White Balance

what is the best way to approach and use the white balance function on the 1d mk2 camera.

I have seen photo details where the white balance is either +1 or some other setting but how do you determine when not use the auto function and what are the consderation when selecting a manual setting

Thanks antony

Am I missing something here? Is this question very obvious hence no response?

Any feed back would be appriciated

Antony

Antony,

don't have a 1D MkII, so can't speak about how the controls work. With my 10D I normally have the white balance set to 5200K, and make any adjustments in raw conversion.

There are some links to articles on colour temperature that may be of interest as this is really the core of correct white balance setting:

http://www.rogercavana​gh.com/links/links-1.stm#Articles

Regards,

I don't have the 1D MKII but the extensive WB adjustment controls seem geared to shoots with well defined, relatively constant lighting - especially studio lighting and possibly event photography.

With studio lighting, you should be able to adjust the camera's controls for color temperature (blue/amber) and tint (green/magenta) to get consistent, color balanced shots. The same would apply to shooting events in a stadium or arena.

Another condition would be when you simply want warmer shots (e.g. skin tones) - and so you would add +1 or so to the color temperature.

I'm not sure about the 1D MKII controls - other than to know that you can separately adjust temperature (to add warmth or coolness) and tint (very helpful for flourescent lighting).

I think you're looking for feedback from pros who have their favorite settings for certaining conditions. I would be interested also.

As far as I can tell, automatic white balance was one of the few things Canon really got right!

If you havent needed to mess with it yet, why bother?

Ok, ok, I know you WILL find a need to use it sometime. (-:

-Pete

if you are shooting RAW, the white balance setting is basically irrelevant.

if you are making JPEGs, then you have several options:

- auto white balance all the time (the camera does a good, but not great job with indoor / extreme / mixed lighting situations)

- pick the WB preset that best matches the situation (e.g. tungsten, fluorescent, etc). may do better then AWB, but still doesn't handle odd / extreme lighting situations properly.

- if you will be in a consistent situation for a while or if the shot must be as good as possible, bring your grey card or a sheet of white paper to use to calibrate the Custom WB setting for that situation.

the method you choose will be determined by how much set-up time you have before you shoot and how critical the WB in that shot is to you.

White Balance

Thanks for the info, a few people have mentioned keeping the WB set to Auto. However, from the feed back I'm a little more clear on the subject and will try some test shots, I'll let you know what I find.

If there are any pro's who have some type of guide for different situation in manual WB settings I would be greatful to receive them.

Thanks for the help.

Antony