XF300 White Balance

[Larry Cohen]

Has anyone else found this? We're shooting outside a lot in the sunshine / clouds, etc. For whatever reason, the auto white carding in the XF300 seems to drift more than it should from scene to scene. Usually a bit bluish. A bit pinkish, purpleish?

But then pretty good for a few scenes. It just seems to drift on auto a lot more than other cameras, like the HVX200.

I tried white carding it on a white T-shirt outside (this usually seems to work, although I know experts will cringe!) but then it's really bad. Tp greenish/yellowish.

You wouldn't think it would do this?

Anyone else have any thoughts?

Thanks,
Larry

[Bruce Rawlings]

My only thought is why are you using auto white balance? As an editor it will be hard to colour grade pictures that are always on the move.

[Larry Cohen]

We must do things a little differently! I've always found most professional cameras - seem to do a pretty good job auto white balancing, automatically on their own, unless strange lighting situations were encountered! Just shooting outdoors seems to produce pretty consistant, reliable, good results on good cameras over the years. Just seems like with the XF 300, several different clips shot together outside in similar light - just seems like clips color balance drift?

Never saw it this bad before . . . just curious if anyone else had any experience with this.

Thanks,

[Jonathan Levin]

I'd avoid auto anything for pro work, myself.

[Brian Woods]

Setting your WB on auto for just seems to be asking for trouble. Personally, when I get a camera, I make sure AWB is turned off and I never, ever, ever touch it again. Just manually set WB accurately, and you'll never have this problem again. Problem solved.

[Bruce Rawlings]

I've been doing this since the early 80s when high band u matic and a Sony 330 was the norm. Used auto white once when the director wanted me to walk from exterior to interior in one shot.

[Kevin Lewis]

It seems that a lot of people feel the need to always use manual settings. Todays cameras are very smart and can frequently do a better job on their own. I have the XHA1 and I am just about always using the auto mode for audio and various other settings. I know that many will say different but these cameras are designed to do well on their own. Of course there will always be circumstances where auto wont cut it but this does not mean that auto settings are taboo.

[Larry Cohen]

I kinda agree with Kevin . . .

and I like how the allows you to control the picture chroma, gamma, settings, etc - if you want to change everything it shoots a bit.

[Nick Wilcox-Brown]

While I see where you are coming from Kevin, I beg to disagree, certainly with White Balance.

The science of generating a WB is not an exact one. Take any major manufacturers professional still camera (identical technology), point it at a scene and take half a dozen shots; there will be variations, even if the image is a white wall. Shoot half a dozen clips of the same scene on a pro video camera and the same will happen, even under unchanging light.

I spent a lot of time working with a team camera developers a couple of years back and they admitted it is simply not possible to get 100% accuracy with WB. The only way to get a consistent result is to lock it down.

Nick

[Larry Cohen]

Point well taken, Nick. I'm going to play with this when I get time.

Larry