Manual WB, is it really necessary?

Drew, this was not about indecent "exposure" but indecent "white balance" LOL

Yeah I figured leaving that one out there would lead to more fun

By the way, though you have some good tips, there were some things still to point out

1.) Never try to cuddle your housing on a first date, they can get offended

2.) If the housing does not allow you to cuddle it by the 10th date, then find another housing

3.) If the housing insists on spooning after a dive cuddle, inform it that you just left a relationship where the other housing was just too needy.

4.) Explain to the one palm on the hand pressing the button that it is just as important as the palm in front of the lens and just because it seems that you take more footage of the other palm you love them both equally.

It seems I have not taken my relationship with my housing seriously enough. While I was out, my housing connected her LANC port to my laptop and read this post. She feels I have been neglecting her. We are now on the couch snuggling and watching dive videos she shot in her earier days. I never knew it could be this good.

Ryan,

I almost said that in my response. Moving a little swivel dial on a touch screen is not that easy underwater. I think there will be better techniques for this. Perhaps use your right hand by holding the housing out in front you (lens pointing left and right hand on left hand-grip). Then place your left hand/slate in front of the lens and hit WB with your right pointer finger.

Probably need to fiddle around to figure out what is best.

Shawn

Yup. A person can always go through the menu presses by looking through the housing, aligning the dial to 'one push' and then aim at whatever. However I don't like taking my eyes off the action, I have missed too many things that way. After now using the housing on several trips I use two methods:

1) For WB off the sun i have become proficient at using my left hand for making the presses without having to look at where the pointer is actually pointed. An external monitor is helpful to see when the MWB is finished and check basic results.

2) After Nick's excellent MWB test(s), I really liked the hand-job look for open reef scenes. During my last trip I used this technique for all reef scenes. I would go through the menu presses as with step 1 (edit: until I was ready to press 'one push'), then lift the housing about a foot vertically so I could easily put my right hand in front of the lens from underneath the housing. This prevented me from blocking any ambient light coming into housing. Once again, an external monitor is useful; I would point it down a little so I could see the results with the housing raised.

Ryan

Silly question: If I'm going to use the red filter AND MWB, should I be doing the MWB with the red filter already on? I would assume so.

Yes. WB with the Filter on.

Yup. A person can always go through the menu presses by looking through the housing, aligning the dial to 'one push' and then aim at whatever. However I don't like taking my eyes off the action, I have missed too many things that way. After now using the housing on several trips I use two methods:

 

 

Ryan

OK. I used the camera and housing in the Red Sea for the last 2 weeks. I didn't find MWB too hard. setting up the menu to get to the one push button required tipping the camera sideways so I could glance through the window on the side to see where the pointer was pressing.

Once I got to the one push I could hold the camera in the left hand (holding the left hand grip) and use my left thumb to push the button while my right hand held a white balance card (or I used the palm of my hand)

The biggest problem was then finding the OK button to leave the menu. I got very frustrated trying to do this and continually hitting the one push button again.

In the end I resorted to using the ON button on the back of the housing to cycle through from camera to memory to playback and back to camera.

This kept the white balance setting and, while taking a few seconds to do was more reliable than making multiple attempts to hit the OK button.

I made a few experimental shots comparing AWB and MWB and the colours were much better with MWB

Searching through the forums this is probably the closest thread I can find to what I'm curious about so it's a bump. sorry.

When performing MWB do you still need to use a filter? I have been because, well, I have no idea to be honest. It just seems like the thing to do and I never got around to experimenting. I have been told that you don't need to? Thoughts or facts welcome. Cheers.

edit - sorry what I should have asked was why do you need the filter when doing MWB?

I never heard of WBing on the palm of one's hand. Unless you are an albino, I'm not sure how this sets to white.

Steve B)

Obviously hands are not quite white but filtered through a little bit of water, caucasian palms are pretty neutral, especially once they get soggy and the colour gets washed out of them during the dive.

It really works. Check out my pics early in this thread for examples.

A little bit of pinkness is not a bad thing to WB on underwater. When I was WBing on white fins I needed to reduce the red in post on a lot of my footage. I even started scrawling red pen on them to knock back the redness. Now I'm finding the palms of my hands to be a perfect balance.

Now I'm finding the palms of my hands to be a perfect balance.

Cold water and thick neoprene gloves.......

-still it's a good tip !

A gray glove also works like a gray WB card. I find it works very well too.

I used my silver/gray colored fins. Worked well.

Hi guys,

maybe it's a little bit late to jump in...

Based on your experience, what's the maximum depth it's worth to do a MWB?

I mainly film on deep wrecks (60/70 meters/180/200 ft) in clear waters and I always used auto WB.

Thank you in advance

David

Hi Long John,

Welcome to the perfect storm of wetpixel

I would think it would be worth WB at all depths, if you can that is... What Cam/housing have you got.

At that depth i would do most of my CC in post.

Although when I was diving off Singapore my little A1 worked well (for a little cam) and I had some decent colour to build on at 55M...

I would suggest a BIG light bank

Dive safe

DeanB

At that depth i would do most of my CC in post.

 

Although when I was diving off Singapore my little A1 worked well (for a little cam) and I had some decent colour to build on at 55M...

 

I would suggest a BIG light bank

Hi DeanB,

usually within the team we have double 50W HID lights and sometime we are lucky to use also a 200W HMI light. But sometimes the dives are so demanding that we prefer to bring just the camera. A PD170 and a FX1.

So I'm wondering if a MWB it's still useful in these conditions. Usually all samples I found are in shallow tropical waters B)

Here some shots of my friends at 90 meters/270ft:

Thank you