Panasonic NV RZ 15 B operating instructions Colour Temperature, Auto White Balance Adjustment

∫White Balance Adjustment

While most recording with a Movie Camera is probably done outdoors under sunlight, video recording is also done very often under artificial light sources, both indoors and outdoors. However, each of these light sources gives the subject slightly different colours.

Human Eyes

Human eyes can easily adjust to different kinds of lighting and see an object with the same colours even under different lighting.

Movie Camera

Unlike human eyes, the Movie Camera does not have the innate ability to adapt to changes in lighting, and they influence the colours being recorded. Therefore, depending on the light source, the picture would be recorded with a bluish or reddish tint. To minimise the influence of the lighting on the colours of the subject, an adjustment called White Balance Adjustment is necessary.

White Balance Adjustment

The White Balance Adjustment determines the colour of the light and adjusts the colours so that white remains pure white. As white is the basic colour of the entire colour spectrum, if white is reproduced correctly, the other colours are correct and natural, too.

Auto White Balance Adjustment

This Movie Camera stores the optimum settings for several common light sources in memory. The Movie Camera judges the recording situation by determining the tint of the light received through the lens and by the White Balance Sensor (p. 4), and it selects the setting for the most similar tint. This function is called Auto White Balance Adjustment.

However, as the white balance settings for only a few light sources are stored in memory, the white balance is not correctly adjusted for other lighting conditions.

For the range of different types of lighting within which the Auto White Balance Function can provide precise adjustment, refer to the chart. For recording under lighting conditions outside this range, the Auto White Balance Function does not work correctly, and the recorded picture has a red or blue cast. However, the same also applies, if the subject is lit by more than one light source, even if these light sources are within this range.

∫Colour Temperature

Every light source has its own colour temperature measured in Kelvin (K). The higher the Kelvin value, the more bluish the light; the lower the value, the more reddish the light. The Kelvin value is related to the tint of the light, but not directly to its brightness.

The range 1 indicated in the illustration below shows the light sources for which this Movie Camera can provide precise white balance adjustment and, therefore, natural colours in the recorded pictures, when using the Full Auto Mode. For light sources outside this range, adjust the white balance manually (p. 44). Also, additional lighting may be necessary.

1Control range of this Movie Camera’s Auto White Balance Adjustment Mode

2Blue sky

3Cloudy sky (Rain)

4TV screen

5Sunlight

6White fluorescent lamp

72 hours after sunrise or before sunset

81 hour after sunrise or before sunset

9Halogen light bulb

:Incandescent light bulb

;Sunrise or sunset

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