-
Varicam: Tungsten vs. Daylight menu setting?
I like to shoot using the preset white balance often. My questions is: Is there some disadvantage to setting the camera menu to “daylight” and shooting without one of the orange filters in the filter wheel?
The reason I ask is that I find that (setting the camera to tungsten) the “c” filter is not deep enough, and the “d” filter is too orange/amber (whatever one calls the color). Setting the camera to “daylight” and using the “b” filter position looks just right (unless I want to change the RGB gains to taste). I’ve tried using an 85 filter in the mattbox instead of the filter wheel, but it’s not quite strong enough–very close the “c” filter.
I’ve heard said something about the camera becoming more “noisy” if I don’t shoot in “tungsten” mode, but I’m not sure that I get that. Since blue is the most noisy color, exposing with more blue (daylight mode) should quiet the blue noise (by lowering the blue gain) rather than increase the noise.
On the other hand, I see some danger in the highlight exposure if I shoot to the limit of the chip sensitivity by clipping the blue color before the red or green, resulting in a color shift near the white clip. Though I would think this is only a danger if I shoot at dynamic level = 500%, especially at -3db gain (which I know from experience is really past the clip point of one or more of the chips).
So, am I safe to shoot with the daylight menu setting and no orange/amber filter over the lens in daylight?
Thanks all!
-bruce
Varicam/Steadicam Owner
Los Angeles, CA
http://www.brucealangreene.com -
1 Reply
-
I see that there are no responses…:)
So I did some testing.
1. I can not see any increase in noise using the daylight setting vs. using a CTO filter in the wheel and using the tungsten setting. Perhaps my waveform monitor does not show enough resolution (astro), but I could not detect any difference. So far so good.
2. Checking for color shifts in the highlights:
As expected at -3db there is an larger clipping of the blue channel at 500% dynamic level in both tungsten and daylight set-ups. My surprise is that under tungsten light there is a significant blue clip (i.e.. yellow whites) at 400% dynamic level and even a little at 300%. When shooting in the daylight mode, there is less clipping of the blue channel, not more.My conclusion is that the camera/chips are closer to a natural “daylight” balance than “tungsten” balance. My other conclusion is that when shooting in FilmRec mode, do not go over 300% dynamic level if using -3db gain, and not over 400% dynamic level if shooting at 0db gain. Doing so will mean that the whites get a hard color shift to yellow when the blue chip clips. At +3db gain, 500% dynamic level is safe to use without a color shift in the whites. And the color shift is slightly more pronounced when using an orange filter (or tungsten lighting) rather than no filter at all when shooting in daylight.
For those who shoot in VidRec mode, note that the same phenomena will take place with aggressive knee settings as well, but I have not tested this systematically.
Please feel free to make a comment if you’ve had other experiences with this.
-bruce
Varicam/Steadicam Owner
Los Angeles, CA
http://www.brucealangreene.com
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up