6D AWB has difficulty with fluorescent light

I just got my 6D and have been trying it out. It seems to work fine with my Canon 50F1.4 and the 24-105. However, auto white balance seems to struggle with mixed fluorescent lighting. Is it my imagination, or does the 60D do better with AWB?
I figured out how to set the custom white balance, but thought it curious. Perhaps it is my imagination?
This is with JPEGs and normal picture style.
Does AWB pose problems with the 60D and fluorescent lighting.

The problem with fluorescent is there is no consistency as far as white balance. If you buy fluorescent bulbs there are several different color temperatures with varying CRI, both which can affect light quality. I almost always shoot raw and adjust white balance in post processing. You can get similar results setting custom white balance within the camera. I've had both cameras and AWB can work ok in certain circumstances, setting a custom white balance almost always works better in challenging lighting.

Are you using the correct shutter speed to prevent catching fluorescent flicker? That is the most common error in poor white balance related to AWB or WB of any fashion with fluorescent lighting, not the color of the light, itself.

I've learned to always set a custom white balance when shooting a lot in artificial light.

Last summer I shot an event held in a bookstore. It felt like every other shot had a completely different color temperature. By the time I was finished processing the shots I had to conclude that there were at least three different temps in the room. Learned an important lesson that day, though I think if I'd known to set my custom WB I'd still have ended up tweaking a lot of the photos anyway. Thank goodness for RAW.

Go to http://johnbdigital.co​m …/fluorescent_li​ghting.php for a good explanation without getting too complex.

Fluorescent lights cycle, meaning they flicker and during that time there color and power fluctuations. If your shutter speed is slow enough to capture a fullcyvle its less noticable. But even dicounting that, fluorescent lights are often not full spectrum lights snd you cant balance a color that isnt there.

Thanks for the feedback. I was having more difficulty with the 6D than my crops. The 6D seemed off, more than the 60D. Setting a custom white balance fixed the problem. I checked and the shots were at 1/50 or 1/125. I'll use 1/60 next time. Thanks for the advice.
I got so caught up in learning to use the new camera that I forgot about fluorescent flicker.
I just thought about color temperature, and the fluorescent setting in the camera didn't fix the problem.
The lighting is fluorescent in 3 rooms, but with variable color temperatures.

Keep in mind that fluorescent lights color shift as they age do expect little consistency gixture to fixture let alone room to room.

I have a 60D and a 6D. I think the AWB on both of them is for bright sunshine and flash. In any other light, I do custom WB. Shooting raw will also give you a lot more room to maneuver in post-processing.

It is my opinion, which I believe is shared by many, that shooting a dSLR in any jpg mode is roughly akin putting training wheels on a Ferrari Testarossa.

Bingo,

There was a time when i couldn't use it since i was shooting a band and i needed the fastest shutter. Ended up with horrible green cast but it was surprisingly so easy to remove it by tweaking HSL levels in Photoshop. Also de-saturating it a bit helped.

Mixed lighting sources will be tricky. I shoot raw and use custom white balance in these situations and yes, sometimesw have to adjust afterwards. I just wish the 6D had a button on the back to set the white balance, I believe that Nikon offer this........

It helped to set the shutter speed to 1/60, but it helped even more to set the picture mode to neutral. Standard was boosting contrast too much. I also find that I need to set exposure to +1/3, or I get under exposure.
This has to be the camera, since I had to do this with all my lenses that I have tried on the 6D. The 50F1.4 needed a boost in exposure on the 6D, but overexposed on my crop bodies. I have read that many people have been routinely setting exposure compensation to +2/3 on the 6D.
Thanks for all of your help. I may pick up some new SD cards and shoot Raw + JPEG.

If you are using DPP, raw + jpg is pointless. DPP reads the jpg settings (Picture Style) and applies them on import. The nice thing with raw is that you can change the Picture Style after the fact. I use Lightroom, but still set up my Picture Style like I want the finished product to be. LR ignores it, but I can see it on the LCD.

shocolite wrote in post #17316530
Mixed lighting sources will be tricky. I shoot raw and use custom white balance in these situations and yes, sometimesw have to adjust afterwards. I just wish the 6D had a button on the back to set the white balance, I believe that Nikon offer this........

I put Custom WB on "MyMenus". That is the best you can do, I think.

gonzogolf wrote in post #17315038
Fluorescent lights cycle, meaning they flicker and during that time there color and power fluctuations. If your shutter speed is slow enough to capture a fullcyvle its less noticable. But even dicounting that, fluorescent lights are often not full spectrum lights snd you cant balance a color that isnt there.

A quick note about fluorescent ficker. This is pretty much a none issue now whereas electronic ballasts operate around 20,000 Hz. There are not many old ballasts left out there. A quick visual que is most lamps 1 1/4" in diameter are operating at 60 Hz. Anything 1" and 5/8" diameter are Hi Freq. units. Also, you can sometimes see the Kelvin temperature on the lamp. A part number suffix of 35 or 3500 relates to 3500 K white balance. 30 or 3000 to 3000 K. and so on. Or forget about all of this and just shoot RAW.