WB for lights in post?

I think I remember Wags or somebody mentioning this before but I can't find the post so please excuse the repeat topic.

 

I have a set of L&M Sunray HID lights and a Canon HG camera. Video is kind of an after thought so I'm not ready to spend a bunch of money on it. With the housing I have I can't change camera settings after I hit the water. If you look at the first minute or so of this shot without a filter you'll see what I mean.

Without a filter the WA stuff looks like crap so I edit it out since I really haven't found a way to make it look acceptable in post using FCP or Vegas.

 

Assuming I'm in relatively shallow (40 ft or less) water, keeping the sun at my back, do I want to use a filter to get better all around WA video and use the lights for close ups and correct in post for the lights? Does that produce better results than trying to correct for the WA WB in post?

 

Didn't Wags have a technique for doing WB on the surface?

Hello Andy

Nice little clip there.

 

Its always a balancing act with lights and natural colour.

Whats good with the lights on is too cold for the natural shots and what's good for the wide natural shots is too warm (red) with the the lights on.

 

So if you cannot adjust on the fly then you are stuck.

White Balance the camera before you get in on the blue sky as this will warm the camera up abit, or even just on something blue.

For your lights you can add blue filters to them so the subject should not look as red with a warmish camera.

The rest just fix up in your NLE if it allows.

 

Lucky to have internet access and watch your clip.

I am on an island with really bad connection but today it seems to be working good, must be because its Sunday .

Yes, if you can't flip a colour correction filter in and out during the dive, or manually white balance, then you're stuck between a rock and a hard place.

 

One thing you can do with close subjects that come out too red from your lights, while the background is blue/green, is to add a "color corrector (secondary)" effect in Vegas. Set up a mask in there based on hue/saturation/luminosity with plenty of smoothing. Then you can add a cool complimentary colour to those warm parts, or you can drop the saturation, or a combination of the two. I'm using this a lot at the moment to cool warm highlights down after I've already done a basic color correction filter.

 

tutorials

 

Don't overdo it. Overdone colour correction can look horrible.

So, Wagsy, (and Nick) are you saying that I should;

 

1. do without the filter and WB on something blue, using the lights to illuminate the close stuff and

 

2. Try Nick's Vegas technique to tweak it? (I love Vegas over FCP but that's another story)

 

My problem with filters has always been that it robs light and I want every available photon of available light i can get going into the camera, so if i can achieve the same correction by WB on something blue then I should be ahead of the game. Am I thinking correctly? Does that mean i could use blue filter material and WB on a Gray or white card on the surface to allow me to find the best shade of blue to get consistency?

 

Thanks.