FS5 - Are you doing manual WB?

[Jeremy Cole]

Originally Posted by Nigel Davey

So how would you have manually WB'ed in my scenario then?

The thing is that with auto white balance, you are not white balancing at all. The camera keeps adjusting as you move from shot to shot making your life in post very difficult. Same with auto exposure. I wish I had the option of reassigning the auto buttons. Every once in a while I will hit an auto button by mistake and for a moment or two the camera will take control and do weird stuff. Freaks me out. The hold button is useful, but too limiting.

Marcus had some some good suggestions as to how to handle your scenario. Use the a and b white balance memory buttons to store your own presets for a couple of the rooms. Use them and then relax as you run around and get your shots.

[Nigel Davey]

I guess we've reached the obvious impasse when discussing my RnG scenario. Since I can't put anyone into it letting us both use our championed WB methods and then measuring grading time vs shots acquired, there will be no way to prove who is right. So although the discussion may continue, practically it's a moot point.

But before you conclude I'm obviously inexperienced for using auto anything, do see my comments further up. I do manually WB in some/many scenarios. It's not as if the importance of manual anything is lost on me. But what I strongly disagree with is the mantra proliferated regularly on these boards that any and all 'auto' is bad.

Like some of you I've dabbled in a mixture of genres over the years; corporate, documentary, live TV, drama, weddings, etc. My observation is any filming scenario will sit somewhere on the scale of 'totally controllable' to 'totally uncontrollable'. Up at the extreme end of uncontrollable 'auto' can be the only way you will get the shot. When you see the output of an ENG cameraman shooting in a war zone he will be using many auto features, perhaps with the exception (but not always) of focus. There are a raft of RnG scenarios where you will not have the time nor the reflexes to get the shot if you do everything or even some things in manual.

So to keep saying auto is always bad is just nonsense. It's like saying self driving cars should never be allowed on the road even though it's inevitable they'll become safer than humans. in certain scenarios that CPU is better than us.

Auto anything is just a tool. Sometimes it's the best tool, often it's not. But it has definitely earned a place in my tool bag.

[Marcus Durham]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Cole

The thing is that with auto white balance, you are not white balancing at all. The camera keeps adjusting as you move from shot to shot making your life in post very difficult. Same with auto exposure. I wish I had the option of reassigning the auto buttons. Every once in a while I will hit an auto button by mistake and for a moment or two the camera will take control and do weird stuff. Freaks me out. T

Hah. Yes, turning the camera on and the 'full auto' switch has got knocked in the camera bag. Like being in a car where the steering wheel has stopped responding.

[Jody Arnott]

I've never used auto white balance. The results are too unpredictable. But I don't often manual white balance using a card either (except for in controlled situations).

Most of my work is run and gun. For outdoor shoots, white balance is easy. You can use the presets, or use 5500-6000k for daylight, 6500-7000k for overcast sky, etc.

Indoors is a bit trickier but I find that making an educated guess based on the type of light source 99% of the time gets good results.

There really is no reason to use auto.

However, for those saying that auto exposure should never be used - I disagree. For fast paced run and gun shoots (I do a lot of sports events), using auto iris (or auto ND with the FS5) is perfectly acceptable.

[Noa Put]

for those saying that auto exposure should never be used - I disagree. For fast paced run and gun shoots (I do a lot of sports events), using auto iris (or auto ND with the FS5) is perfectly acceptable.

I think weddings can be considered as fast r&g events as well but I never would use auto iris as that is according to me, together with getting the right whitebalance and focus a keyfactor in getting a good image. I also would say there is no reason why you ever should use autoexposure as your camera will get it wrong whenever it is dealing with a backlight and it also doesn't know what part of the image you want the exposure to be set to and it can constantly fluctuate with every minor change in position of subjects even in a static frame, I can think of many scenarios where a auto exposure would make my shot unusable.

[Doug Jensen]

Originally Posted by Jody Arnott

However, for those saying that auto exposure should never be used - I disagree. For fast paced run and gun shoots (I do a lot of sports events), using auto iris (or auto ND with the FS5) is perfectly acceptable.

Maybe for you and your clients it is perfectly acceptable, but it is not acceptable under any circumstances to me or my clients. In fact, back when I had people working for me you'd have been fired for doing it. People are welcome to justify their actions anyway they want, but somehow a lot of us have been able to get through our entire careers (35 years for me) without ever using auto once. And if we can do it, anyone can do it.

[Noa Put]

There is actually one exception which I didn't mention as I was talking from a standpoint where I am operating a camera, in that case I always do my exposure manually, even in rapidly changing light conditions as I just don't trust the camera to get it right as the conditions can be so unreliable depending on where I point the camera at.

One exception though is when I shoot a ceremony with 3 to 4 camera's, on my unmanned camera's I manually set exposure if I know the light conditions won't change but when it's a partially cloudy day and the sun appears/disappears behind the clouds every few minutes then light conditions can dramatically change from one moment to another, it's much easier to change the color in post if you have set your whitebalance to a preset outdoor in such a situation as the color temperature will change, then it is to change a underexposed and even worse overexposed image. Only if there is no backlight to shoot against I will set my unmanned camera's to autoexposure only because I have no other choice, the reason I don't have a choice is that no-one is behind the camera to make the necessary changes. You might say then hire a guy to check up on those camera's but if the client is not willing to pay for that then this is a calculated risk I have to take and the client is made aware of that. Because these unmanned camera's don't change position the risk of getting it wrong is much smaller compared to panning a camera or walking around with one as then autoexposure can become very unreliable.

[Doug Jensen]

Obviously unmanned cameras, GoPros, etc. are totally different thing. I don't even understand the point of bring it up in this discussion.

[Noa Put]

The point being that there are exceptions to the rule where you don't have a choice as it was said there always is a choice. I also wasn't talking about gopro's but fully featured videocamera's that are used unmanned.

[Doug Jensen]

There are NO exceptions to the rule for MANNED cameras and your bringing unmanned cameras into the discussion has nothing to do with it. That was my point.

I give up. Do what you want and justify it however you want because I don't care enough about it to keep going around in circles. If you feel you need to use auto then maybe YOU do. I haven't seen your work or know how skilled you, are so maybe auto is the best choice for you. But don't try to paint fellow professionals with the same brush or act like it is common practice because many of us do not need auto under any circumstances with a MANNED camera.

[Noa Put]

Well, I still find it a valid point, whether you agree with it or not, I know we where talking about manned camera's and there I shared my opinion on using auto modes but since we where also talking about using the camera at events more then one camera could come into play. Often budgets don't allow having a operator at every camera and in such a case you may need to take a calculated risk and use the auto functionality because you don't have another choice and that doesn't mean you are not a "professional". If that would be the case why are some "professionals" so keen on using the autofocus on the c300II, maybe because it's so good? But I know, that was not the talking point here either so I"ll shut up as I made my point.

[Jody Arnott]

Originally Posted by Doug Jensen

Maybe for you and your clients it is perfectly acceptable, but it is not acceptable under any circumstances to me or my clients. In fact, back when I had people working for me you'd have been fired for doing it. People are welcome to justify their actions anyway they want, but somehow a lot of us have been able to get through our entire careers (35 years for me) without ever using auto once. And if we can do it, anyone can do it.

There are situations in the type of work that I do where auto exposure is the only way to get it done. For example, going from room to room in a house while doing a "walkthrough" property tour using a stabilizer. Exposure can't be adjusted on the fly while my FS5 is mounted on my Ronin - it has to be done automatically.

[Noa Put]

That would actually be almost the same as running a unmanned camera, eventhough you can see what the camera is doing, the Ronin prevents you from controlling the camera while you are shooting. Doug probably would not understand the point to bring it up in this discussion either as it is not a MANNED camera in the sense that you are handholding a camera and physically controlling it but also here I find this one a valid point in showing that there can be circumstances when you have no other choice then to rely on auto functionality.

[Doug Jensen]

+1
Thanks for saving me the time of posting.

[Jody Arnott]

Excellent, I'm glad we all agree :)