350D/Rebel XT Light Metering

[Benmok7]

My photos are heavy on the red/purple pigment when using AWB lighting. Is this common? How to overcome this problem? Any other tips for White balance metering would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Ben

[Jon]

Is this under all conditions, or do you mostly photograph under a single type of lighting? What happens if you set a custom white balance?

[jimsolt]

My photos are heavy on the red/purple pigment when using AWB lighting. Is this common? How to overcome this problem? Any other tips for White balance metering would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Ben
Ben, you can't METER for light balance. When your camera meters light it is for exposure. That's completely different than White Balance which is the color temperature of the light that is illuminating your subject.
I gather that your EXPOSURE is correct or fairly close to correct, but you see a red/purple tint in your pictures.
If I gather correctly, and the tint is throughout the picture, not just around the edges, you can correct it in several different ways.
If shooting in jpeg, use a custom white balance. Follow your camera's instructions for doing this, but basically you just shoot a white or 18% gray card in the light you will be photograhing in, designate it as the "custom white balance" for that light, and tell your camera to use that.
If shooting in RAW, you can avoid using the "custom white balance" procedure, and just shoot one shot somewhere in each lighting situation sequence that includes a white or gray card. Then when converting that shot and the rest of the sequence in RAW conversion, you use that card shot to set the white balance for all.
In the time it takes to explain this, you could have done it and moved on.
Your XT also has more precise adjustments to work with tints in white balance. I suggest making sure you understand the process, then moving on into the more precise adjustments.
It really isn't difficult, so you should see better results soon.
Jim

[tzalman]

Automatic WB is , like automatic anything else, at best a compromise - sometimes fortunately good, sometimes well off the mark. Essentially what the AWB does is look for an area assumed to be near white, an area where the the three R,G,and B areas are close to one another and apply global multipliers to the R and B channels so that at that point the three will be equal. If it doesn't find such an area the best it can is adjust the R and B so their average values equal the average for Green. In the presence of scenes where one color predominates or under mixed lighting this can be unreliable. Under such circumstances the use of custom WB as is well explained above, is the answer. However if the results of AWB under varied light sources are consistantly off in one direction, you need not lose the convenience and speed of AWB because the XT will allow you to set a corrective color bias to all shots. Experimentation will be needed
Elie