Understanding Color Balance for Video
Using Color Temperature Effectively to Produce Better Looking Video
Color Balance means different things for those who are using still cameras, so it's important to understand that this article will be talking about color balance as it relates to the person shooting video. Most of the techniques we will be discussing also have application in the still digital-photography world, but video has it's own challenges which this article will attempt to address.
The human eye is an amazing instrument, and it's important to realize that even the most expensive cutting-edge and mind-blowingly cool video cameras are a poor and inflexible substitute for the human eye. Because of this, we need to constantly supply the camera's 'eye' with information to help it interpret the light that is hitting its sensor.
If you've ever shot footage that comes out with an orange, or bluish cast, you've experienced the video camera's inflexibility. The reason that your footage can appear differently when seen through the camera's sensor is that light has a color temperature. A low color temperature (such as from a standard incandescent light bulb) will shift the color towards the red end of the spectrum, where a high color temperature (such as from a fluorescent light) will shift the color towards the blue end of the spectrum.
The Basics: Manual White Balance
If you dig no farther into the world of Color Balance than to take your video camera out of Automatic mode and start using the manual White Balance, you will be going a long way towards getting the best image possible out of your camera. White balance is simply a way for us to tell the camera which object in our scene is supposed to come out white. This allows the camera to compute the difference between what the current color of the object is, and white. Then it simply shifts all the color by the difference.
For the filmmaker, the rule of thumb is to reset the camera's White Balance at every new location before the first take, and any time there has been a radical change in the lighting of your set. Because every video camera will have it's own method for actually setting the White Balance, it is outside the scope of this article to get into directions on how to set White Balance, except to say that you'll want to have something white that you can point the camera at with you at all times.
On-Set Nightmares
Everything above regarding White Balance can apply equally to our still-photography friends, but here is where things can get complex for those of us who are shooting video without careful planning. This article will only be covering the basics, so further research will be necessary, but the reward for your study is that good use for Color balance in your shots will make your video look more like film.
The dilemma that often presents itself when shooting video- especially for indie filmmakers who tend to work with existing locations- is that there is more than one color temperature in a scene! it is extremely common for a location to be using both incandescent (remember, it will skew the color temperature towards red whenever they are on camera), and Fluorescent lighting (which will skew the color temperature blue whenever they are on camera) depending on where the camera's pointing! Factor in a window or two (sunlight skews towards red, but not as much as a light bulb will), and you've got a potential mess on your hands every time you move the camera!
Welcome to the World of Filters
This is the point where amateurs are separated from professionals, because Color-Balancing for video is- in essence- the practice of modifying or eliminating light until there is only one color temperature for the camera to deal with in each shot. This is done using a variety of techniques such as:
- Using CTB (Color Temperature Blue) filter material to re-balance light elements that skew towards red
- Using CTO (Color Temperature Orange) filter material to re-balance light elements that skew toward blue
- Using ND (Neutral Density) filter material to dial down the intensity of light sources that are too bright (such as sun streaming through a window) without changing the color temperature of the light
Again, digging deeply into the art and science of properly Color Balancing a scene is beyond the scope of this article, but below are some suggestions for further reading on the topic.
Recommended Reading
- Matters of Light and Depth by Ross Lowell
- Painting With Light by John Alton
- Motion Picture and Video Lighting by Blain Brown
What do you think about this article?
More in Film & TV
Latest Articles