JLeigh
2nd of May 2007 (Wed), 09:53
...but please bear with me here. ;)
I, who have never owned a camera in my life, now own an SD750. I am enjoying it immensely, but I am having trouble with and understanding a few things: Custom White Balance and Exposure. I have read so much on custom white balance that my mind is fried, and I'm still not able to get it to work the way I want it to. Basically, what I understand is that you must aim the camera at the light source in the actual setting you want to photograph, and take a picture of a. an 18% grey card, or b. a white piece of paper (I've even seen people using a coffee filter?). My problem is I have been experimenting with night shots, and I don't know what to do when there is NO light source. When I try it, the pics have a green or blue colorcast, which I thought CWB was supposed to eliminate. So, I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong. I have tried the different settings (daylight, cloudy, etc), but none of them record the color accurately at night.
As for exposure, where does this come into play with shooting at night? I understand the ISO, shutter speeds, using a tripod to reduce camera shake, etc. But I'm not sure where exposure setting comes in.
I'm not expecting to take top-of-the-line night photos with a compact camera, but a reasonably accurate depiction of what I'm photographing would be nice. :rolleyes:
I don't have the ability to shoot in RAW format, so any post-processing that I can do is minimal. So far, my night photos are coming out like garbage. The colors are all wrong, and there is some noise which annoys me to no end. I try to stay away from a high ISO (for the noise factor), preferring to use a longer shutter speed to capture enough light, and I utilize a tripod to avoid blur. However, as I say, I don't understand the exposure setting for night shots, and the color factor is driving me nuts.
Thank you for any help you can give me!
EDIT: I wanted to add that although I can control shutter speed/ISO/exposure, I have no manual aperture control.
I, who have never owned a camera in my life, now own an SD750. I am enjoying it immensely, but I am having trouble with and understanding a few things: Custom White Balance and Exposure. I have read so much on custom white balance that my mind is fried, and I'm still not able to get it to work the way I want it to. Basically, what I understand is that you must aim the camera at the light source in the actual setting you want to photograph, and take a picture of a. an 18% grey card, or b. a white piece of paper (I've even seen people using a coffee filter?). My problem is I have been experimenting with night shots, and I don't know what to do when there is NO light source. When I try it, the pics have a green or blue colorcast, which I thought CWB was supposed to eliminate. So, I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong. I have tried the different settings (daylight, cloudy, etc), but none of them record the color accurately at night.
As for exposure, where does this come into play with shooting at night? I understand the ISO, shutter speeds, using a tripod to reduce camera shake, etc. But I'm not sure where exposure setting comes in.
I'm not expecting to take top-of-the-line night photos with a compact camera, but a reasonably accurate depiction of what I'm photographing would be nice. :rolleyes:
I don't have the ability to shoot in RAW format, so any post-processing that I can do is minimal. So far, my night photos are coming out like garbage. The colors are all wrong, and there is some noise which annoys me to no end. I try to stay away from a high ISO (for the noise factor), preferring to use a longer shutter speed to capture enough light, and I utilize a tripod to avoid blur. However, as I say, I don't understand the exposure setting for night shots, and the color factor is driving me nuts.
Thank you for any help you can give me!
EDIT: I wanted to add that although I can control shutter speed/ISO/exposure, I have no manual aperture control.