposure. I am a professional and it is my job to be able to do those things quickly, efficiently, and as often as is necessary.

Even on 9/11 in New York City, I white balanced.

Doug,

I white balance at any situation, too. But my point is that I dont always have a luxury to use white card for that to be sure of result.

Just one example: On wedding, newlyweds go out of church. I take one shot inside the church, than run outside for second shot. I have literaly 2 seconds to frame and set WB, focus and exposure. I have no aid to hold white card for me or second operator with second camera waiting for outside shot.

I use to save outside WB before ceremony to another preset but weather may change, so often I need to set WB manualy.

Lukas,

You might want to try shooting the outdoor stuff on a 5800K Preset. Then you could just flip the WB switch from memory A or B to Preset when you go outside without stopping to set the white balance.

At first this may seem to contradict what I have posted above about always setting the white balance manually, but it does not. Although I always set a custom white balance with a WarmCard or white card under man-made lighting, I almost never white balance outdoors during the daytime. I stopped doing that about 5 years ago when I realized I no longer wanted my colors to look the same throughout the day.

Let me repeat: Indoors under man-made lighting, I always white balance manually. There are no exceptions. But outdoors during daylight, I pretty much never white balance manually and prefer to use a Preset between 5600K to 6000K (depending on the camera) which I have setup beforehand.

Think about it. The sun is always the same color temperature and never changes. But what does change during the day are the atmospheric conditions that change the color of the light (i.e. warmer at sunset) and I prefer not to cancel those natural color changes out. I DO want my whites to look warmer at sunset and bluer at midday. It's natural so why cancel it out? The only exception is when I use a WarmCard to purposely change the white balance outdoors, but I would never use a white card outdoors.

I hope this makes sense. For some people this is an advanced concept that they can't quite understand unless they go out and try it for themselves.

Thanks Doug, this is true, out side under sun, its is a lot better. i find man made lighting the problem. When i arrive at a wedding i set a outside temp and inside temp with the preset switches. But will use the white card for inside from now on. Ta. i see how i go. I going to re watch your dvd about Gamma and white knee, just need to brush up on the setting for filming out side , some times i blow the white wedding dress out, did you have any options to add, re Gamma and Exposure.

Doug, you threw me when you said this:

Even on 9/11 in New York City, I white balanced.

but then you later said this:

Although I always set a custom white balance with a WarmCard or white card under man-made lighting, I almost never white balance outdoors during the daytime. I stopped doing that about 5 years ago when I realized I no longer wanted my colors to look the same throughout the day.

I'm confused. What were you shooting on 9/11 that required white balancing?

Well, the answer is simple if you read closer. 9/11 was 12 years ago and viewfinders were all B&W back then so you had to be very disciplined about white balancing. As I said in my last post, times change and I stopped white balancing outdoors about 5 years ago after I started editing more of my own work and decided I didn't want my colors to look the same all day long. I hope that clears up the confusion.

As an example, here's a quick little video I shot last month after NAB where I used a 5800K preset throughout. Why would I want to white balance during the day and lose the natural tones of light as the day progressed?

Arches National Park 2013 on Vimeo

The whole point of white balancing is to make whites look approximately the same in all shooting environments -- but sometimes that is the wrong creative decision. Thus, I use Preset outdoors and WarmCards indoors 99% of the time.

Setting the white balance is something that sets apart experienced photographers. I do it all the time but I have the luxury of using the LCD on my EX1R to know if my preset is off and I need to set a custom one. This happens frequently when shooting at the end of the day and after moving in and out of shade and full sun A camera's LCD is a useful tool and when calibrated properly, makes getting well exposed recordings fast and with less cognitive load allowing for more creativity.

In the case of the PMW-200 intended to replace the EX1(r), I don't give Sony a pass for using an LCD with a green/yellow color shift. Add it to the list of design flaws of the PMW-200. The EX1 had it's share of flaws many of which were fixed in the EX1R. No camera is perfect.

Ah, okay Doug....got it. Lazy reading on my part.
dave

Hi Doug, here is a screen shot from the camera, the day was overcast, all of the image looked to the exposed ok, yet the dress and the whites are overexposed, and on a sunny day its even worse. Did you have a way of stopping the withes to blow out ? or a setting in the camera that i could try, re gamma setting , knee and so on... Thanks.

Robert,
Probably the wrong thread for your question, but you may want to start by trying your hypergammas to see their effect. Get Doug's DvD if you don't already have it.
Remember, the sensor has a limited dynamic range (for increased dynamic range you could go with an F3 or F5/F55.) - but the dynamic range of the sensor is still greater than that of the recording format. Hypergammas help you capture more of the dynamic range, but bright whites can still blow out. That's why traditionally bright whites are not part of the allowed palette on dramatic shoots. If you absolutely want to keep detail in your whites, then expose to protect them. Use your Zebras to make sure nothing is exposed at or over 100%. If there are really bright areas and you adjust for them, your skin tones may become darker. You may then need to integrate color correction timing into your postproduction workflow.

Doug,

I completely understand what you saying. But it depents on creative desicion in each project. When I have only one/few outside shot on project I dont want to have it blue because of cloudy day.

I just showed one case, but there is many similar situation - you may go from one room to another... And also we often work with 2 camcoder (200 and EX1R) and I was confused many time. I thought that colleage forgot to WB, when I saw both LCDs side by side.

My point is not about when WB but about nesessity to have at least roughly balanced LCD/VF.

Thanks Dave, the main question was about the white balance, and LCDs on the PMW-200. The Imaged looked ok on the day on the LCD, but in post there were a lot of over exposed clips. So I am going to have to learn more about trusting the setting in camera rather than what I see on the LCD.

Douglas, thanks for the white balance info, shot a concert tonight, used the white card, and balanced all 4 cameras, what a difference in LCD screens, I now know I can't trust them, I still say the EX1 had the best LCD out of the 200,EX3. I am taking your DVD away with me and will re watch it on my holidays.

@ Robert
If your white's are blown out then then you have over-exposed the image. Having a good picture profile and knowing how to setup and use the zebras will make it much easier to avoid blown out whites and still keep the rest of the picture looking great. Believe me, it not only is possible, it is quite easy in practice. BTW, if you're shooting with the camera's factory-default settings, you're never going to get consistently good looking images from the camera and blowing out the whites will always be a real problem.

@Dave
As always, a great post. Thanks for joining the conversation.

@Lukas
If you follow the procedures I have suggested you won't have blue video on a cloudy day. If that's what you're getting, you're doing something wrong.

@Robert, again
Learning to trust the camera, after you have followed proper procedure for setting white balance and exposure, regardless of what your eyes are telling you from the LCD, is like a pilot flying in clouds and trusting his instruments rather than relying on his "perception" of what the plane is doing. Too many cameramen shoot video like JFK Jr. few his small plane, and that is not good. I hope you like the DVD because it will answer many of your questions.

White balance always used to confuse me before. I normally got it right as I used to depend on the ATW on my old Panasonic HVX200. It looked good to me.

A few years back however, I started believing in myself. So I am actually using the same procedure as Doug. Glad to see others are doing the same as me. That should mean I am doing something right....

However, I would like to ask Doug why you are shooting at 5800K during daytime whereas the preset is normally 5600K. Is this a matter of how the picture profile in the camera is set up or just personal preference? I actually used to shoot 5900K on my EX1, beacuse that looked good to me. Not sure why I went back to 5600K.

I asked a colleague of mine in the film industry, and he always uses either 3200K or 5500K. I am not sure why there would be a difference of 300K between all of us.

And by the way, I really recommend Doug`s warmcards.

Hi Svein, it's nice to hear that you're getting good results with the same techniques I'm using.

As I mentioned in an earlier post (#11), the value I use for the outdoor preset varies from 5600K to 6000K depending on the model of camera. As you know, not all cameras look the same, so where 5600K might be the right choice for camera A, 6000K or some other number might be the better choice for camera B. Plus, it is a matter of personal preference. 5800K is generally my default value.

Just to repeat a point I made earlier, I think your colleague is wrong to ever use a preset of 3200. And I don't understand why Sony still uses 3200 as the default preset on their cameras. Bad settings right out of the box! Anytime someone is shooting under man-made lighting a manual white balance should be set because hardly any indoor lights are actually 3200 degrees, and with today's mix of tungsten bulbs, LED fixtures, fluorescent tubes, compact fluorescent bulbs, and other types of lights in all kinds of variations of warm, cool, daylight, etc. it is impossible to know what temperature the lighting really is. But the solution is simple -- white balance on a white card or WarmCard and you're good to go.

BTW, for anyone who is in the Boston area, I'll be doing a couple of workshops on Friday May 31st.

"Turn off "AUTO" for Better Video"
Turn off "AUTO" for Better Video - Doug Jensen The Camera Company (http://www.cameraco.com/events/pro-video-show/workshops/turn-off-auto-for-better-video-doug-jensen/?date=2013-05-31)

"The Amazing Advantages of XDCAM"
Sony - XDCam The Camera Company (http://www.cameraco.com/events/pro-video-show/free-seminars-including-peg/sony-xdcam/?date=2013-05-31)

When I learnt shooting video with a broadcast camera, there were only cameras with black and white crt viewfinders and no secondary color display. Hehe, I just realized this sounds like grandpa telling stories from the sixties, but it was only like ten years ago.

However, it taught me rather well not to rely on a display for judging color temperature and hue. Maybe you could go practice with your display set to black and white? I bet you'll be able to precisely guess color temperatures after a while, without the camera!

At some point you'll be able to know exactly where you need to make a white balance to get the look you like, even in horrible mixed-light situations. And then turn the color on your screen back on, but keep in mind this is just an additional hint, not a perfectly accurate monitor.

And by the way if your cameras manual white balance adjustment doesn't get the results you like, but you would still like to be able to make the white balance a little warmer (and don't have a warm card): hold a 1/8 or 1/4 CTB in front of your lens while white balancing.

I asked a colleague of mine in the film industry, and he always uses either 3200K or 5500K.

That is pretty much the classic way to do it: film was either 3200K or 5600K, you couldn't just dial something in, it was one of the two!

I think you don't always have to perfectly white balance every shot when you're shooting documentary - a little color can be interesting! However it shouldn't be the wrong color (=blueish) on peoples faces, that almost never looks good...