EX1 White Balance Issue

[Winston Ashley]

So as I was shooting a scene for a presentation video the white balance decided to go from my current setting to a cool blue setting! Its like the camera decided to go into auto white balance mode in the middle of a 10 minute take. Any owners experience the same issue?

I had a Picture Profile -> White -> Preset White: 4800

I also made the White Balance mode Off (Menu -> LCD/VF set -> Display On/Off -> White Balance Mode:off) Which makes the White balance switch on the left side active instead of having it on the screen. That might of been the problem. It has happened more than once.

I attached a .mov You will see how it fades to the different color balance then you can see that i switched the white balance back.

What you think?

[Leonard Levy]

My guess is you accidently had ATW - automatic white trace engaged. That's how it might behave. If you thought you were on pre-set and never actually did a white balance, you might not have noticed.

[Winston Ashley]

Originally Posted by Leonard Levy

My guess is you accidently had ATW - automatic white trace engaged. That's how it might behave. If you thought you were on pre-set and never actually did a white balance, you might not have noticed.

Happen to know where is that in the settings?

I can program preset <B> for ATW

And in the picture profile I preset the <PRESET> at 4800k

[Vaughan Wood]

Do you think the camera was looking at the dark foliage and then decided that it wasn't at 4800K any more and changed the white balance accordingly?

Vaughan

[Leonard Levy]

I don't own the camera. As i remember from a brief look you could also make it activated by one of the user defined buttons on the side but i'm not sure.

[Steven Thomas]

What about the small white balance button on the front where the shutter switch resides?

[Winston Ashley]

Originally Posted by Steven Thomas

What about the small white balance button on the front where the shutter switch resides?

Are you thinking that I might of pressed it on accident? Not Sure if I did. I was using the zoom on the right side of the camera. Plus I think that since it was on the PRESET setting that the white balance button couldn't be changed. Still a mystery...

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Winston,

Either an operator mistake, or first symptoms of a camera failure - no "mistery" at all. I hope you're not suggesting another inherent "flaw" ;)

PS. Note some graphical enhancement to my text above; hope my intentions are more clear now, Steven?

[Steven Thomas]

I wouldn't go that far right now.
I've been using my camera almost non stop for three weeks and have not seen this happen.

[Paul Joy]

I agree, it sounds like the auto white balance feature which checks and adjusts WB at specified intervals. Preset B is set to this mode by default so unless you changed it it's likely that that's the case.

Also, you can still override a WB setting with the button if you are using a preset.

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Originally Posted by Paul Joy

I agree, it sounds like the auto white balance feature which checks and adjusts WB at specified intervals.

Paul, are you seriously suggesting this is how the AWB is supposed to work? On my V1E, I'm almost always on AWB (apart from situations where random or extreme WB changes can be expected), and - with the "Shockless" change settings - never saw anything like this.

That's why I'd insist on either an operator error or this specific unit malfunction.

[Winston Ashley]

Steven, Do you use the white balance setting on the picture profile, basically dialing in a setting? or do you shoot a white balance? Do you use the switch on the side or do you have it set up on the LCD/VF page? Also, on another issue, whenever I have the LCD closed I get a hum in the audio!? Have you had experience with this?

[Paul Joy]

Originally Posted by Piotr Wozniacki

Paul, are you seriously suggesting this is how the AWB is supposed to work?

Hi Piotr, as far as I understand it, the ATW (Auto Tracing WB) on the EX1 can be set to various speeds at which to transition to a new setting. I didn't actually try it, but it would make sense to have a longer transition as it would be less noticeable.

Maybe I misunderstood?

Winston, The upper position of the WB switch (preset B) is set to ATW by default. If you want be able to define a preset WB to this switch position you have to change it to not be ATW in the menu first. I didn't set WB in the picture profiles so I'm not entirely sure how that would effect it's operation. It sounds like ATW is overriding the setting you applied in the picture profile.

[Chris Westerstrom]

I had this exact thing happen to me yesterday. never used the Ex1 before, it's definitely my fault somehow, but found it odd that it was so difficult to sort out (fixing it in post as we speak :( )