Dumb question on White Balance

arcorob wrote on 10/5/2004, 6:22 AM
Well, I think I know the answer already (You cant get there from here ) but its worth a shot.

I use 3 SONY TRV740's for various wedding shoot and as you are aware, they do NOT have a manual white balance. As such, I tend to get a reddish caste in all but the best of lighting conditions. I use spotlights, but every one has a tan..LOL

IS there any way to trick the white balance or will the camera just keep readjusting it ?

I may have to move to a VX2100 (problem is I need 3...UGGG)

Comments

Bill Ravens wrote on 10/5/2004, 7:12 AM
you might try an off camera, low intensity spot with a warming filter, shining on the camera sensor. Otherwise, your only choice is to adjust the colors in post.
johnmeyer wrote on 10/5/2004, 8:26 AM
Actually, most Sony lower-end camcorders DO have a "manual" white balance. If you go to the menu, you should see a white balance option. Under that option, you should have four choices: Auto, Indoor, Outdoor, and Hold. To manually white balance this camera, find a white sheet of paper and put it where your main subject will be lit (e.g., the alter). Zoom in so the paper fills the entire frame. Set the white balance to Auto, and wait about fifteen seconds. Now, set the white balance to Hold. The white balance has been set, and it will not change until you switch back to Auto.

Setting the white balance to Hold has the additional advantage that the color will not suddenly shift as you follow the bride down the aisle and pick up the outdoor blue light from the windows in the background and suddenly have her dress turn yellow as the Auto white balance temporarily re-adjusts to outdoor light.
ken c wrote on 10/5/2004, 12:34 PM
brilliant, John - that's thinking! sounds good..

ken
arcorob wrote on 10/5/2004, 12:41 PM
Hi Johnny, can you tell me where they are ? I have 3 TRV740's, 1 TRV340, 3 TRV140's and none have a whitebalance option. You may be thinking of Mini-DV whereas these are Digital 8 . Same quality BUt unfortunately, no manual white balance...

If you know of where I can find the option I will be forever in your debt...Thanks
kingarthur wrote on 10/5/2004, 1:25 PM
HI ARCOROB I have a D8 Sony TRV 12 0 witch did not have DV IN or manual
white balance,as a lot of camcorders here in the UK. But there were some
gadgets called widgets or DV Enablers, witch pluged into the lanc port of the cam. the widget had a button witch wen pressed enabled the DV IN and
the white balance.this was a few years ago so idont know if they are still
availlable
FRED
johnmeyer wrote on 10/5/2004, 5:55 PM
You are correct: my Sony is a DV, not Digital8. I had assumed, apparently in error, that the menu system would be similar.

I downloaded the manual for the DCRTRV340 from Amazon:

TRV340 Manual

and found this:

Press DATA CODE on the Remote Commander. The display changes as follows: date/time -> various settings (SteadyShot, exposure, white balance, gain, shutter speed, apeture value) -> no indicator

If you live in Europe, the trade unions there have managed to cripple your camcorders so that they cannot pass DV through without first copying to tape. I don't know what group was going to be harmed by this, but someone screamed and the EU caved in, and so you don't get DV passthrough. It is possible that White Balance got killed as well. However, some of these functions can be re-enabled. See this site for more info:

DV In.com
hugoharris wrote on 10/5/2004, 6:38 PM
A little off topic, but...

This thread illustrates the amazing nature of the Vegas user community. One person asks for advice, and the next thing you know, someone else (Bravo John!) is tracking down a manual online and forwarding the links...wow.

Kevin.
cbrillow wrote on 10/5/2004, 8:21 PM
As the owner of a TRV350, I've followed this thread with interest, wishing to stumble upon a method for overriding automatic white balance.

The data code mentioned by johnmeyer reflects only the camera settings at the time a tape was recorded. It doesn't provide a means by which to change them, unfortunately.

At one time, I saw a reference to some hacks for enabling DV passthrough, and it seems like a homebrew LANC device and accompanying software was also available for dealing with the white balance issue.
johnmeyer wrote on 10/5/2004, 8:25 PM
At one time, I saw a reference to some hacks for enabling DV passthrough, and it seems like a homebrew LANC device and accompanying software was also available for dealing with the white balance issue.

Yeah, I stumbled across one such site while trying to find the DV-In info. Here's the link to that site:

LANC, DV-IN, ANA-IN
arcorob wrote on 10/6/2004, 9:42 AM
I found the sites
http://www.uwasa.fi/~f76998/video/

and some related but MUCH more than I want to attempt...sigh
WHy cant there be a simple adapter built if the functionality is really there ? It should NOT be that hard.

Thanks to all
PDB wrote on 10/6/2004, 11:24 AM
If left with no alternative (ie no manual white balance) I have resorted actually to filming 10 secs of a piece of white paper in the different light settings: at least that way you have a real white reference to colour correct in post (yes, most wedding dresses nowadays are off-white over here...)...You then colour correct using that clip and apply to all filmed under the same conditions. (would be even better if you had white/black/grey reference). Good time and headache saver.

Best of luck.

Paul.