How do I properly set Custom WB on DReb?

I'm kind of confused with this one. Initially, should i just shoot the white piece of paper with Auto WB? or should I set it to the preset WB of my ambiet light? Am I supposed to use a flash to take a picture of the white piece of paper?

thanks!

Take the shot of the white paper with the light you will taking the pictures under, don't be too fussed about the white balance setting that the camera is set too when you shoot, the camera will take that into account.

I mainly use auto white ballance and correct it later in photoshop. If you don't want to have to do that yes, use a custom white ballance. Shoot a white piece of paper, and make sure the centre around your AF points are all white. *Do not* use the flash, as it emits a white colored light. Go into the menu, find custom white ballance, and chose your paper shot. Then hit the WB key (down arrow) and scroll until you get to custom white ballance (the bottom right one on my 300D). Then shoot away, in any mode you like

Page 52 in your manual explains it pretty well.

First of all, the sheet of paper can be pure white, or it can be pure gray, but it must be pure. If there are any hints of pink or yellow or any color, then this will give you odd results.

Let's say that you want to set a Custom White Balance with some funky tungsten lamp you have. Light up the sheet of paper with that funky light and shoot the camera. You should be able to see that image on the rear display, and it should be all white. The page 52 procedure works from there.

Then later, suppose you have some strange strobe flash unit. Light up the paper with it and shoot the camera. Just like before.

I think you can have only one single Custom White Balance stored in the camera.

If you know exactly what kind of light you have, such as plainsun daylight or plain flash, then you might get best results by setting that directly.

---Bob Gross---

tim wrote:
I mainly use auto white ballance and correct it later in photoshop. If you don't want to have to do that yes, use a custom white ballance. Shoot a white piece of paper, and make sure the centre around your AF points are all white. *Do not* use the flash, as it emits a white colored light. Go into the menu, find custom white ballance, and chose your paper shot. Then hit the WB key (down arrow) and scroll until you get to custom white ballance (the bottom right one on my 300D). Then shoot away, in any mode you like

Hey Tim,
Have you managed to correct an image that the WB is grossly wrong in? i.e. having the WB on tungsten when shooting outdoors.

This has happened a couple of times on the G3 by accident a couple of times usually with someone who is not familar with the camera.

I've never shot one that bad. If you want me to give it a go email it over to me. I'll PM you my email.

OOOOOHHHHHHHH THAT'S WHY . . . .

I shot a white piece of paper under a (yellowish) lamp, and i used a flash because I thought that the paper needed to appear white. Needless to say, my pics after that were yellower(sp?). . . maybe even orange

Thanks again for your help!!

If you shoot with mixed tungsten light and flash, then you're likely to have color balance problems, because the camera has to guess whether the white is the tungsten white or the flash white. Whenever possible, have one source of light be predominant in the scene, and let the camera white selection be that one.

---Bob Gross---

Make sure that the pic you take has some tone in it - looks gray instead of white. About 1 stop underexposed should do it. The cam needs pixels that aren't blown out to make the calculations.

Now once I take the white paper pic and set the custom WB to that, do I need to keep that pic on the CF card, or can i delete it to conserve space. I have a 2GB card, so I doubt I need to worry about space, but just in case the situation comes up?

Once you set a Custom White Balance (based on some image on the card), then all that the camera has to actually save is the white color temperature value that you say is Custom. So, it saves a number off to memory, just like other settings that it remembers, completely separate from images on the CF card.

I believe the only way you can wipe out that Custom White Balance value is to either store/save another one over it, or to remove the small clock/memory battery.

---Bob Gross---

thank you all for your help on this subject!!!