White Balance

[Miles]

I was shooting at a friend's wedding last weekend (not as the "photographer" although we were using exactly the same equipment!!) and was testing the various white balance settings.

I found the automatic white balance was quite poor (seemed to give a cyan cast).

It was a very bright, cloudless day and I foud the shots taken in "daylight" mode came out the most natural. What surprised me was the wedding photographer was using his camera on "cloudy" and he explained he thought the pictures give a better colour. I tried this and found they give a richer colour, but the blue sky becomes more grey. The colour in the pictures doesn't look so natural either.

Shooting in the shade with "shade" as white balance gives excellent results (AWB gives very poor results)

Indoor shooting (no flash) I found gave good results with the "shade" setting when the indoor lights were turned off. Again, AWB gave very poor results.

I just wonder what other people use when shooting, or do most leave it to AWB?

[Longwatcher]

I gave up a long time ago and just shoot everything in RAW and fix in photoshop. If I get the exposure and focus right, everything else can be fixed in photoshop.

I have noticed though that the AWB does tend to go cyan on sunny days, although usually in Program mode, for some reason the AWB works better in Av, Tv, or Manual modes.

Just my experience.

[ChrisNardone]

I shoot RAW now too, you can change color balance in post processing. I do see the cyan cast in auto on sunny days.

[Miles]

The only reason I don't use RAW is the Canon software is painfully slow to convert the images.

I have tried using the Adobe RAW converter (with 10D "hack") on a friend's machine but found the colour was completely wrong after conversion. Maybe I did something wrong but compared to the Canon converter, it looked awful.

[scottbergerphoto]

Shoot Raw and use BreezBrowser to convert. It's a gem.
www.breezesys.com
Many people are also very happy with Capture One LE
www.pictureflow.com

[RichardtheSane]

I use Capture one LE and I find both the ability to change the colour temperature (WB) and the ability to do exposure compensation invaluable.
As an example I can go out and do some wildlife photography, and as the light fades I can underexpose up to 2 stops to keep my shutter speed up and still recover the image in capture 1 :)

[Arnie]

longwatcher wrote:
I have noticed though that the AWB does tend to go cyan on sunny days, although usually in Program mode, for some reason the AWB works better in Av, Tv, or Manual modes.

Just my experience.

Makes sense, AWB works most of the time for me but i shoot in Av, Tv or M modes only.

I am still experimenting with WB, i going to try next the custom WB with a greycard.

[elm54]

arnie wrote:

I am still experimenting with WB, i going to try next the custom WB with a greycard.

I'm not completly sure but.... with custom white balance I think you are suppose to shoot a white card under the lighting you are shooting under then set your custom white balance to it . I guess you could then shoot a grey card in a photo to help set your color balance in post processing.
This is my understanding and I hope if it is wrong someone will set me straight.

Peace
Eric

[Webster]

elm54 wrote:
arnie wrote:

I am still experimenting with WB, i going to try next the custom WB with a greycard.

I'm not completly sure but.... with custom white balance I think you are suppose to shoot a white card under the lighting you are shooting under then set your custom white balance to it . I guess you could then shoot a grey card in a photo to help set your color balance in post processing.
This is my understanding and I hope if it is wrong someone will set me straight.

Peace
Eric

I'm a bit confused. Could someone explain to me how white balance using a grey card would be any different from white balance using a white sheet?

[RichardtheSane]

THe reason for this is because a camera makes exposures assuming the scene is a neutral colour - 18% grey, and will try to expose the scente to be 18% grey. Some colours and surfaces reflect more light back than others, and the real colour can be changed by the amount of light falling on it. A white sheet will look brighter when a lot of light is falling on it, and so will reflect more light into the camera, fooling the meter into an under exposure.At the opposite end a black sheet will reflect much less light into the camera, fooling it into an over exposure.
If you use a grey card you know that the card is exactly what colour and shade the light meter is expecting, so you will get a correct exposure.

Moving to white balance, the same principle applies, the colour temperature measurement on a grey card will be a true indication of the correct white balance as the surface the reflected reading is taken off is neutral, and will not affect the final value.

I think I explained that ok, if anyone can put it in better terms plese do :)

[Hatem Eldoronki]

I really still don't understand. Would one then take a picture of the greycard instead of the white paper, then set that as the white point for the camera?
And another question: how would you manually set the WB to work with flash?

[hugodrax]

I always use a greycard and use custom white balance.

[photosteve]

All-

Help me out with this white balance / grey card business. My understanding is that you need to use a white card, but at the proper exposure. One simple simple approach is to make +2 1/3 exposure compensation to allow for the fact that the camera is expecting an 18% grey scene. I use that value because a white sheet (like the reverse of a Kodak grey card) is about 90% reflective --- or 5 times as reflective as a grey card.

Another approach, that avoids the 2 1/3 approximation is to use the grey card to establish the exposure then flip it over and take a snap of the white side.

I invented all of this for myself ... so am interested to hear comments on the logic of it. I am prepared to be embarassed ... please fire away!

[KennyG]

I always shoot with Custom WB, using an ExpoDisc. Even shooting RAW I keep the expodisk image as a reference. I have not found anything better to get accurate WB. One of its useful attributes is when you want to shoot out of shade into bright light where using a white/grey card is impossible.

The ExpoDisc isn't cheap, but it is down to how you view the return on invesment and whether you view your photography as purely a hobby or something more serious.

[bnpndxtr]

RichardtheSane wrote:
THe reason for this is because a camera makes exposures assuming the scene is a neutral colour - 18% grey, and will try to expose the scente to be 18% grey. Some colours and surfaces reflect more light back than others, and the real colour can be changed by the amount of light falling on it. A white sheet will look brighter when a lot of light is falling on it, and so will reflect more light into the camera, fooling the meter into an under exposure.At the opposite end a black sheet will reflect much less light into the camera, fooling it into an over exposure.
If you use a grey card you know that the card is exactly what colour and shade the light meter is expecting, so you will get a correct exposure.

Moving to white balance, the same principle applies, the colour temperature measurement on a grey card will be a true indication of the correct white balance as the surface the reflected reading is taken off is neutral, and will not affect the final value.

I think I explained that ok, if anyone can put it in better terms plese do :)

Why do you need to worry about exposure when setting the white balance? I mean, isn't the workflow like this?

1. Use card to set white balance.
2. Remove card from scene and recompose.
3. Take shot using the custom white balance from step 1.

I guess I don't understand why exposure is critcal when setting white balance.

[rapierphoto]

KennyG or anyone else,

Can you tell me more about the expodisc!!

Thanks in advance,
John Rapier

[jimmyd]

Maybe I'm out in left field on this, but I don't see how white balancing to a gray card makes sense. Seems to me that gray cards have to do with exposure and white balancing has to do with color temperature-- and these are two, completely unique issues.

As a videographer, white balance is critical and I rarely use camera pre-sets, i.e., I always custom white balance (usually to a white card facing the key light if I'm shooting tungsten), or to a white card reflecting the ambient daylight (shade or bare sunlight) if I'm shooting daylight (even if I'm using HMI's to fill). I sometimes use a 1/8 blue gel in front of the lens--when white balancing-- to warm everything in daylight.

[Webster]

jimmyd wrote:
Maybe I'm out in left field on this, but I don't see how white balancing to a gray card makes sense. Seems to me that gray cards have to do with exposure and white balancing has to do with color temperature-- and these are two, completely unique issues.


Custom color balance uses a color-neutral surface to detect the color of the ambient light. Small variations in the color of the reflecting surface surface would have more of an effect than variations in the brightness. In practice, it doesn't seem to make all that much difference either way. A gray card works just as well as a white sheet, even though the white we use is nowhere near as color neutral as a purchased 18% gray card.


As a videographer, white balance is critical and I rarely use camera pre-sets, i.e., I always custom white balance (usually to a white card facing the key light if I'm shooting tungsten), or to a white card reflecting the ambient daylight (shade or bare sunlight) if I'm shooting daylight (even if I'm using HMI's to fill). I sometimes use a 1/8 blue gel in front of the lens--when white balancing-- to warm everything in daylight.

I'm not sure that video experience will help much in gettting better photographs. The problems facing each discipline are just so different. With white balace, for example, the ability to adjust the balance after the shot makes it far less critical in photography than in videography (unless you're still shooting slides, of course).

On the other hand the key to getting great shots is the ability to pre-visualize the image, and that's true in either case.