White Balance

[seb2609]

Hello

I just bought the Olympus Pen E PL1 with the underwater casing. I saw it is an underwater color correction. I have also the possibility to mount this red filter for tropical water.
What is the best solution? Post processing is surely not an option as with the pictures...

thanks

 

[VictorP]

Edit: I read this as photography, not videography. Please disregard below.

This camera shoots in Raw, so you can adjust white balance in photoshop or similiar program after the dive. I've heard both bad and good things about red filters.
In camera is another option, i'd suggest it over white balance.
I'd say the best option would be Raw editing, because you don't lose image information so it won't lose quality. Though it can be time consuming with all the Raw tweaks you can do.

 

[skankpile]

Whibal is regarded as one of the better 18% grey cards, but it will float so you will have to put on a ballast, or make sure its attached to you. I'd buy a couple whibal's, one for in and out of water. I keep one velcroed to my canon 1Dm3 as its that important to me.

I don't know what your post workflow will be, but for perfect color I use the x-rite colorchecker passsport when not in the water. It is especially important for greens as they will throw off metering, and usually camera processing blows them out, looses detail in them etc...

here is a banana tree I was having green issues with until I calibrated with the x-rite passport to get tone that made sense
.

I'm a stickler for WB...

 

[seb2609]

And what does this have to do with the topic?

 

[skankpile]

White balance... you can rely on your camera to get it wrong, or you can do something about it. When the color underwarter fades, you at the least need correct tones, and the ability to adjust recovery, vibrance etc; You cant get away from post.

Red will mostly change contrast, are you shooing B&W?

Sorry for trying to help...

 

[seb2609]

I was only not understanding. No, I am shooting color. Seems to be really a complicated issue!

 

[bfisher]

A red filter is a necessity for shooting in clear tropical waters. It's either that or video lights. Pick one.

I see the subject of white balance and have to mention this. I use Corel Ulead for an editing program. One thing it has, which I found out quite by accident, is an Auto White Blance (AWB) within the color correction mode. Where I used to spend 1/2 hour per scene color correcting by hand I found this works wonders with just the click of the mouse. It's not always 100% so some tweaking can be done, but man, what a time saver., and if you're like me and don't have WB within the camcorder 9Underwater) then this helps tremendously.

There may be other editors with this feature so other please chime in. I'm always looking for an upgrade.

 

[octopuppy]

If you use the red filter, lose it at 15' and above. I use Final Cut Pro for editing and take sequences into Color. Pretty amazing what it can bring up and correct - even if you've not done WB. Have fun with your new set up!

 

[SuperDiverDave]

octopuppy that is a good picture. Can I do the same edits with FC Express, I just got it installed on my mac book pro and is that enough of a computer to edit HD video.

 

[octopuppy]

You may have to do some conversions for FC Express, but probably. And I can't remember if Express has access to Color. Regards to computer - the more oomphfy the better for handling and rendering the files. A good How To source - try Lynda.com