white balance

[digital_biscuits]

I've read some books about shooting on DV and they say you should always do a "white balance" everytime you insert a new dv tape or you change location/lighting. I've shot **** loads of stuff on dv over the years and i've never done this.
Do any of you guys do the white balance (a.k.a colour scale board) before you shoot?
What kind of diffence does it make?

[miker]

although my cam can fix the white balance it comes with two presets - 'outdoors' and 'tungsten' - these are the only two settings i ever use. quicker and easier than pointing at a bit of white card every day, and guaranteed white-balance won't hunt.

but, yes, for best results you should fix your white balance, else you can get distracting colour shifts.

[Xendar]

As Miker says, you should white balance every time you start filming. Most consumer camcorders only have limited options for this, and most of the time the auto setting should be okay. Most modern editing cards and software have good colour correction utilities now though just in case the white balance is off. The Matrox RT.X100 even has an auto white balance feature which is very good.

[digital_biscuits]

so is it like shooting a gray scale with b/w 16mm i.e simply hold up a bit of card and film it? Surly that cant be all ya do can it?

[GREATwarEAGLE]

White Balance for video is more like a Macbeth color chart for color film. A gray card for film is more about correct exposure. At least in my experience.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ March 13, 2003 10:08 PM: Message edited by: GREATwarEAGLE ]</font>