White Balance and Gray Cards

Thats a good idea steve...

Yeh thats right drew...but I do find HDV can be fixed up when editing in HDV mode rather well as long as you only have to adjust it a tiny bit. The cineform avi handles it rather well and in real time.

Here is something I picked up recently which makes a lot of sense.

"Another excellent way to white balance topside is to use blue gels that I get at the lighting store to change the color tempeture of my 32K topside lights to daylight. The gels come in full blue, halfs which most guys I know use because you lose less light, quarter and, eighth blues. You could use a half and an eighth for example if you want to get anal about it. Try to white balance with your left over scraps and then don't use them when shooting (obviously). It will warm your skin tones and not cost you a cent if you use scraps. But remember TEST, TEST, TEST. As Ben Franklin tells us, "A penny saved is a penny earned."

That's exactly what I've been doing for years, long before there were "warm cards" on the market ... white balancing through a left over scrap of light blue gel.

Aside from the cost savings, its actually is more practical to do it this way. With the gel, you simply hold the gel in front of the lens while you white balance. It doesn't matter if your WB target and light source are close or 100' away. To use the "warm cards" your light source and target have to be close. If you're camera is in the rear of a theater and you need to white balance on the stage lights, the warm cards don't do a bit of good."

Steve B)