White
Balance Evaluation
White balance is a process
that removes unrealistic colour casts. The colour temperature of light falling
onto a particular scene will affect the way the camera visually captures the
colours and this is sometimes not true to reality. For example, a white wall
may appear a shade of yellow, if tungsten white balance is used in a warm
interior. To correct the colour pallet of an object or source then white
balance is needed to suit the ambient light. To establish the differences when using
white balance, I filmed four recordings of an interior setting, where the actor
duplicated their action in all four recordings. I then repeated this process
for four exterior recordings.
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Recordings
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Evaluation
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Interior Automatic White Balance
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This setting gave the recording a
slightly dingy tint to the walls, making them appear creamier, than what is
perceived by the naked eye, in reality.
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Interior Daylight White Balance
Setting
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This setting depicted more detail in
the mise-en-scene. The brick walls stood out and the artificial light was
more prominent and it naturally reflected off of the painted walls. When the
actor was in the foreground, her cardigan’s colour pallet was white, but in
the background, it had blended to an off white, the same colour as the
painted walls. Therefore, this setting was not an accurate representation of
this scene.
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Interior Tungsten White Balance
Setting
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The tungsten setting gave a greyish
blue cast over the whole of the mise-en-scene. The hint of blue made this particular
recording feel cold, dull and negative. Moreover, the colour pallet of the
whole recording was not true to reality and enforced a gritty bite.
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Interior Custom White Balance Setting
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This setting was very similar to the
daylight setting.
Although, there seemed to be a better
ambiance within the recording, resulting in a warmer and natural feel.
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Exterior Automatic White Balance
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This recording came across with a very
slightly grey and cold feel.
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Exterior Daylight White Balance
Setting
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Surprisingly, this recording depicted
the mise-en-scene quite warmly, when compared to the automatic setting. The
two comparisons are at opposite ends of the spectrum. The vibrant colour
pallet bought the whole recording to life as detail was seen more clearly,
especially in the brickwork on the pathway, where dirty patches could be
firmly established.
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Exterior Tungsten White Balance
Setting
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This recording gave an unrealistic feel
to reality, although it would be great to use it for a cold, negative feel or
in a recording where the weather should feel colder than it actual is.
Moreover, because of the dullness of the surroundings, the colour white
seemed to laminate in this recording to reflect the coldness of the whole
scene.
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Exterior Custom White Balance Setting
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Lower in colour tone than the daylight
setting, this actual reflects the realism of the day, it was actually
recorded and it also has no visible colour cast.
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To conclude I found
that the custom white balance setting, reflected the more natural and realistic
light tones to my interior and exterior recordings. Although through this
exercise I established that the other white balance settings can create
different atmospheres to draw attention to detail within the mise-en-scene and
portray a required mood. If the wrong white balance setting is used, then
subsequently this would distort the representations that were initially
visualised.
The
objective when using the white balance settings is to make the colour, as true
as possible, for the social realism film genre.
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