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Sony's auto white balance vs presets


Andrew Reid
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Auto WB priority set to white should give white tones to white surfaces (like a white wall) under warm interior incandescent lighting.

For me it usually gives yellowish-green.

Does anyone have a work-around?

I have resorted to using the custom presets (1-3) instead. These seem to capture true white, whereas the AWB system is all over the shop. Sometimes it will get it right, but you could be stuck with yellow or orange for 10 seconds before it changes.

Maybe certain metering settings crap it up, I don't know. What I do know is that Sony has the worst automatic white balance system on the market.

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1 hour ago, Andrew Reid said:

Does anyone have a work-around?

Remember this from the other week :)

41bYAeUY-tL._AC_SY400_.jpg.cb0681c132bb31ef43fd8b8647e47efe.jpg

I originally got this years ago as there were a couple of stadiums on my beat with mixed sets of floodlights that produced a horrible light that all manner of white balance settings couldn't tame and this made a much better fist of it.

I use it with the Pockets for ProRes but its just generally a useful tool, especially if you're shooting the same thing with differemt brands.

I'll do an A/B with it on an a6500 tomorrow if you want?

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Ah yes I do remember it

Gotta be worth a try hasn't it?!

Maybe I can bundle these with Pro Color ?

P1000298.jpg

When Sony bought Minolta the bought years of film colour science.

After the A900 they trashed it all and still 10 years later, it's bollocks

If any normal people put in a performance like this in our jobs - breaking something then not fixing it for a decade, would we still have a job to go to afterwards?

Sony manager's must have a lot of faith in their colour science department.

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33 minutes ago, BTM_Pix said:

Remember this from the other week :)

41bYAeUY-tL._AC_SY400_.jpg.cb0681c132bb31ef43fd8b8647e47efe.jpg

I originally got this years ago as there were a couple of stadiums on my beat with mixed sets of floodlights that produced a horrible light that all manner of white balance settings couldn't tame and this made a much better fist of it.

I use it with the Pockets for ProRes but its just generally a useful tool, especially if you're shooting the same thing with differemt brands.

I'll do an A/B with it on an a6500 tomorrow if you want?

Ah, I have something similar lying around here somewhere. Believe this: https://www.expodisc.com/ Never actually used it much.

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25 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

 

If any normal people put in a performance like this in our jobs - breaking something then not fixing it for a decade, would we still have a job to go to afterwards?

 

Ironically, the very day after I was wafting that thing around proved that when it comes to politicians that rule certainly doesn't apply either !

 

 

1 minute ago, Cinegain said:

Ah, I have something similar lying around here somewhere. Believe this: https://www.expodisc.com/ Never actually used it much.

The Expodisc balances a bit warmer IIRC

One of those times when the knock off is actually a bit better!

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Seems to get good reviews

https://www.amazon.co.uk/ExpoDisc-Neutral-Portrait-Balance-Filter/dp/B00GUQJZCW/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=expodisc&qid=1579208829&sr=8-3

"A must for colour blind photographers!"

Or colour blind cameras for that matter!

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Another thing I have noticed is multi-metering doesn't work during a recording if you shoot movies from a stills mode. So the metering mode changes from the default stills one, when you hit the record button, to something like center or full screen average - usually changing the exposure along with it. Bonkers.

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On 1/16/2020 at 8:14 PM, Andrew Reid said:

Ah yes I do remember it

Gotta be worth a try hasn't it?!

 

 

OK, nothing elaborate but did these today with an A7Rii.

All standard profile, straight out of the camera JPEGs.

To make a reference, this is a daylight one, which the AWB does OK with and as expected is pretty much identical to manually white balancing it using the knock off Expodisc.

This one is using AWB.

493980596_AWB001.thumb.jpg.570a800c41eb6875c83a26c7748bb1e1.jpg

And this is the one using the Expodiscalike.

1676174145_EXPOWB001.thumb.jpg.587372f88bfd2b6ca2caf178cbda8250.jpg

To make it make a more challenging comparison, I set the X-Rite up against a white wall adjacent to the window with the left side being lit by a lamp and the right side being lit by daylight.

This is it with the AWB.

1019432180_AWB002.thumb.jpg.906e38c3dc0eeba9104102aa25894762.jpg

And this is it after setting a manual WB with the Expodiscalike.

1625428276_EXPOWB002.thumb.jpg.e63575861cdf22af4c4631de46abcacf.jpg

The AWB is slightly cooler and the Expodiscalike is actually a more accurate representation of how it looked to the eye.

Putting the dropper on the same colour patch on the X-Rite, you can see the broad difference in RGB values.

AWB on top, Expodiscalike below.

1386109542_ScreenShot2020-01-18at00_12_59.thumb.png.b3e6729ffd3775b7236f03fae1df3df0.png

980822039_ScreenShot2020-01-18at00_11_52.thumb.png.cf245e45b3c3515bddaef18fa217fab3.png

So its a subtle difference but even on a quick not exactly that scientific test its definitely there and of course the advantage is it will be locked in for the whole shot.

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The problem I am having with the Sony AWB is under incandescent light and also when there is a mix of artificial light. I'll show you what I mean...

Just digging out the file.

 

Here is how AWB Priority = White is supposed to look

DSC00608.jpg

And here is AWB Priority Ambient, doing it's job to keep the ambient shade of warm retro light bulbs...

DSC00609.jpg

But AWB Priority = White is very useful, as it maintains a Leica-like neutral white, allowing you to tweak the temperature in post. It is as useful for S-LOG as it is for Creative Styles. S-LOG has some WB baked in too, so that neutral look is important.

Here is AWB Priority = White gone wild...

DSC00606.jpg

It has done a piss stain balance.

It is not a nice ambient amber or white. It is neither.

Here is how it should look:

DSC00607.jpg

And it did get there.

Just took a lot of coaxing.

The reliability needs fixing.

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