Fuji Finpix HS30EXR Poor White balance. Adjustments?

[Edelweiss]

Yes, I know this is not the top of the range camera but still useful for me. I wonder if someone has an idea why the white balance in the sunny day mode is rather poor (pictures look cool and lack saturation). Cloud mode seems more or less acceptable and brings out some colours.
The camera has a WB adjustment option (hidden in the setup menus) but I hope someone can tell me what this adjustment really affects. Will it offset all the white balance modes (custom, cloudy, sunny, bulbs etc) with the same offset input or will it affect only one particular mode? I have not played with it yet.
Would it be used by taking a picture of a white or grey card and then evaluated on a calibrated monitor? Then out-calibrate the grey/white skew accordingly?
Also the video colour saturation is so poor it is unusable. The videos, while in colour are terribly grey and look nearly black and white. Is there any way to adjust that or would it have to go back for a calibration?

Thanks for your input.

Mike

 

[4wd]

If it can do a manual WB with white or grey card try that, does it have a kelvin adjustment can be manually set?
You might get more readily corrected WB with it set on say 5400k.
The video almost sounds like an intentional flat/cinelike profile for grading - usually that is something can be turned on or off?
It probably only needs some contrast and saturation and in theory might help avoid blown outskies or overly dark crushed shadows.

I suppose if it is going back a bit some things might have gone faulty.

 

[medwaygreen]

There is an in depth white balance adjustments for the camera as well as the ability to set your own custom white balance levels.

Try this.

White Balance - FujiFilm Finepix HS30 Owner's Manual [Page 66]

FujiFilm Finepix HS30 Manual Online: White Balance. For natural colors, press the WB button and choose a setting that matches the light source. Option Option AUTO White balance adjusted automatically. h Measure a value for white balance. i For subjects in direct sunlight. j For...

www.manualslib.com

 

[Nod]

When I had mine, I found it worked best in Auto WB mode. None of its preset WBs seemed to work as well.

 

[Edelweiss]

Thanks all, the "in-depth" white balance that @medwaygreen mentions is what I am on about, p 87 in the manual. It offsets Red or Blue. I wonder if it works to offset ALL the individual WB modes. I have not tried yet. Using AUTO on mine is very cold in almost all circumstances. (Manual also claims you can play with DR settings, I think this is the last where I want to mess with as it is not active in other EXR modes. There is no Kelvin adjustment AFAIK. Best colour rendering is in Cloud mode (even partly good on a blue sky day) and Velvia mode makes it pleasantly vibrant. By the looks of @Nod's experiences there seems to be quite some variation of calibration/user experience.

Mike

 

[ancient_mariner]

My experience was similar to Nod's.

It was a camera I find hard to be charitable about, and when I sold it on I kept expecting the buyer to come back complaining about how much it sucked. Just been back to remind myself what it was like.

 

[medwaygreen]

My wife has the HS20EXR and here is a photo taken with the camera set at auto WB she is not a photographer as such, but, the colour range looks ok to me.


This is straight out of the camera.