Noob Question: How much of white balance/color issues can be fixed in post/editing/color correction?

[kofman13]

Hi all. I have been making youtube videos for a few months now, but am pretty much a total amateur/beginner in terms of editing(besides simple cuts and titles and fades lol) and post/color correction. I’ve been filming myself with iPhone 11 Pro playing piano on a concert stage I have access to. Lighting is out of my control. I filmed for a while with native camera app, then moved to Filmic Pro for more control.  Its sometimes been challenging because I often have to try to perform piano pieces on a very high level while also learning/dealing with technical issues as I learn more and more about video. One of the main things when filming that stresses me out and I wish I didn’t have to deal with is trying to get perfect is in-camera white balance before starting recording. Its hard to dial in color temp/tint and then really make sure it looks good not only on a small phone screen, but also since I have to do it trial and error because I cant adjust white balance while sitting in the frame because im doing all of this myself. This just takes a way from the energy and excitement to play my instrument and record.

So far in my learning about all of this, it seems that exposure is more important to get in camera before shooting because its hard to for instance fix something over exposed with crushed highlights in POST. And I’ve figured out what shutter/iso settings I want where I record. But the white balance is just always cruddy. And I really dont want to deal with it while shooting, rather fix it in post later.

Is it possible (if you are experienced, not like me) to fix basically any white balance/color issue in post no matter how its filmed? Very often because of the lighting, my videos come out extremely orange toned and overly pink skin shadows because the lights in the hall are orange/yellow.  Can everything like that be fixed and made to look “good” in post if you’re good enough at whatever software you use? if so, then is it not that crucial to NAIL white balance in your camera before while shooting? Should I just stop worrying about it while shooting and just learn and get good at color correction to fix it later? 

[Radium_Angel]

5 hours ago, kofman13 said:

color correction to fix it later? 

I used to be a concert photographer. Allow me to give you some advice:

 

The more you get right in the camera, the less post work you have to do, the less time you have to sit and try to correct stuff, the more time you have to do other things.

 

Get a friend to sit at the piano while you set the camera correctly, then you can film.

5 hours ago, kofman13 said:

Is it possible (if you are experienced, not like me) to fix basically any white balance/color issue in post no matter how its filmed?

Yes (to a degree), but take it from me, it eats up a LOT of time.

[Kilrah]

With video white balance correction in post while possible will come with a pretty serious image quality penalty.

[Williamchan87]

video through iPhone 11 pro can be edit a bit, not much though. It's always easy to start with video shot correct then to do it in editing, though not sure how much you can do via iPhone 11 pro for shooting.

[nazodayi]

I am a concert photographer, while not used an iphone for video editing i can say that all above comments are very true. In most of concerts(mostly depending on genre/band or venue) the lighting quickly changes (especially the color), most of the time exposure will have some average that you can dial to and slowly compensate if you need to. So firstly, set the exposure somewhat right beforehand.