I need help to set up my custom white balance...

[Zamora3]

...I'm having a lot of trouble setting my custom white balance. I understand how to set it up in the camera, as in setting the picture as the white balance reference and choosing the cutom white balance logo in the menu.

My problem occurs when taking the actual white balance reference picture. Below I posted the picture I used as the white balance refernce. The settings I use to take the pictures (of the actual game) are ISO 800, Aperture 2.0, and a shutter speed of 1/400s. When I take the picture of the white balane refernce I shoot at ISO 800 Aperture 4.0 and a shutter speed of 1/4,000. I also used flash on both the game shots and the picture of the white paper. If I shoot at the actual game settings the pictures is completly white due to overexposure, so that is why I use the smaller aperture and the faster shutter speed. In the picture below did I frame it right or did I do something wrong because the picutres were coming out much more yellow than they were on AWB?

http://img138.exs.cx/img138/2705/wbex15ms.jpg (http://www.imageshack.us/)

[kwang0429]

get a grey card and try it.

[mjordan]

A couple of things about using white paper for a white balance image... not all white paper is created equal. Some paper have a whitening agent added to them that does not reflect photographically as white. Some paper has a high sheen to it which causes highlights that can fool the camera meter. Some paper looks white but are really off white to some extent and only really noticable when you have it up against something that is really white.

If you have a white cotton tee shirt or mostly cotton blend shirt, that will work pretty well. You don't get the same reflective problems from it as with some paper.

When you take your white balance picture, you don't need to worry about focus, move right in and get a screen full of the white. Make sure you are not blocking the light that is falling on it and set your camera to P mode and let it auto set the exposure. If you are using external flash, then take a flash meter reading and set the camera to that. If using the camera flash, pop up the flash or go to the Green square mode. And shoot square to the white object. Your image above shows you at a slant. This can fool the camera also.

A gray card is also good to use (as suggested by Kwang). I have a photo gray card, MacBeth chart, a tri-color card (black, gray, white) and a flex panel digital calibration target that is white and black on one side and all white on the other, balanced for using to set white balance and exposure.

After you have set your white balance, then start working on your exposure. Both my D30 and 10D where off on external flash exposure. My 10D under exposes by about 1.5 fstops. I use a black, gray, white, card to set the exposure so the spikes are in their proper place. I use the histogram to do this. Your histogram is invaluable for setting exposure.

Hope this helps.

Mike

[yb98]

Don't bother yourself with custom white balance. Just shoot raw and adjust white balance as you like during conversion with C1 or PS.

[snibbetsj]

The most important things about the custom white balance is (1) getting a good exposure and (2) shooting the reference in the same light as the photos you're going to make. If you don't have a good exposure then the colors will turn out wrong, if the reference light is different than the actual light, the colors will be wrong.


If you use an on-camera flash, then choose the flash white balance setting, your colors should be very close.

You should fill the frame with the reference, at least as much as possible, focus does NOT make a difference here.

(I think the reason the manual says to use manual focus is that when you shoot a custom white balance reference you usually hold the card/paper/whatever in front of you and most lens won't focus that close, hence the camera will not shoot. In manual focus, it doesn't care.)


:)
Happy Photos
jeff

[Zamora3]

so do they setting that I shoot at even matter? Like I said before I shoot at F.2, 1/400s for the actual pphotos, but for the white balance refrence I shoot at f/4, 1/4,000s.

[PhotosGuy]

so do they setting that I shoot at even matter? Shoot to get about 1-2 stops underexposed so the cam has some density in the pic to use for calculations. You expose to the right for exposure, but expose to the middle for WB.

[hmhm]

The purpose of a custom white balance "reference shot" is to take of the sample of the light that will be used for doing your "for real" shots, so the whole point is for the reference shot to be lit in an identical manner as your real shots.

Is "the game" a basketball game, and the reference shot a piece of paper on a basketball court floor? If you have a mix of ambient light (gym lights) with flash, then the color of the light that's illuminating your subjects will depend on the relative amounts of each type of light, as they have slightly different colors. For CWB to have a chance of working under a mixture of flash with ambient light, you'll need to ensure that your reference shot has the same mixture of lights, which will make your selection of aperture and shutter speed important. Even then, your colors will always differ between areas that are more illuminated by flash than those far enough away that they're primarily lit by ambient light.

Also consider that your reference shot is probably way closer than your actual subjects, so the flash will be able to have a greater effect.

There are a whole lot of variables here...
-harry

[dhbailey]

I would suggest that you don't use flash to set custom white balance because it will be lighting your white/gray card far more brightly than your actual subject.

Also, the framing of the test shot isn't right -- you need to FILL the frame with the white/gray card.

If your pictures turned out yellow, that would tell me that your white paper was way too bright from the flash, and then when you took the actual shots your flash didn't do very much to add illumination and the more yellowish house lights took over.

My advice would be to shoot at the highest ISO you can use in order to get reasonable shutter speeds without flash.

[Jesper]

Also, the framing of the test shot isn't right -- you need to FILL the frame with the white/gray card.That's not true - according to the manual of your camera, you just need to make sure the center circle in the viewfinder is filled with the white or gray card.

[Jon]

You seem to have uneven lighting on the target - part of the image is blown out, which will throw off the process. Some of this may be because the paper's wrinkled, and the usual brighteners may be sending reflections back at the camera.
By the way, on using tee shirts - many detergents contain brighteners, which will reflect UV more strongly so that you get "whiter whites".