Color Correcting Tungsten Balanced Film to Daylight in DaVinci Resolve - 16mm

[Owen A. Davies]

I'll be shooting a 16mm project exclusively on 500T soon and had planned to simply correct the color balance to daylight in DaVinci Resolve. Whilst I do have experience with color grading 16mm film in DaVinci, I don't have very much experience at all correcting one stock of film to an opposite color balance. Does anyone here who has any experience in this field have any advice, tips, guides, or steps they'd generally take in doing so? Thank you!

[Robert Houllahan]

Shoot a grey card under each lighting setup and then use the offset tool in Resolve to balance the color out.

Be aware that if you shoot without an 85 you can oversaturate the blue layer with daylight in some instances and conditions.

[Steven Buckwalter]

David Mullen answered this when someone asked about the LLD filter, basically it filters out some of the blue light that Robert is talking about. I used it successfully last year and can confirm that using Davinci's White Balance tool worked fine for me, although some colorists still insist on using the color wheels for some reason.

 

[Adam Guzik]

I've shot on the 500T 7219 stock in daylight conditions, both with a filter and without a filter.  

What I've found, through experience, is that it's possible to warm it up to a Daylight-ish balance, when shooting without a filter, but be aware: you're more than likely going to have to correct a good deal of blue out of your shadows and the darkest areas of your image, as it contaminates them a lot more when shooting without the filter.  

It won't look the same as if you'd shot with the 85/85B filter, but it's a look all unto itself that you may or may not prefer.

I've attached some examples below for you in different conditions.  For the shots that I took With the 85B filter, I also used a .9 ND filter as well, which is why they're a little underexposed. 

Bright, Sunny Summer's Day at Noon, Without Filter

Ungraded:
 

Graded:
 

 

Overcast, Rainy Day, Without Filter

Ungraded:
 

 

Graded:
 

Partially Cloudy, Autumn Day in Mid-Morning, With Filter:

Ungraded:
 

 

Graded:
 

 

Late Afternon, Autumny Day, With Filter:

Ungraded:
 

Graded:
 

 

[Owen A. Davies]

4 hours ago, Adam Guzik said:

I've shot on the 500T 7219 stock in daylight conditions, both with a filter and without a filter.  

What I've found, through experience, is that it's possible to warm it up to a Daylight-ish balance, when shooting without a filter, but be aware: you're more than likely going to have to correct a good deal of blue out of your shadows and the darkest areas of your image, as it contaminates them a lot more when shooting without the filter.  

It won't look the same as if you'd shot with the 85/85B filter, but it's a look all unto itself that you may or may not prefer.

I've attached some examples below for you in different conditions.  For the shots that I took With the 85B filter, I also used a .9 ND filter as well, which is why they're a little underexposed. 

Bright, Sunny Summer's Day at Noon, Without Filter

Ungraded:
 

Graded:
 

 

Overcast, Rainy Day, Without Filter

Ungraded:
 

 

Graded:
 

Partially Cloudy, Autumn Day in Mid-Morning, With Filter:

Ungraded:
 

 

Graded:
 

 

Late Afternon, Autumny Day, With Filter:

Ungraded:
 

Graded:
 

 

Incredibly helpful, thank you Adam. On a different note, which lenses did you use for those test shots of Autumn/Fall? 

[Adam Guzik]

Hey, Owen,

For the Overcast/Rainy Autumn Day, I shot that on the Krasnogorsk-3 with the stock Zenit Meteor 17-69mm f/1.9 lens at I believe f/4; I was metering for ISO 200.

For the Partially Cloudy Noontime and Late Afternoon Autumn Day shots, I captured those on an Aaton XTR Prod with a Canon 8-64mm f/2.4 zoom lens.  

[Robino Jones]

On 1/9/2022 at 10:00 AM, Owen A. Davies said:

Whilst I do have experience with color grading 16mm film in DaVinci, I don't have very much experience at all correcting one stock of film to an opposite color balance.

It's just a simple color balance - same as on digital. For un-corrected shots without 85 filter, a high quality scan is going to help a lot so you can push colors around.

Did a quick balance in Resolve on one of the examples by @Adam Guzik - just by eye looking at the scopes. His grade examples are more creative, I just balanced it to neutral colors.

Another way if you want a more automatic workflow is to go in a photo editing software like Photoshop and add curve / levels adjustment layers, use the "auto" options to get to what you like and save the adjustment layer stack as a LUT that you can import in your color software of choice.

 

 

Edited January 10, 2022 by Robino Jones

[Lance Lucero]

I would recommend using an 85 filter.  It will save you time and energy in post.  Plus, your colors will look a lot better.  I have recently shot some 500T 7219 with daylight LEDs.  I used an 85 filter and the colors look amazing!  This screen capture is of a shot that is color corrected, but not color graded.  A simple white balance and minor contrast and black adjustments.