When to do White Balance

Hello all:

Being relatively new to the video world of the DSLR (using canon 5d mark ii), I was starting to question myself, regarding when to actually set the white balance. I know you should do it every 10 feet. But my question is, do you set your White Balance before or after you set the ISO and aperture?

I know this is basic, and I am probably over thinking this. I just want to get my procedure down correctly.

Thanks in advance.

Dustin

I never white balance during the dive anymore, I do any white balancing in post processing with Lightroom - my wife wears a set of white fins. I think you can post process white balance in Adobe Premier / FCP / iMovie, yes?

And I just ensure she's in one of my photos at each depth for white balancing. A gray tank or gray coral, even the back of your hand will also work.

to my knowledge, you can't adjust white balance in post with video. As it doesn't shoot the footage in RAW. I currently use a white slate to do the white balance. I just need to know when to actually set it.

to my knowledge, you can't adjust white balance in post with video. As it doesn't shoot the footage in RAW. I currently use a white slate to do the white balance. I just need to know when to actually set it.

I know that Premiere Pro (4, 5 and 5.5) can adjust WB in post with video.

All that is great but for critical color, any color correction in post for 4:2:0, even if done correctly in uncompressed 10bit, will have some detrimental effect. Especially if you go through a few steps of recoding. That's why broadcasters want minimum 422. If it's for online use, it's not a big deal but FYI.

If you don't get the WB close while underwater then while not impossible it is very difficult to correct that in post with video. You'll find that you generally have lost a lot of 'data' that your editing software needs as it is more like shooting JPEG's than RAW stills. If you record saturated blue or green footage without white balancing then that is generally what you'll be left with.

Dustin - try to get your settings right before you WB, but it really is no biggie as you can always tweak them again afterwards no problem! One of the most remarkable things I've found with my 7D is its ability to give an accurate WB underwater and it completely knocks the spots off even reasonably high end camcorders with that feature

Cheers, Simon

Set the white balance after exposure settings (ISO, aperture).

I find color correction for WB on video to be far more difficult to tweak than on stills, so setting the WB close to where you want to be is always best.

So, either 1) Carry something to WB on 2) absent a slate, shoot a still, something like sand and use it for your WB setting or 3) absent a white slate/fin or sand to shoot, set WB to Kelvin and pick a high temperature, then adjust from there.

I don't care about WB on stills. Stills are more easily adjusted and also pretty easy to mask and adjust WB on sections of the image. I can spend gobs of time in FCP and never get it quite right.

Thanks everyone for your replies. I wasn't sure if it was a big deal to do it before or after. Sounds like after is best case, but I shouldn't be too concerned doing it before.

Thanks again

Dustin