Outdoor White balance and day time temperature on location

[Duca Simon Luchini]

Not sure why you can't capture a real lighting moment in daytime with a camera just set to a daylight preset...

Sure, and for this reason we come back to my first question...: when you turn on your video camera, without any old color balance setting (preset, or last used setting) you should be catch the real on location lighting?

Anyway, I thing could be a great thing - in outdoor shots where we don't have and we can not have a control of lighting sources(Docs, Reportage, Street Cinema, vacations... <_<) try to measure a color temperature of "global" lighting scene, e.g measuring color temp from a white paper oriented to Camera lens. So, the "global" lighting hits the white paper giving a mix of sun light, sky a and clouds reflections temperature. And then you can apply this "global" lighting value to your Camera color balance to match approximatively the on location lighting scene, catching at least a good part of the scene mood... :rolleyes:

[Brian Drysdale]

I tend to just use a 6k preset for daylight shots. This can be varied according to taste and particular circumstances e.g filming in shadows on a clear blue day.

[Satsuki Murashige]

One thing to think about is that there are some subtle colors and tonalities found in nature that simply cannot be captured by cheaper camera sensors. This is why experienced cinematographers and photographers who regularly use high quality capture systems will insist on shooting on film negative, Alexa, F65, Red Dragon, or whatever they prefer. Because these systems can capture subtle colors and tones that the cheaper cameras cannot.

 

Here's an example of what I think you're talking about. This is a still photo I shot awhile ago on Kodak 5219 motion picture film (Cinestill 800T): https://instagram.com/p/8NAmEty_3_/

 

In my opinion, the filmstock captures the various mixed lighting sources in an elegant way that is both realistic and aesthetically pleasant. I have not been able to get this result with a comparable digital still camera, so I continue to only shoot stills on film. And I think the same holds true for video and motion picture systems as well. You just can't get the same result as an Alexa on a 5D.