EX1 and the (Auto) White Balance
 

There have been many posts on this scattered throughout the forum, over the whole time period of this camera availability - but if I am not mistaken, no consensus was reached on whether it's yet another "feature", or "issue"...

While I understand that anything "Auto" is not regarded highly by the "Pro" folks, I still can find many situations when a good AWB system would be useful. Such an excellent system I used with great results on my V1E.

On the EX1, it's simply unfunctional. Or am I completely missing something?

If you guys have found any logic behind how it behaves, please share it.

If not, and you agree with me - has anyone complained about it with Sony? Aren't we being too forgiving about it?

PS: Also, with regards to manual adjustment; Eric wrote elsewhere that "Manual white balance leaves the magenta/green shift neutral, while white balancing with a card will adjust the magenta/green shift". Today I spoiled an important shot, after - having had balanced to 3400 in one room - I moved to another and continued shooting. To my horror, when watching the results later on the big screen, I saw an awful magenta cast in my picture (also, greens were biased towards blue). It was so alarming that - suspecting my camera is out of order - I returned to the location to re-shoot; in the viewfinder I still saw these awful colours and the WB was still set to 3400. I pressed the WB button and - even though it set the WB to the very close 3300 - the change in actual colours was dramatic (the colours became right again). Why is that? Is it normal?

I noticed the exact same problem with a shoot I did yesterday.
When I manually WB to 3500 everything seemed a little too green. But when I set the camera to AWB it also read 3500 but had a nice warm feeling that the indoor lighting had.

Yeah, well... Another "Professional camera feature", like the infamous IR contamination problem?

I'd really appreciate feedback on the following two points:

1. Why is the AWB so (inconsistently) sluggish?

2. Why is it that the colours measured by the camera's WB system differ from those dialed-into a PP, even if the same Kelvin number is shown (Eric?)?

Piotr:

1) The AWB reaction speed is adjustable. Just go to the camera set menu and speed it up

2) I'd like to know too

Here is a hint: I have my manual WB set to switch A and leave switch B on AWB so it is very easy and quick to switch between them and compare.

Mike,

Sorry, but have to disagree again. What is in fact adjustable is just the speed ("shockless" to a varying extent) that the WB will be changed once the ATW system decides to change it in the first place. Whereas, what I call "inconsistently sluggish", is that - when lighting changes - the ATW system sometimes reacts at once, on other occassions - after several seconds, and quite often - never at all.

Piotr:

You are right. I have just been outside with the camera and I think you have found another bug - hopefully firmware curable.

Try this: Do manual on A outside. Set to ATW outside and reading is same. Go inside so ATW goes down, now go back outside and it STAYS down. Now switch to A measured again to get back to original outside reading and then switch back to ATW and it now stays and reads right! The ATW is fobar! This is the same on all speed and shockless levels.

Here is a sample I sent to SONY. I had my camera at SONY in San Jose last month for this problem and they send it back without fixing it. It is going back next week, for this and for No Slow Zooming problem.

http://www.drmehr.com/test/ex1_atw.wmv

Guys, please help push SONY to have this issue fixed. There was no camera released in this range so far with such obvious problem left untreated.

What I noticed is that the camera in ATW is more responsive when going from low temp color to a higher temp color, or from bulb to sunlight, and is not responsive when going backward.


I posted about this two months ago but I didn't get too much support so I thought is a bug only in my camera.


Thank you,
Mike

Mike,

Your three points above correspond exactly to my own experience:

- I also think that we should be demanding Sony fixes it

- I also noticed the lousiness of ATW on the very first day of having the camera, back in February. When I pointed my EX1 to the sky, it adopted some 6000K in no time. However, going back inside, I waited ages for it to go down to some 3000K, which would be appropriate in the indoor lighting. But then, I attributed it to my operator error, barely knowing the camera

- I also posted about it in my very first post here about my EX having arrived at last....

All in all, I guess this evident flaw has been tolerated becuase - unlike the main problems with vignetting and back focus - work arounds can be found for it (in fact, yesterday's shot was my first one spoiled becuase of the way WB - not even ATW ! - is acting on this camera). But I guess we should now push Sony a little, because - as I said - there are situation when ATW is indispensable (or at least highly useful).

One question to the newer fw users: do you have the same problems with ATW (my fw is 1.03)?

The reason you see different colors from an AWB resulting in 3500k and dialing in that number in the menu is exactly what Eric said. The auto will correct for green/magenta tints as well, where as the manual only affects color temperature. The reason this feature exists is to allow you to adjust the green/magenta bias separately. This IS a pro feature, and I for one am glad it's here. Sometimes you want to maintain the green cast from a mercury vapor lamp for an artistic effect, but still take out the warmth. You can do that by dialing in the appropriate WB manually. Otherwise, you can use the AWB function and make it neutral in both the blue-orange and green-magenta directions.

As far as ATW speed, I can't comment since I don't use it, but Mike it looks like you do have a problem. I usually just keep it in either a or b and WB without a uniform card if necessary. No problems yet.

-Sean

Thank Sean for the clarification.

This narrows the problem down to just the hesitant and sluggish way that the ATW is functioning.

Hard learning curve
 

My first few weeks with the EX made me appreciate how easily the Z1 makes great images.

The second is that the AWB drives me nuts. I need to just kill it somehow. I am still really green with the EX. The thing is almost too much for run and gun event style shooting. You better me on your game or you will butcher many shots.

Anyone else hitting the white balance button accidentally?

Funny I logged on to post about the AWB "feature" because it was driving me crazy :) There is a way to disable it completely right?

Mike, your complaining about hitting the WB button accidently is perfectly legitimate one (and no, I don't know how to disable it :).

However, the WB itself works pretty well; the problem you mention is more of the ergonomics nature.

While the ATW (not) functioning is about a real flaw, hopefully fixable with the firmware!

Button on the bottom
 

Hi Piotr,

For some reason when I had the cam in full auto ( VERY RARELY anymore) the white balance would shift when clouds would go by!!!

In a locked down postion shooting a partially shaded gazebo the color would shift noticeably to blue when clouds would darken the gazebo. Then warm back up as the sun came out again! Just way too much for me. I find the cam is not good in full auto even in a pinch!

The Z1 in auto was fantastic, and I know what the old pros are saying but... I fly the EX on a glidecam and need the auto mode to give me a usable image without a ton of post. I am learning slowly how to make it work but it has been tough.

Hi Mike W,

It is normal for the White Balance to shift when you change color's temperature(sun to shadow) without readjusting the White Balance.
Your gazebo is turning to blue when clouds go by because the ATW is not working in Full Auto, not because is wrongly working, and that's exactly what we try to say in here. That the ATW is not working either when the White Balance switch is on "B" position(ATW) or in Full Auto mode. Have you seen the clip I posted here on a previous post? It was filmed in Full Auto. Can you try that with your camera, going from sunlight to bulb light in Full Auto mode?

Thank you.

I noticed the same problem tonight in a hotel ballroom. The lights were orangy and the EX1 was on ATW, Full Auto. The AWG doesn't respond to the temp change when the lights are dimmed or brighten. May I be advised how to handle such situations?

This thread is interesting if it discloses a bug but its hard for me to understand because to me it seems like people seem to be consistently misusing terms to describe:

1-manual using the preset white balance - i.e. changing the color temp and/or the green mag shift in the PP menus

2 -manual using the AWB button- which of course uses the word "auto" which is confusing.

3- full auto using ATW.

Please straighten this out so i know what your talking about.

You're right Lenny - let's talk strictly about how the ATW _SYSTEM_ is functioning, NOT the WB push-button (it's a separate thing).

Perhaps this discussion would have some merit if someone can explain how an ATW system can work.
Please include in your explaination how a camera could tell the difference between a while card illuminated with orange light and an orange card illuminated with white light.

Bob,

I really don't have this profound knowledge, but I know a system like this can really work well - in fact, on my old V1E I used it most of the time with great success.

Frankly I'm not sure what system you guys are actually talking about.
is it actually the ATW that you've been complaining about?

Yes, Leonard - it's not responsive enough, and sometimes (especially when it should decrease the colour temperature, like when going inside from the sunlight) it doesn't work at all.

Or does, after several minutes (sic!). It's much more predictable the other way around.

If you're happy with rough WB then the AWB does a good job. But not much use if you actually want a good WB, but useful in those situations where you can't do anything else. If your shot transitions from outdoors to indoor lighting, better to set up before hand and flip the preset WB at the appropriate time. I assume that the camera looks at the relative magnitude of the RGB peaks, comparing that to stored data for "standard" scene. Maybe my expectations of AWB aren't high; I've been surprised how well the EX does the job. Naturally will fail if the scene isn't "typical" (orange card, white light).

The main prob i faced was the lighting changes in a ballroom. When switching on from start, the image was really orangy. If I was using my old FX1, the image would be ok after 2secs. It seemed that the EX1 on ATW mode didnt respond to the lighting, event after a full min.

There was also a situation when the bridal couple walked into the hall. The lights were dimmed totally and turned on with a spotlight on the couple. The cam went haywire then.. totally orange again. Then half way thru the stroll, the ambient hall light was turned on. Again there was no response form the ATW.

I'm thinking how to handle this situation. If I set the WB manually , would the different brightness cuz a problem? Becuz at weddings here, the lighting keeps changin from time to time. We do not have dancing here, only 2 march in where the lighting will change.

The changes in exposure shouldn't interact with the white balance settings.

What I find most frustrating with the EX1 is that out of the box the only preset is for tungsten. One of my associates bought me his first EX1 footage to do some work on, great shots except all outdoors with tungsten WB.

By comparison his 709 camera has a filter wheel with 3200K, 5400K, ND1 and ND2 positions. I wouldn't say those two filters are perfect for every situation but more than close enough to easily grade.

I think when faced with one of those nightmare situations of dimmed tungsten lights, full tungsten, halogen and daylight best to just stick to two presets, one for daylight and one for tungsten. Dimmed tungsten has so little blue in it better to just leave it a bit orange. Correcting it in camera or post is going to need so much gain in the blue channel the noise could be really bad. On the other hand the eye will accept the orange/warm tint quite happily.

My approach with scenes with mixed light sources is if there's any hint of daylight in the scene then balance for daylight. Orange casts look warm, blue casts look repulsive to the eye.

Thks for the tips. I will try it out.

Employing auto on anything is to be avoided if possible, more so in matters of WB. One thing you don't want is the camera chasing some nominal WB, because time varying errors are very tedious to correct in post. The bridal scene you mention is just such a problem -- not in any way a typical scene and the camera won't "know" what you want. This isn't a fault of the camera -- as a professional you are expected to carry out a WB, or in default make sure it is economical to correct in post.
Nevertheless, as I mentioned above, my EX1 responds as expected in AWB so you may need to check your settings.

I always use warm cards to do a manual WB each time I move into a different light setting, dont understand why you would even use AWB.

Can someone please explain the benefits over setting manually apart from lazyness?

I've always been a little puzzled by using a "white" card that isn't white. I understand the use of a bluish card to skew the results toward a warm white balance, but why not just do a proper White Balance to begin with and tweak it in post IF it needs it?

Dear Dustin, seems you never work in run&gun style. If you did, you would know that following your subject, sometimes you cannot even stop recording, not to mention white-balancing manually each time your subject' lighting changes :)

my new EX1 arrived a day before i had to film a children play at my kid's school.

i had no chance to read anything, not that i would anyway.

still, at full auto with stupid choice of mine to flip the white balance to "A" when there is nothing there. the EX1 still managed to show the white t shirts correctly under dim and varied stage lighting.

i think after reading the manuals and studying here, the EX1 results will get even better.

full auto samples on 1st day:
http://www.vimeo.com/1109600

http://www.vimeo.com/1108055


paul

Yup.. Run n Gun is the word. Try shooting in and out of a ballroom where it is daylight outside and tungsten lights inside. U have no time to use the card. I guess it is true that I would have to WB manually in the ambient b4 the shoot.

with the EX1 on full auto or "A", press the white balance button below the fujinon lens in the front, you'll be amazed how accurate the white balance is under mixed light when you point to objects predominately white or black.

try it out with wedding dresses, tablecloths, or tuxedos.

paul

Best practice is for the operator to be in control, including knowing which circumstances the camera can handle adequately with inbuilt functions (e.g. focus, iris, WB). White Balance should be set manually (for the reasons Bob stated above) but when time or circumstances don't allow you have the choice of 3 presets. The camera preset of 3200K gets you in the ball park for most indoor lighting and you might set 4000K and 5600K on A and B; you can judge by eye (identify the light sources) which to use. As Paul said, you can do a quick WB on any white surface it will change one of your presets). ATW is useful, but we should never be surprised when the camera gets it wrong. The aim should be to get WB close enough to easily correct in post, which also means keeping it constant through a scene. Often the atmosphere of the scene requires a deviation from true WB: candle-lit scenes, for example, should be rather warm. Biasing WB (which you can do in camera or with coloured cards) is about getting the "look" in camera so "post" can see the intention of the DOP, but less important if the shooter is the editor. There is also the idea of doing image processing in camera before it gets written out into long GOP at 8 bits.

Serena,

I agree with all your points, and am doing manual adjustments 90% of the times. I also have PPs for outside (with cine gammas ad 5400 K preset), and indoors (with STD gammas and 3200 K preset); finally - regardless on the PP currently in use - I try to program some other, typical for the anticipated lighting, values to the A and B memory positions in case I need them without changing the PP.

However, there must be a reason why the ATW is so sluggish and inconsistent on the EX1; with the V1E I could (if I wanted to) set it always ON, and the camera was right nearly 100% of the time...

Make ATW works fast !!
 

We all know how to do a white balance, select A or B, fill the screen with something white then hit the WB button.

I presume the ATW works by measuring the whole picture/ scene not just white, if doing run and gun, you obviously don't have time to fill the screen with something white.

Yesterday i was in a situation were ATW was needed, i made it change quickly and accurately by hitting the WB button whilst in ATW mode.

Some sort of workaround maybe.

Paul.

That's what I did also. Work for me very well.

Re: EX1 and the (Auto) White Balance
 

Digging up an old thread, has there ever been any firmware fix to EX1 sluggish or non responsive AWB?

Re: EX1 and the (Auto) White Balance
 

Yes - the 1.25 firmware provides a much more responsive ATW (not perfect, though).

Re: EX1 and the (Auto) White Balance
 

Damn, just checked my FW version and already on 1.26. Sadly AWB is still slow and occasionally unresponsive... For cine transfer work its largely unusuable. Bizarre why EX1 so bad and other Sony cameras generally have good AWB...