White card/Color chart

[ReadyKilowatt]

After spending another evening trying to get the colors right again, I figured I'd re-read and watch some of the how to videos for getting a good white balance with the X5. I'm wondering if anyone has built or uses a white card and/or color bar chart, maybe incorporated into a landing pad? It seems to me that it wouldn't be very difficult to get a decent white balance on takeoff but keeping it seems like another matter unless going full manual, and then it's up to your tablet's color accuracy to see if you're right. I did see something about using the exposure lock might also lock the white balance too? Color bars would be helpful too, but getting just the right colors mixed without having a real color bar chart (big bucks), and the right primer, etc could prove difficult. But it might save a fair bit of time in post too.

I'm coming from Canon DSLRs and the auto white balance in those cameras is good enough under most conditions that I haven't had to worry about it. Of course I mostly take stills in raw format too, so that helps. Before that I shot on the old-style video cameras that had an "auto white" button that was used with a white card and basically stayed put after you set it. They also had a handy bars-and-tone switch to put at the head of the tape*, but I date myself...

One thing I did figure out is that I need to shut off most of the iPad/iPhone display "enhancements" because that was one thing that really was screwing me up. Another will be being able to shoot when the Sun is higher since the color temp keeps changing after work this time of year. But for now I'm getting a lot of frustrating footage!

*Stuff made of rust and petrochemicals by companies like Sony, Ampex and 3M. Used mostly for pissing off video editors by shooting everything except the shot they want.

 

[Casey53]

You could get a ColorChecker Passport and shoot it with the camera prior to takeoff. Then you can use the profile the software makers to correct the color balance, or click on the white portion of the C.C. with the editor dropper to set the WB. I think Resolve 12 editing software has that chart in the calibration part where you select it and put your frames of it into their editor and then all your video is set correctly.

I've thought about using a sheet of gray foam core board at the local art supply and use it for a landing pad and color check reference and exposure both. Maybe add some weights to the corners and cut and tape it so it folds up too. Someone should make one of those collapsible hoop reflectors with a 18% gray and maybe a white H too and large enough to land on.

 

[Getting the Shot]

If you really want to get critical then pickup the passport colour checker from X-rite. I personally love it and I use it religiously. I shoot aerial as well as everything else and have learned that the first part of creating cinematic footage requires proper exposure and colour. Once you have achieved the optimum then you can commence to improve upon. Remember the saying, garbage in garbage out, it still holds true today. Covering badly shot footage up by converting it to some colour and adding strange filters to it might fool some people but remember this, you know you messed up and no matter who says it's great or crap you will know the truth. Oh and one more thing, being able to reproduce something accurately is the real art so I applaud you for making the effort to do things properly.

 

[ReadyKilowatt]

I picked up a Colorchecker Video card. Used it for the first time this weekend. It did help a lot but doesn't quite solve the problem, although the white balance seemed to be a little more stable/consistent anyway because of the weather.

I guess I'm going to have to get used to full manual control and figuring out how to get a good manual white balance. One thing that is frustrating is that I can AE lock, begin shooting then stop to set up the next position. When I stop the AE unlocks and exposure changes. To make it worse, if I forget that the AE unlocked after stopping the next shot will be all over the place. Very frustrating! If the camera would just keep exposure locked it would be much easier to get consistent shots.

 

[ReadyKilowatt]

Just to follow up, I found this color/light meter app today. I just tried it out with the X5 on the Osmo and I think this might be the solution I was looking for. If it does what it claims (and it seems to, although I'll need to calibrate with my DSLR), I should be able to get a color temperature from a grey card and set the X5 camera full manual, which is really what I wanted to begin with.