ATW on EX1r

[Dave Morrison]

Has anybody tested the ATW (Auto Tracking White) function on the new EX1r? As has already been established here by many of us, the ATW function on the EX1 is problematic at best. I've never been able to get mine to track more than two major color temp shifts in a single shot. I normally never use it any more but I need to do a walk-thru of a house and the amounts of daylight and tungsten lighting are shifting quite a bit during each long shot. So, how's it working on the EX1r?

[Marty Welk]

i never met an ATW that i liked :-)
and in the manuels it even says to find yourself a white wall to aim at , so it can do its thing. Which it does, as soon as you hit a large white area , it will click over to that white balance. but then as soon as it sees any other large partially white like things, Bang it will click over to them.
unless you want your video looking like an amature porn video, best to avoid those things with any camera.
Like say set up 2 profiles, with 2 different settings, then have a 3rd manuel set via the white balance section.
then within the "direct Menu" you can slap up one of 3 colors and have it hold.

The ATW will just burn you when you have the least ammount of time and are paying the least ammount of attention, and without being able to increase the saturation in the viewfinder you might not EASILY see that you are shooting a mess.

and yes they do FLOP about in huge variations, add in the ease dampener for the ATW , and it is just going to make POST color correction even worse, as you have it slowly changing between things. If it Jumped in one move to the wrong place, at least that is easily correctable in post, when it slowly shifts (which often is back and forth at the worst times) in post you have to keyframe in the color fix. So the smooth move is worse than the horrible jump to fix in post.

[Marty Welk]

want some more "cheap Trix" for doing what your doing.
turn the outdoor light (sorta) into indoor light for $5 a roll. go to the craft store or a florist shop, and get thier yellow and or Golden translucent "gift Wrap" , carefully apply that to the outside of the outdoor windows that are beaming on your white walls.
and if you want to reduce the light get some of that cheap window film and layer it in one layer thick too, killling 80+% of outdoor lighting (vrses indoor) will look normal to the camera , like the difference already looks normal to the eyes.

either that or use real film camera which would handle the contrast 10 times better.

i am always thinking up totally CHEAPSKATE ways to survive the problems of video, without having to fork over $400 for yellow gift wrap in a "Pro Video" package :-)
anyways you got little to lose, as $5 and some Clean easily removable tape , and you can test it at home before you go.
when the customer asks, tell them its "special professional trick" :-) the customer will have big problems with this if you use the wrong tape .

that IS what it looks like, to your eyes, it just always takes some messing with it to make it look like that with video.

[Dave Morrison]

Marty, you comments make complete sense. However, these "walk thru's" are done so quickly and for so little money, I'm simply looking for a way to capture the video without having to constantly stop and color correct/balance. These videos are meant to be continuous walking tours although there are always places where you have to stop or pause. Every room has a different mix of daylight and tungsten (or fluoro) so it's a constant battle.

[Marty Welk]

ahh
well incan "candles" look better than blue walls , if that helps .

[Kelly Langerak]

We have a local show here in San Francisco called Malou Review and I always notice that a "Dip to Color Dissolve - White" is used between rooms they go into. It's because the videographer is balancing for each room, but in the editing it appears she moves from room to room. That's how I've done mine. I hope you get this to work cause that feature would be swell.

[Dave Morrison]

I'm just hoping that SOMEBODY can test the ATW on an EX1r to tell me if it finally works correctly....in spite of the shortcomings of using ATW.

[Marty Welk]

i tried it, it is at least as bad as other ATWs

started in the kitchen with Led , got it set by aiming it at the white countertop, head down the hall, incan , the camera doesn't switch, aim AT the wall Click it switches, head down into the utility room, bluegreen florescent, it doesn't switch, hit the wall with the camera, it switches, hit the "almond" colored door, it looks correct as it should, get where the door is most of the frame it switches, the door is now white not almond.

did it adjust to many different temps and light types ? YES
did it do it when I NEEDED it to do it, NO it never will
did it set it completely wrong, YES it always will.

the most that STUFF can possibly be used for is if your run&gun, and after you come into a new light location, you aim AT a white wall (assuming a real white wall even exists), then HOPE it doesnt decide to change when colors and variations of colors/light hit the whole screen. its in the manuel that is how your supposed to use it.

for having IT automagically correct for the situation before its to late, would just make it crasy to use for the first purpose they selected. the camera PROVES it doesnt know what real actual white is, because it will Set off of things that arent white, if it reacted more quickly it would just be wrong more often, if it reacts more slowly then it will be wrong more often.

I dont think there is an alogrythm that would work Except, the old way of having a sencor on top of the camera that views the light, and sets to the light it sees , as opposed to through the lens, and THAT didnt work either. For example the sencor was seeing the light in the one room, while the camera was shooting into another of different colors.