More white balance options desperately needed for prores.

Hi Blackmagic Design,

Please help the BMCC users out for this pickle some of us are in:)
The BMCC is great and there's so many pluses about using it. I have one constructive criticism to bring up and it's only out of need and not want. I believe it's something that can be fixed though I'm not a camera engineer.

My current situation is: Most of my projects are not using a RAW workflow. The reason being time, space and money. I do love using it though and still use it for my own personal projects!

As you know the BMCC currently has 6 WB options and I'm really hoping you can make more options available. The best thing would be customizable white balance to alleviate this issue.

On weddings, corporate work, events & documentaries I'm often finding the white balance is not quite dead on and the closest WB settings to the achieve correct whites are not quite there.

This type of work often cannot be completely controlled, last week I was filming in church that was under the heritage status, very high ceilings and mixed lighting, with prores that can be a issue for WB.

Correct white balance would have been somewhere around 3900K however both the 3200 and 4500 option where producing WB either a little bit to warm or cool.

It would be greatly appreciated if you provided this solution.

Thankyou.

Ps. Thanks for the last update!! to clarify, not sarcastic

While we wait for BMD to update the camera's firmware with your suggestion (could be a long wait, or not), you might consider placing a weak warming or cooling optical filter in front of your lens. There'll be a slight exposure hit, but the results could be quite pleasing. And this may be a quicker solution than waiting for a firmware update. Cheers.

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Hi Peter,

Great suggestion! I shall do that in the mean time. I think we'd all agree it would be better and more convenient doing this for inside the camera but nonetheless really helpful suggestion to make

Cheers
Ben

Hi Blackmagic Design,

Please help the BMCC users out for this pickle some of us are in:)
The BMCC is great and there's so many pluses about using it. I have one constructive criticism to bring up and it's only out of need and not want. I believe it's something that can be fixed though I'm not a camera engineer.

My current situation is: Most of my projects are not using a RAW workflow. The reason being time, space and money. I do love using it though and still use it for my own personal projects!

As you know the BMCC currently has 6 WB options and I'm really hoping you can make more options available. The best thing would be customizable white balance to alleviate this issue.

On weddings, corporate work, events & documentaries I'm often finding the white balance is not quite dead on and the closest WB settings to the achieve correct whites are not quite there.

This type of work often cannot be completely controlled, last week I was filming in church that was under the heritage status, very high ceilings and mixed lighting, with prores that can be a issue for WB.

Correct white balance would have been somewhere around 3900K however both the 3200 and 4500 option where producing WB either a little bit to warm or cool.

It would be greatly appreciated if you provided this solution.

Very good point!

If you are editing in FCP X, you may wish to try the demo of my LUT plugin (due for release soon).

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7390

This has temperature and tint sliders, as well as exposure, which allow you to make raw type adjustments with film mode ProRes footage.

Thanks Nick!

I'll certainly give that a go.

Cheers
Ben

Here you go....

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=265

[CaptainHook]

The prores is robust enough that you can tweak WB easily in post.

The problem is when you're not dealing with the footage in post yourself, or when on set with other cameras and you're asked to match someone else's WB.

+1

On weddings, corporate work, events & documentaries I'm often finding the white balance is not quite dead on and the closest WB settings to the achieve correct whites are not quite there.

I have just been shooting every thing in RAW even if I just need prores. I'm not saying this is the way to go, just what I have been doing. My thinking is:

if I just shoot prores then I have less flexibility in post ie exposure, white balance etc.

if i shoot in RAW then i can adjust exp/wb after the fact to my liking, output to prores, then just dump the RAW files so there's no storage issue.

I would be interested to hear what some more experienced would have to say about this strategy.

That's essentially the biggest issue (Captain Hook) I agree!

Not being able to match the exact WB as other camera's I know, have WB spot on means more time colour grading in post.

Steve Jakubowski, I envy that you can do that

I think your process seems reasonable to some degree although to do this on a wedding I would need roughly 4 - 5 480gb SSD's (that's doable later in the year) but to copy them individually onto my computer, I would be looking at a day/ day and a halves work just transcoding which wouldn't be the smartest move for me currently as I almost want to be finish editing a ceremony & reception by that time.

Thanks for everyone's feed back!

Even if you could dial in a specific WB to match other cameras you would end up having to tweak the balance in post as the colour science of different cameras would result in differences in how the WB is interpreted...

[CaptainHook]

Even if you could dial in a specific WB to match other cameras you would end up having to tweak the balance in post as the colour science of different cameras would result in differences in how the WB is interpreted...

Sure, but at least they'd be at a 'closer' starting point. Plus, wait until you're in a situation where a DOP asks you to match the WB that they're shooting on the alexa with and you have to reply "sorry, i can't.. but you'll just have to change things in the grade anyway even if i could".. it doesn't feel good, you come off like a dick, and the crew react with "what kind of camera can't manually set WB???". It doesn't enstill confidence for the camera on a set i can tell you that... and then after post the producer complains the colourist had to spend longer trying to match cameras cause the WB was off which ended up costing more money, "why didn't the cameras have the same WB?".. you know it shouldn't really add much time but it doesn't matter. And they're right really, WHY didn't they?

Producers understand that cameras look different and need sometime in post to be matched. They don't want to hear that one of the cameras doesn't have a basic feature like setting manual WB - even if in reality it wouldn't add too much time to the grade.

I agree, Adam - the colourist has to match color's anyway because the camera's interpret the colour's differently but I think Captain Hook has made some valid points, it might not take that much longer but you can look a little unprofessional in that sort of environment.

I don't work on set with a alexa (though I'd love too) but I can see that
most dp's would hope the b camera could be match to the same WB as your A cam. I feel like 6 options is perhaps not enough for most users, unless they are using RAW all the time.


Cheers
Ben

Even if you could dial in a specific WB to match other cameras you would end up having to tweak the balance in post as the colour science of different cameras would result in differences in how the WB is interpreted...

The point is, that any professional camera should be able to take a manual WB reading. I think what people are forgetting is that the original BMCC was desisgned as a RAW capture camera. So the bloody WB was irrelevant. It's only from user request that BM included the Prores codec to make it quicker/easier for some users and this has compounded the issue.

The point is, that any professional camera should be able to take a manual WB reading.

It may be worth noting that the Sony F65 only has three white balance settings.

Not saying I agree with this. Particularly when shooting in video mode it is best to have a correct white balance in camera. In film mode you can do a dramatic white balance change without serious artefacts, which is not possible in video mode. See my demo video for an example of this.

... It's only from user request that BM included the Prores codec to make it quicker/easier for some users and this has compounded the issue.

ProRes has been a feature of the BMCC since the day it was announced. As was DNxHD, but the latter was added in a firmware update after initial release.

ProRes may indeed have been "added" at the request of the BMCC's original alpha & beta tester, John Brawley, but for the rest of us it's always been a feature of the camera.

Since ProRes/DNxHD are 10-bit 4:2:2 they can easily accommodate minor adjustments to white balance in post. Its one of the many benefits of using a 10-bit 4:2:2 codec.

I agree that it would be useful if a future release of BMD camera firmware allowed finer adjustment of white balance, or one-push auto-WB (but not continuous auto-WB) . In the meantime, there are alternatives, but perhaps not as easy as pushing a button on the camera, and some require work/time in post.

If possible, when matching multiple cameras, match the camera(s) that are the most adjustable to the camera that's the least adjustable.

Adding a weak color-correction optical filter in front of the lens may help, but the filter correction may be "coarser" than the WB steps already offered in BMD cameras. If a filter does address the WB issue, an advantage is that no WB adjustments in post will be required.

Making manual/optical WB adjustments on set requires using a properly calibrated monitor. Otherwise one can bake the "wrong" WB into the footage, defeating the original purpose. That's one of the advantages of in-camera, one-push auto-WB: It's fairly accurate relative to a calibrated standard.

On a related note, the new SMPTE "OneShot" color chart:
http://store.smpte.org/product_p/dlab-smpte-pos.htm
http://provideocoalition.com/search_res ... &sa=Search

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