How To NAIL White Balance at a Wedding Without Guessing

How to nail your white balance at a wedding.

Update:
The Luxi's are sold out and they don't plan to restock, but this method is still possible: Place any generic light dome replacement over the iPhone lens and calibrate as shown in the video (linked below). You can even hold the expodisc over the iPhone lens in the same manner. It's all the same as long as its a translucent natural grey. There was nothing special about the Luxi except that it had a convent clip.

Here's a method for measuring and setting white balance that we've been doing for several years. I know that many of you love to balance by eye, and if that's working well then there's no need to change. But I've always had more consistent results and a better image quality by using the ExpoDisc and more often Cine Meter II with the Luxi.

Some Notes:
- Remember to put your magenta shift back at zero when you've finished shooting in green light. This can burn you if you're not careful.

- It’s rare, but if the green shift ever reads higher than your camera can dial out, leave it at zero and do a custom white balance with a grey card or expodisc. Canon and Sony will remove more green this way. But don’t add magenta shift to a custom white balance because it will shift it in addition to the already neutral image.

- You're not measuring the light but your position to the light. That's why everything outdoors is not 5600k. If you’re using mostly shade, 5600k will be too cold. So try to always measure from the position and perspective of your subject on the side that your camera is facing.

0:00 Intro
0:33 Importance of White Balance
1:16 Options for White Balancing
4:09 Tools for Measuring White Balance
6:54 Bride Prep WB
7:32 Portrait Session WB
9:11 Reception Exit WB
10:21 Ceremony WB
11:38 Calibrating Cine Meter II
15:00 SkillShare
15:46 When to Ignore White Balance
17:31 End

#whitebalance #weddingfilmmaking #weddingvideography

[FlomFilmsOfficial]

Excellent video, genuinely one of the better and more useful wedding tutorials I've seen in a while. Extremely valuable, and I'd say the fastest and best way to dramatically improve footage on a wedding day. love it, thanks for the tips!

[reaganlynn]

Most helpful video I’ve ever watched about white balance! Thank you so much! Ordering all of these for our next season. 🙌🏼

[thefilmpoets]

Yes I do occasionally have to color correct 😉 But this method gets it right 99% of the time.




Some Notes:
- Remember to put your magenta shift back at zero when you've finished shooting in green light. This can burn you if you're not careful.

- It’s rare, but if the green shift ever reads higher than your camera can dial out, leave it at zero and do a custom white balance with a grey card or expodisc. Canon and Sony will remove more green this way. But don’t add magenta shift to a custom white balance because it will shift it in addition to the already neutral image.

- You're not measuring the light but your position to the light. That's why everything outdoors is not 5600k. If you’re using mostly shade, 5600k will be too cold. So try to always measure from the position and perspective of your subject on the side that your camera is facing.

Hope that helps! -Matt

[ivoryhousemedia]

Just got the Luxi in today and downloaded the app so I can’t wait to try it out at our next wedding. Please keep these tutorials coming! My husband and I love learning from you!

[thefilmpoets]

Just had a friend calibrating for her Sony camera. She said the max magenta that could be dialed out was +7m but Cine meter couldn't go that low on the tint gain adjustment. +9 was the max. The solution is to higher, all the way to +70G on the tint gain. So +70g on Cine Meter would mean to dial in +7m on the camera. Think of it like 7.0, not 70 and it'll make sense.

The tint gain adjustment in Cine Meter is just a scale setting. Like reading kilometers or mph, it's the same speed, different scale.

[TamarackFilmCo]

My wife (our main colorist) will squee for joy when she watches this (& we follow through & do all your great suggestions!)

[thefilmpoets]

Update : the Luxi's are sold out and they don't plan to restock, but this method is still possible: Place any generic light dome replacement over the iPhone lens and calibrate it using the Cinemeter II app (linked below). You can even hold the expodisc over the iPhone lens in the same manner. It's all the same. There was nothing special about the Luxi except that it had a convent clip.

[samueljaykcoofficial]

I just found this YouTube channel this morning and I really enjoyed.

[sanjaysingha]

I just bought a handy grey card and have been using in most situation. Have been great help. No messed up white balance..

[jhoang]

man this fills my soul lol! thanks for the amazing lesson!

[techtutor]

When the email came through with this video I just about jumped out of my chair with excitement! Thank you so much for making this!! Learning to nail white balance is my top technical priority for filming this season, and this is exactly what I was looking for! Great tutorial Matt, thank you so much! 🙏🏼

[PrinceSodhi]

I need to watch this video multiple times to really get used to it :D very helpful

[LifeSurfingDude]

good advice. I have found another video somewhere on youtube that relies on auto balance but with auto balance lock button to keep it from shifting while you shoot. you can use grey card and auto balance works pretty good with that. obviously this method got its limitations, I like the fact that with your phone you can walk around and get light measurements ahead of time. thank you for the info!

[JoshMiles]

I don't shoot weddings, but this is great advice for anyone shooting in different scenarios. I had to watch that green/magenta calibration part back like three times 🤯 but now I think I understand. I've had a few other far more expensive light meters on my list, so I'm really excited to check out this Luxi meter!

[aaronramly]

Thank you for showing us the correct way. for fast pace job, I always leave the white balance at 5600k & throw some 5600k light for indoor. I know it is not accurate but it's way better than auto white balance. I"m wondering how other videographer did their setup ?

[NEWSHAWK]

Nicely done! Light Meters are expensive, great to see an ios app can do something similar! But then you need to know how to use it, ...which you just showed me how to do! Thanks for your time!

[BrianSellers]

SO MUCH VALUE in all your videos, man. Thanks so much, and keep crushing it!

[David]

...ordered a Luxi right away. Good study tool too. Thanks Matt

[davidventura]

This video is excellent, I’m definitely going to try this out! I’m also just curious, how would you white balance with an ND or VND filter? 🤔

[myJTP]

Once again coming in with another HIT!