Black Balance?

[Steve Minnick]

Anybody know how to black balance the EX1? The white balance is just a simple push of the button...but I've heard that black balance must be done in the "maintenance menu". How do you get into the maintenance menu?....and can you actually black balance this camera?

Thanks in advance

Steve

[Andrew Hollister]

...the maintenance menu. Press and hold MENU and CANCEL on the rear of the camera, then press SEL/SET to access.

[Steve Minnick]

Thanks...amazing that you can't find that in the manual!

[Piotr Wozniacki]

To those who have their EX1 firmware updated to v. 1.11:

Is the Black Balance item active in the hidden maintenance menu? With my current fw (1.02), it's there, but grayed out...

[Adam Reuter]

Originally Posted by Piotr Wozniacki

To those who have their EX1 firmware updated to v. 1.11:

Is the Black Balance item active in the hidden maintenance menu? With my current fw (1.02), it's there, but grayed out...

My version 1.05 has it.

[John Peterson]

OK, so if you perform a White Balance, then turn on the Black Balance in the maintainance menu, will the camera shut down the Iris and perform the Black Balance?

John

[Greg Boston]

Originally Posted by Steve Minnick

Thanks...amazing that you can't find that in the manual!

Umm, that's because you, the end user, are not supposed to be in the maintenance menus in the first place. Black balancing is one item though that I feel should be in the user menu area if not activated by a switch. It's not needed as frequently as white balancing.

-gb-

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Greg, we discussed this option elsewhere (for the EX3); what are the most typical circumstances when you _would_ run the auto Black Balance procedure?

[Greg Boston]

Originally Posted by Piotr Wozniacki

Greg, we discussed this option elsewhere (for the EX3); what are the most typical circumstances when you _would_ run the auto Black Balance procedure?

Its main purpose is to eliminate any residual current being output from the pixel sites under conditions of complete darkness... often referred to as thermal noise. That's why the camera will automatically close the iris completely when it does the black balance.

Conditions under which you may want to black balance are typically when the camera experiences a large change in operating temperature... especially from colder to warmer. Otherwise, it is a periodic thing to allow for other minor factors that could come into play.

Here's something that just occurred to me though. With CMOS sensor technology, black balancing may not be as necessary as it is with CCD type devices. We all talk about how clean and relatively noise free CMOS sensors are by design so this may have played into the decision to make it a maintenance menu item on the EX.

-gb-

[Matt San]

Does anyone know if there is a black blance on the EX cameras anywhere?

I don't mean any of the gamma altering functions I mean a true and proper black balance similar to the white balance?

[Doug Jensen]

The EX3 has an auto black balance function that can be executed from the menus. It is the first sub-menu on the Camera Set menu page.

However, the EX3 (and I assume the EX1) automatically performs a black balance everytime you turn it on, so it would be unusual to ever need to use this menu control.

[Bob Grant]

Have never done a manual black balance on an EX but I have messed one up on another camera. Make certain the iris is closed or better yet, put a lens cap on. Any light leaking into the sensor can result in some funky results after doing a black balance.

[Michael B. McGee]

i had a back focus problem today on set with a rented EX3 as B-camera. this made wonder about my own EX1 and its own Back Focus. when looking in the maintenance menu i became aware that the "Auto FB Adjust" and "Auto BLK Balance" were greyed out. has anyone with v1.11_0531 had success adjusting one or both of these procedures?

[Leonard Levy]

What I've noticed on my Ex-1 is that the black balance in preset seems off on vectorscope and I can't correct it with a manual black balance.

In fact my whole color balance in preset is way off to the magenta and no tweaks in the PP menus can correct it. Its too bad because I generally like to use preset. My friends Ex-1 doesn't have this issue. I can perfectly match the preset look with a white balance through 3/8 Green + 1/8 CTB but can't get near it with the phase or color shift or matrix adjustments.

[Michael B. McGee]

that really sucks, but wait are you saying that you have the option to perform a "manual" black balance?