Frustrating Whitebalance experiences with Sony HDR-XR550

[RogerAGrimes]

My rig is a L&M Bluefin Pro housing, no external lights (right now), a Sony HDR-XR550, and an external PADI whitebalance slate. I've been having auto and manual whitebalancing problems since day 1, and I've read a few related threads on this forum and others. I do warm, blue water diving/filming mostly. I was in Boynton Beach and the FL Keys the last few days and did 8 dives and spent a fair amount of time really testing the auto, one-button WB, and manual white balancing options.

I've heard the one button whitebalancing against a whitebalance slate is the way to go. But when I do the one button whitebalance, it more often than not messes up the whitebalance worse than if I left it at auto or did it manually. I hold the slate up in front of the camera, 6-18 inches away, push the one button WB button. The camera menu goes to the WB menu, cycles through all the choices, then selects one. 90% of the time, the option it chooses makes things worse. Often I'll get a super-bright\overexposed look or something darker than I need. I did many tests of this, and I have on tape the RGB colors on the side of the whitebalance board getting way off after the one-button WB push. For example, my red bar will turn yellow, and all the other colors get off too.

This is frustrating. Anyone have an idea what is going on? Is this happening to anyone else with a similar rig?

Also, the Sony camera only has six predefined whitebalance options, which isn't a lot. None are perfect. I'm used to other cameras letting me cycle through a much larger series of -2,-1,0,+1,+2-type options with more settings to choose from. Does the Sony have that on some sub menu option I'm missing.

 

[textilet]

I have a bluefin (different model camera though). My white balance command works by flipping into the white balance menu and actually uses the white object im pointing at to set white... that is, its not choosing from a limited set of presets in the white balance menu, its actually looking at white im pointing at and making that white. works like a charm. If yours isn't doing that, it may be that you need to set up the camera menu to allow the housing to custom white balance, rather than landing on a preset. I had to set my canon camera to "custom white balance 1" or something in order for the housing's white balance function to work...before i did that it ended up kind of lost in the white balance menu and seemingly picking some random preset.
Another possibility is that the housing controls are set for a different model of camera. My housing has control schemes for three different canon cameras programmed into the handle, and the only way to tell if you are using the right control scheme is by using the controls, particularly white balance, and seeing if they correctly navigate the menus. You can cycle between control schemes by holding down the "w" and "t" zoom control buttons simultaneously for 3 seconds.
Again my camera and housing are different models than yours but both these issues popped up while i was trying to learn the set up and both prevented my white balance from working.
In any case I emailed Light & motion and they got me back on track.

 

[BDSC]

Roger,

Is it safe to assume that your have the "my menu" set up correctly with the "White Balance" showing up at the top left? I don't have the bulefin but have the Stingray + housing. When I WB I simply point the camera at my white slate, making sure that it fills the screen, and then I press the "white balance" button quickly. It takes about 3 or 4 seconds to go through it's process and set's the WB. I've had no problems. I also WB with the red filter in place when I get below 20 to 25 ft. or so.

Ash

 

[ronscuba]

Roger, does your camcorder do the same thing topside without the housing ?

 

[RogerAGrimes]

I tried cycling through the different control modes by holding down the W and T control buttons, like you mentioned (I didn't even know that was possible). [On a related side note: L&M could benefit much by creating a real manual instead of what they give us...especially for the money.] When I changed to the other modes, the WB button macro did all sorts of crazy things, so I went back to the original setting. It was the only one that didn't choose something non-WB-related. But thanks for the info.

I have a bluefin (different model camera though). My white balance command works by flipping into the white balance menu and actually uses the white object im pointing at to set white... that is, its not choosing from a limited set of presets in the white balance menu, its actually looking at white im pointing at and making that white. works like a charm. If yours isn't doing that, it may be that you need to set up the camera menu to allow the housing to custom white balance, rather than landing on a preset. I had to set my canon camera to "custom white balance 1" or something in order for the housing's white balance function to work...before i did that it ended up kind of lost in the white balance menu and seemingly picking some random preset.
Another possibility is that the housing controls are set for a different model of camera. My housing has control schemes for three different canon cameras programmed into the handle, and the only way to tell if you are using the right control scheme is by using the controls, particularly white balance, and seeing if they correctly navigate the menus. You can cycle between control schemes by holding down the "w" and "t" zoom control buttons simultaneously for 3 seconds.
Again my camera and housing are different models than yours but both these issues popped up while i was trying to learn the set up and both prevented my white balance from working.
In any case I emailed Light & motion and they got me back on track.

 

[RogerAGrimes]

You know, it was set with WB showing in the lower left, not upper left. So I re-registered and set it to Upper Left, but it seems to be making the same choices. But that was definitely something I didn't have (even though I had read that in L&M's setup sheet). So, that may have a big difference in the outcome. Thanks.

Roger,

Is it safe to assume that your have the "my menu" set up correctly with the "White Balance" showing up at the top left? I don't have the bulefin but have the Stingray + housing. When I WB I simply point the camera at my white slate, making sure that it fills the screen, and then I press the "white balance" button quickly. It takes about 3 or 4 seconds to go through it's process and set's the WB. I've had no problems. I also WB with the red filter in place when I get below 20 to 25 ft. or so.

Ash

 

[RogerAGrimes]

Ron, this was a great suggestion. When I pulled it out the housing, it had near perfect WB. Colors looked a lot better. Turned out that my external OLED needed contrast and hue settings corrected...so it may have been more of an external LED problem on top of the WB My Menu problem, too (which I discuss below). I know it wasn't an OLED problem only, as the actual video often turned out hideously out of WB, but it did explain why some of the shots looked super crappy on the OLED, but came in better when I got home and saw the actual video.

I'm now thinking that I had a combination of problems, this one (thanks for the excellent hint), and the WB menu button out of order, making the macro not work. It may have looked like it was working, but maybe it wasn't, the last few months. I'll let everyone know how it turns out on my next dive.

BTW, thanks everyone. You all gave me, what now seems like simple, easy-to-see, suggestions...that for some reason just my brain missed prior to your answers. So thanks. This is an example of the value of this community and what it helps with.

Roger, does your camcorder do the same thing topside without the housing ?

 

[BDSC]

Glad we could help you out Roger. I definitely think you will see a difference with the WB set in the right spot of the "my menu" screen. I hope so anyway.

One more thing. Once in awhile, say every 20th time or so that I go to do a "one push WB" with the control handle, it will take me to some other setting or screen. Not sure why but it does and I was told it could happen by L&M. When it does happen, what I do is just push the mode button to send it to photo mode and then push it again to get it back to video mode and it clears it right up and then I can do the WB. It's just some sort or quirky thing but it doesn't happen often.