I need the Red out of my videos

My setup:

Nikon Z7

Nikkor 14-24mm

Sea and Sea 6" Dome Port

Pair of Kraken Solar Flare Mini's 8000

Kraken Remote

My videos show a reddish tint even after setting custom white balance at depth with the video strobes on.  Will adding the blue filter resolve this issue?  Other suggestions?

11 minutes ago, Slamnationalley said:

My setup:

Nikon Z7

Nikkor 14-24mm

Sea and Sea 6" Dome Port

Pair of Kraken Solar Flare Mini's 8000

Kraken Remote

My videos show a reddish tint even after setting custom white balance at depth with the video strobes on.  Will adding the blue filter resolve this issue?  Other suggestions?

 

 

 

Red tint is down to the having the colour balance set too high for the lights, there could be a number of reasons for this including not balancing off a neutral target or the target being too far away.  I would think you want your WB target in closer to the lights so it gets more illumination from the lights and less ambient light.  If the target if too far away it reflects more ambient light and less video light - this  causes the camera to bias towards ambient light WB and as a consequence where the light is brighter from your video lights it has a red tint.  I would try to play around with your WB setting procedure before you bring in filters.

One trick is to make a custom white balance card that has a bunch of red sharpie stripes on it. Works well at least for macro type things.

Bill

How controlled is the lighting when you have the issue?    Are you talking about a mixed ambient/lighted scene?

I've had a number of times where I had unwanted red in my shots, especially video since I have much less control in post on white balance.  I started noticing how much my lighting was causing the issue after doing a dive using my Kraken focus light in red mode.  I figured it wouldn't be noticed when using flash to light the scene, but there are too many things that either are not lit by strobe or reflect the focus light.  I'd just get weird lighting results.   When I shot video, all was well (once I white balanced for the depth) until I got close enough for my Kraken focus light (set in white light mode) to provide some lighting help.   The Kraken lighting was clearly reddish compare to ambient, and I've had to stop using it unless I'm able to completely light the scene with it. (Perhaps macro shots.)

This issue has plagued me for years. I hate it when you have a great school of fish, and the ones in the foreground have a red shift, and the others are naturally colored.

I am too cheap to get the Keldan filters right now, so...

I have been experimenting successfully with using different shades of Cinematography lighting gels by LEE, and rubberbanding them to my video lights to compensate for the red shift.  

Here is a link to the Keldan site with their solution to our problem:

https://keldanlights.com/products/filters/filters-for-video-lights/1496-ambient-filter-af-12-b-72mm-4x-8x.html

The other thing I am going to do on my next trip with my new a7s3 rig is to shoot in S-Log so I have more control with color grading.  I have not done that till now because I have been using a sony a6300 with only 8 bit color.

This guy on YouTube is doing exceptional work without any blue filters, he says.. Which I find incredible.. But take a look and read the comments below it.

I'll post some more when I figure out a good work flow.  Good luck!

Blake

Most cameras that can do a manual white balance also allow you to simply set the kelvin temperature. Most UW video lights are 5600K. But as Blake says above, the real solution is what Keldan is offering.

Basically, you want to white balance the camera with just ambient light, then have lights that approximate the same color temperature as daylight at whatever your depth. At a minimum, this means cyan filters on your lights, but you can get better results if you use a red filter on your camera in addition. How much better is subjective. The interesting thing about Keldan is that they offer both filters, which are designed to work together. Light and Motion also offers cyan domes for their Sola video pro 15k lumen lights, I think.

On 3/23/2022 at 6:03 AM, Blakerunner57 said:

I am too cheap to get the Keldan filters right now, so...

I have been experimenting successfully with using different shades of Cinematography lighting gels by LEE, and rubberbanding them to my video lights to compensate for the red shi

Hi Blakerunner57, would you be able to share which # Lee gels you are getting the best results with your lights?

Cheers