Manual white balance white slate or fins

Hello

it's me again philippe

i have a new question

I have read that there is a diference bettwen manual white balance on a card next to the housing and a manual white balance on your fin (considering that your fin and the card is the same color: here white)

i read that the video will be a bit warmer, red etc

what do you think

In theory the result will be a bit warmer with the fin, assuming the slate is closer to the camera.

When trying to understand this stuff, it helps to think of water as a very thick green/blue weakly-coloured filter. It also helps to consider the distance light travels from the light source to your subject, plus the distance that light travels from the subject to your camera after it has reflected off your subject.

The loss of red in light depends on the total distance the light travels. For example if you're shooting with available light (i.e. daylight, not electric lights) the total distance the light travels is the distance from the surface to your white balance surface, plus the distance from that white balance surface to your camera. This is the "water column" that the light travels through. If you're at 20m depth and your fin is 1m further away from your camera than a white slate would be, this means that the light is travelling 21m when using a fin, as opposed to 20m with a slate. i.e. just 5% more which is just about negligible. However if you're at 5m depth then this extra distance is 20% more (6m not 5m) and therefore more significant.

Personally I prefer to white balance on the palm of my hand these days. The result is great and it's convenient i.e. I usually have a good idea where my hand is (unless I'm deeper than 55m on air... then it's debatable).

thank you greatwhite for your answer

i never thought about make the calcul and you understand much more like this

and i will also try to white balance on the palm of my hand ,look more easy in certain situation

philippe

(unless I'm deeper than 55m on air... then it's debatable).

(The other parts of the post were very good also)

I am pretty new to this, but the 1st people i met who seem to know what they were doing told me to always point it straight at the sun and white balance it on that. Is there any reason why i should not do this???? I found the colours i was getting off doing that were fantastic. Nearly all my footage has been shot from doing this...... :/ ?

I am pretty new to this, but the 1st people i met who seem to know what they were doing told me to always point it straight at the sun and white balance it on that. Is there any reason why i should not do this???? I found the colours i was getting off doing that were fantastic. Nearly all my footage has been shot from doing this...... :/ ?

RestlessDeviant

There is so much diferent way to white balance, but the most important is be be happy with your shoot and to understand how dow it work

i never tried to white balance which the sun, do you have a shoot that i can see the result of this method ?

philippe

RestlessDeviant

There is so much diferent way to white balance, but the most important is be be happy with your shoot and to understand how dow it work

i never tried to white balance which the sun, do you have a shoot that i can see the result of this method ?

philippe

http://www.youtube.com/user/SensationDiveVideos

Im just re upping:

Shark Collection Including Tiger Shark Feed 720p HD

I made a mistake on the one that was on there.

Everything in Fiji was white balanced from a Slate & everything in Oz is white balanced from the Sun. Every clip show where they are from

All shot with standard lens no lights.

yes i like more the oz one, balance on the sun next time i tried it

I am pretty new to this, but the 1st people i met who seem to know what they were doing told me to always point it straight at the sun and white balance it on that. Is there any reason why i should not do this???? I found the colours i was getting off doing that were fantastic. Nearly all my footage has been shot from doing this...... :/ ?

No problem with doing that. A lot of people do that including me on occasions. I also find that it can save my bacon if I've gone too deep to get a white balance fix on my fin/hand and don't want to ascend to get back within range, I can sometimes get a fix off the sun when all else fails. This was very true of my VX2000.

Go to post #147 and #157 of this thread for the results of a test I did white balancing my Z1 in various different ways including sun/hand/slate.

hello nick

what will be your preference in ordre to make a white balance

is the sun the last solution

1-slate

2-sand

3-exposure disk

4-sun

etc...

There are a lot of variables (camera type, depth, light level, water colour, personal preference, water clarity etc. etc.) so one approach does not necessarily suit each person or each shot.

You should test for yourself but my general preference these days (with my Z1 in tropical water) is to use my hand. At night I use a white slate. I never use the sand because it tends to make the footage slightly purplish (complementary colour to yellow). I only use the sun when other methods fail. I don't take an Expodisc with me any more but some other shooters do. Others like grey slates or a grey glove.

When really shallow (e.g. a Fiji reeftop) WB can be less predictable than when deeper. I might try numerous different methods to get a nice result. e.g. MWB on hand with filter in, AWB with or without filter etc.. It all depends.

OMG never thought of my hand.

Ive been having some trouble with mwb for a while now as my cam seems to have a limited red range to add. When using a slate I still have a greenish picture not true colour. While shooting in Fiji in April I was shallow about to shoot a nudi and couldnt get proper colour and to say the least had the "craps". Balanced against slate a few time with no use. For some reason I then turned it towards a sponge coral and whola COLOUR.

Been trying to find something the same colour as the sponge ever since.

My hand

been infront of me the whole time.

Thanks Guys..

I guess it depends on how critical you expect to be when white blancing. Some people are content to just get it close and use their hand, or fins, and opt for these methods because of the convience and practicality (which are all very good reasons) and then may fine tune it in post. These are all good methods.

Some folks may be more critical of the WB setting and opt to use a WB slate. If you are of this latter method and are very critical then keep in mind that not all white slates are equal. The WB settting returned from setting WB to a white pair of fins, or a dive slate you would buy at a dive shop, or say a Gates WB Slate, to a DSS Spash slate may show subtle differences between them because they are not all the same white.

I shoot a lot with lights and will use my lights to illuminate the slate and I try to place the slate at the same distance where my subject is when I set WB.

As well said by Nick the distance between the light source and the slate (and assuming your subject too) will impact the amount of WB correction needed. To make it easier to get my slate at the proper distance, what I have done is configured my DSS Splash slate on the end of a lock line arm that is about 2 feet long. I used to use the Gates slate and lock line arm, but have replaced the Gates slate with the DSS Splash slate. I use the arm to hold the slate as a 3rd arm. When ready to set WB, I move the slate into the FOV and at the same subject distance. Zoom in to fill the screen. Set the lights on the slate as I expect it to be on the subject, hold the housing with one hand, push the manual WB button with another hand and set the WB, then I fold the slate out of the way when done and secure it with a small bungee arrangement. This works fine for me for most of my shooting.

If my subject is closer, I move in the slate to that same shooting distance and set it on the slate at that distance. Fur subjects a few feet futher out past the reach of my slate arm, I've configured my slate so that it can be easlly disconnectted underwater (using some quick connect fittings I've added to the arm and slate) , and I'll hand it to my model, have them hold it say at a 4-5 foot range, zoom in on it while I set the WB. When theres no buddy, I'll set the slate on the bottom at the subject distance, then set the WB. It is a pain all this resetting of the WB with varying subject distance but to me thats part of the "fun" of taking videos.

Some people say why dont I just set my WB to automatic. I personally do not like that result. I found that the during a shot I can see a constant shifting of the color balance if its set to automatic. It is an annoyance to me. But thats just my personal preference.

One last thought if you are not shooting with lights: Not all video cameras have the same ability to set WB correctly. If you are down deep, and the water has filtered out a lot of the warm tones then some consumer grade cameras may not be able to set the WB correctly. They can only correct so much. Thats why you may not be able to get the WB to set at depth if using sunlight in some situations.