Problem with Custom White Balance

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butterbescotch

Today, I'd tried out the Custom White Balance, as I believe it will help me get the write tone/color of the actual scene I'm shooting. Unfortunately, the Automatic White Balance is much more accurate. Why is that? Is it with the paper? I tried shooting the white paper but it always result in like bluish paper not the "pure white". Is that a problem?

Reference Video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPiOujomrMU
 
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Is the paper in your video exposed the same as when you set the custom white balance? If so it looks like it's way underexposed, and that could be affecting the white balance setting. You should increase the exposure until the paper is as bright as possible without losing any surface detail/texture.
 
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What are you aiming the camera at when you set the custom white balance? It needs to be neutral or it will balance towards the opposite color. Try using a grey card.
 
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Thanks for the reply guys. I'll try again soon and report the results. For the meantime, should I really re-picture a white paper every scene? For instance, when shooting outside, use the white paper shot in the outside, and when shooting inside, use the white paper shot in the inside. Or a universal white paper will be fine?

And one thing, if I can't correct the exposure of the white paper to its "whiteness", since I can't really see the LCD well on a sunlit field, is it okay to download a white paper from my computer to the camera, will that work fine?
 
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butterbescotch said:
Thanks for the reply guys. I'll try again soon and report the results. For the meantime, should I really re-picture a white paper every scene? For instance, when shooting outside, use the white paper shot in the outside, and when shooting inside, use the white paper shot in the inside. Or a universal white paper will be fine?

And one thing, if I can't correct the exposure of the white paper to its "whiteness", since I can't really see the LCD well on a sunlit field, is it okay to download a white paper from my computer to the camera, will that work fine?
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The whole point of sticking a piece of white paper in front of the camera to white balance is that you are given the optimum setting for the lighting conditions you are shooting in. Shooting a piece of white paper outside and using it to set the white balance inside (or vice versa) is completely counter-productive - you'd be better off using the presets.
 
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The specific technique is to place the paper so that it is reflecting the Key light so that that color of light will be accounted for when you perform the white balance... I've had mixed results with WB on set. I'm now firmly in the set it to an indoor or outdoor preset (depending on the color of the lights being used in the scene and the location) and correct the lights with gels instead to match color... the resulting images I've gotten are much better since I started using that technique.

I find the images with custom WB really sanitary feeling, very "video" rather than looking cinematic... the white light becomes too white for me.
 
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Well, the whole point of doing custom white balance from scene to scene is to end up with a consistent balance across setups which have different lighting. You want a 'sanitary', pure white look to all of the shots - then you can give it whatever final look you want in color correction without having to tweak a bunch of different settings for each shot to get the look to match. When you aren't planning to color correct you might want to use non-white sources to balance on - things like 'warm' or 'cool' cards. As long as you use the same card everything should be fine.

I'm not a fan of using the presets based on my own tests. Go to a location with a single light source - outdoors in direct sun is simplest - and shoot a grey card with both a preset (or a specific color temp setting) and with custom. Compare the color histograms in post - the custom will line up all three channels perfectly, the presets will always be slightly off because no light source is perfectly consistent. Personally I'd rather start with that perfectly balanced look out of the camera and then shift it later in post.
 
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Even colored afterwards, I never seem to be able to get rid of the sanitary feel from the lighting. It never ends up looking "real" to me.

I've experimented ALOT over the past decade and have moved from the WB every 10 minutes to make sure it's done correctly and all the shots match to the more traditional, chose a film stock (indoor or daylight) method whereby you alter the color of the light with gels and filters. The end result feels more cinematic to me as I'm treating light the way it's been treated in Hollywood productions for the past 50+ years.

My results lead me to believe I'm on the right path. YMMV, but I came from that camp, and I've found that treating the image as if it were film outside the camera gets me more filmic results within. You can't white balance film (although you can filter it in varying degrees one way or the other, but then it's all gels to match colors anyway).

If you're shooting weddings or have to account for crappy available light for whatever reason... then yes, WB is a good tool, but in sunlight, there's no reason to WB... if the sun is moving and changing color, altering your WB from shot to shot will alter the temperature of the shadows (which are moving anyway) and the shots, although balanced in the key are now off in the shadows.

Indoors, you're using tungsten (there's a preset that is specifically calibrated to hit the charts right) or Fluo (which all have a crappy green spike, even the balanced ones which are filtered magenta to try to relieve the spike, but end up with a sickly yellowish cast to them). Halogen seem to sit right between sunlight and tungsten providing a mostly pure white (but slightly toward blue) image.

Get a nice pack of gels and alter the lights. Sit on your presets and learn to adjust the world around the camera rather than trying to get the camera to adjust to the world. My experience and experimentation have this method holding up much better than the alternative.
 
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I'm with knightly on this - a custom setting may get you the most technically correct white balance, but I much prefer the results of using the presets/dialling in a specific colour temperature for the scene. Setting white balance from shot to shot seemed like the logical thing to do when I first started shooting, but in practice I think it causes as many problems as it solves.
 
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I'm not saying you should custom white balance from shot to shot - only when you change locations or lighting setups, generally once per scene.

knightly said:
You can't white balance film (...) Get a nice pack of gels and alter the lights. Sit on your presets and learn to adjust the world around the camera rather than trying to get the camera to adjust to the world. My experience and experimentation have this method holding up much better than the alternative.
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I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree, as I've found exactly the opposite - and to me, the fact that you can't white balance film is simply a limitation of the format, not something to emulate. As soon as you choose a preset or setting you are already adapting the camera to the world, a custom one is just a slightly more precise way of doing it.
 
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