Customise WB on 10D ... how exactly?

[sGu]

I recently bought some grey card to help me to determine WB when shooting outdoors, but i'm not sure exactly how.

so you take a shot of grey card when it's placed in front of your subject, then do u go to WB settings and choose the picture you took?

What about in the situation that you couldn't place grey card close to your subject, say you taking a landscape shot, can you take a close reading and use the same exposure? or shall i make exposure reading of the sky?

[hmhm]

The goal is to get a shot of the grey card lit by the ambient light that will be illuminating your subject. That shot of the grey card will have a "tint" to it, this is the tint of the color of the ambient light. You then point the camera to this shot, and tell it to "subtract" out this tint from your future shots.

You do this by shooting the grey card in the subject's ambient light, making sure that the grey card occupies a sufficient part of the frame (filling the partial metering circle). It doesn't matter what WB mode you're in when taking this shot. Then you go through the menus to pick "custom white balance" and then select this shot. Then you change the WB mode to the "custom white balance" mode, and shoot your real subject.

If you're taking a picture of a distant mountain, you won't be able to get the mountain to hold the grey card for you. But the light hitting that mountain is probably the same color as the light that's hitting you.

Of course, it's not always your goal to get "accurate" white balance. It wouldn't make much sense to shoot at sunset, then correct out that red/orange/yellow tint. White balance is particularly important with indoor lighting, which tends to create unpleasant yellow or greenish casts.
-harry

[sGu]

thanks for the reply, i'll give it a go when i'm out again next time, and hopefully i'll post my results.

[Jesper]

It's in the manual, page 52.

By the way, don't confuse detemining the correct exposure with determining the white balance - those are two different things (although you can use a grey card for both). For determining the exposure, you'll need to put the grey card near the subject, put the camera on partial metering and meter the exposure on the grey card.

[morenoar]

When you set up the CWB, does it go away if you reformat the Card? Anyone

[Jesper]

When you set up the CWB, does it go away if you reformat the Card? Anyone

No, it only needs the photo of the grey or white card at the moment you set it up. After that, it doesn't matter if you reformat the card or put another card in the camera.

[robertwgross]

When you set up the CWB, does it go away if you reformat the Card? Anyone

No, it only needs the photo of the grey or white card at the moment you set it up. After that, it doesn't matter if you reformat the card or put another card in the camera.

I think the only thing that will make the CWB go away completely is if you remove the internal memory battery for the camera, and maybe leave it out for a while. Of course, you can set a new CWB whenever you need.

---Bob Gross---

[sGu]

When you set up the CWB, does it go away if you reformat the Card? Anyone

No, it only needs the photo of the grey or white card at the moment you set it up. After that, it doesn't matter if you reformat the card or put another card in the camera.

I think the only thing that will make the CWB go away completely is if you remove the internal memory battery for the camera, and maybe leave it out for a while. Of course, you can set a new CWB whenever you need.

---Bob Gross---

or simply change WB settings to Auto, cloudy, daylight etc.?

[robertwgross]

Sure, you can always set WB to Auto or something else.

The CWB is still stored into internal memory, though, for next time you select it, or until you set a new one.

---Bob Gross---

[morenoar]

Thank you all for your valuable input. I know what I am doing tonight