ex1 colour fluctuation

[Brian Paterson]

Thanks a lot Craig. I have a Wedding to shoot on Friday and will adopt the workflow you suggest as the correct way to proceed.
You sound like the sort of guy I could have a good chat with down the pub. If you are ever coming to England (I assume you are in America) send me an email. I’m only fifty miles from London.

With Kind Regards
BRIAN.

brian paterson

[Michael Slowe]

Brian. I can’t resist butting in on your epic with Craig. First of all I should say (Craig didn’t) that he is the man on this forum when it comes to workflow for the EX cameras, as he is on many other matters too.

I too am more ‘artistic’ than techie but you can’t just rely on your art with all this new kit. Presumably you chose to go with the EX tapeless acquisition as indeed did I, and it was obvious that we have to learn the new game. The very first thing any EX owner must do (IMHO) is view, learn and inwardly digest,the workshop on the cameras by Doug Jensen and published on DVD by Vortex Media. Everything is covered from camera set ups, Picture Profiles, etc to post shooting workflows and it helped me hugely to understand what I was getting in to. Even now, on my third production with this camera I revert to the DVD on various points.

I too am based in London and would be happy to chat to you over a beer or coffee sometime, shared experience is the secret of The Cow’s success. I’m not sure what the approved method of contact is if one doesn’t want to divulge details in public, maybe the Cow bosses could give you my E Mail.

Michael Slowe

[Brian Paterson]

Hi Michael,
Tried to find some way of contacting the creative cow bosses but couldn’t see any way of doing it and can’t spend any more time searching.
The privacy policy seems to say it O.K. to give information if one wants to.
I don’t actually live in London. I am fifty miles West but I do visit once in a while. Give me a ring if you want. 01189 402213

Regards
BRIAN.

brian paterson

[Bruce Quayle]

Hi Brian,

No lecture here. Just some very sound advice: Buy yourself the Vortex “How to” DVDs and Field Guide on the EX1. I cannot recommend them highly enough!

Doug Jensen does an excellent job of explaining the camera and gives all sorts of insight into getting the best from your investment. I bought both and keep the Field Guide in my camera case at all times for location reference. https://www.vortexmedia.com/DVD_EX1.html

He recommends VERY strongly that almost all “auto” settings should be disabled – especially the auto white balance – which, by the sound of your description, appears to be precisely your problem. If the wedding was as hectic as you suggest, you might easily have knocked something by mistake. If you were accidentally in ATW, any flash photography occuring during your shot would be enough to set it wandering – hence your fluctuations in colour.

NB: If you pushed the “Full Auto” button by mistake, it completely overrides any white balance you might have set using your preset white balance memory switch!!

The BBC also have some excellent reference info for settings for the EX1r: https://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/whp/whp034-add30.shtml

Also: PLEASE use the Clip Browser software to transfer your clips. This seems the only way you can ensure that a duplicate copy of your original material gets onto whatever archival device you might have. I copy all my material to two duplicate external hard drives. Each then is stored in completely different locations.

I have great empathy for your situation what with the masses of technical advances being made in this field on a minute-by-minute basis. I started my career at the BBC in London back in 1975 – the days of 2″ tape…when the term “quad” referred to the spinning heads of the VTR, not processors in a computer! After I sold my film company, I decided to get back into the creative realm and shoot and edit my own documentary work. Ouch! What a learning curve! But I have to say that I have enjoyed it all, and a guy like Jensen really does simplify the technical aspects to the acquisition process.

On another matter you may find useful…I have been using the Hoodman RAW HDSC 32GB cards with great success. It allows me to have more cards available on my shoots while not breaking the bank. And they have been fine for overcranking too.

Good luck with your upcoming shoot. Just make sure those “auto” buttons are off!

Cheers,

Bruce

[Mick Haensler]

[brian paterson] ” remember setting the camera up with two white balances for the days event. One was cinegamma 1 and the other was cinegamma 3 – One for outdoors and one for indoors. As far as I know I did not use automatic white balance – ( unless by accident it got switched over.) “

Great conversation guys. Am I the only one who picked up on that these are not WB settings but PP settings?? Sorry, got to the party late.

Mick Haensler
Higher Ground Media

[Craig Seeman]

A PP can have a preset white balance. It’s still possible to bump the switch and go into ATW though. It’s possible for the latter to happen and miss it at first since the impact isn’t immediately obvious.

For example, PP is set to 5600 and you bump the switch to ATW. It settles to a similar white balance because that just happens to be the environment you’re shooting in. The color temp/lighting changes and, at that point, you notice the shift.

I believe brian mentions that there were windows in the background if indoor is about 3200 and out is 5600 and ATW is on, things can shift. He mentions setting up spots but I’m not sure if they were gelled to 5600. Even if they were, there could be 3200 sources in the room as well. Heck even if white balance was locked, the mixed color temperature could be nightmarish especially if the camera changes position, changing the mix.

Either way it may have been a tough lighting situation.

[Mick Haensler]

Gotcha, been there done that. I used to shoot regularly in a room with incandescent chandeliers and down lights, florescent coffers, and lots of large windows. Pretty abysmal.

Mick Haensler
Higher Ground Media

[Brian Paterson]

Mick your comment about regularly shooting in an abysmally lit room reminded me so much about the way we used to encounter bad accoustics at some venues when I played in a band and how we would invent methods of overcoming it. Only now i’m rating the lighting in rooms for filming and trying to solve those problems. All good fun though.
It’s been great having all your comments and some very sound advice. Thank you all so much for joining in. It has enlightened me a lot.
Best wishes and good luck to you all.

Regards
BRIAN PATERSON.

brian paterson