5D MARK2 White Balance setup ?

A friend of mine just got her 5Dmark2 today .. she posted on Facebook ,then there's another friend of her who is photographer Recommend her to Setup the Whitebalance first ?That got me thinking what is that has to do with Whitebalance on 5Dmark2 ?

Set up whitebalance for what? The color temperature needed depends on the lighting which will vary according to the situation.

What was the question?

If the images have a yellow cast in shots taken indoors to them, it's because the AWB still sucks and WB should be corrected. WB on RAW photos can be corrected easily. Other photo programs can fix WB for JPEG images.

i thought the same way cuz i've been using my Whitebalance on camera raw and LR for awhile now it seem to work just fine , just today like i said a photographer from the facebook which i don't know who he is .. said that "You should setup WB first " ... i guess he doesn't know what he was talking about .. lolzzzz juz forget it .. it's dumm anyway ..

He sounds like someone who talks more about his camera than he does shooting it.

hbdragon88 wrote in post #9104362
If the images have a yellow cast in shots taken indoors to them, it's because the AWB still sucks and WB should be corrected. WB on RAW photos can be corrected easily. Other photo programs can fix WB for JPEG images.

May i know why u said AWB of 5d2 still sucks? is it worse than 7d AWB or even with 5dc?
thank you for the answer..

zshaft wrote in post #9105980
May i know why u said AWB of 5d2 still sucks? is it worse than 7d AWB or even with 5dc?
thank you for the answer..

I phrased it as an "if." I have never shot with the 5D2 and the OP didn't post a photo, so I don't really know. I just know that a yellow cast on AWB means that the camera has a problem with indoor lighting WB.

It is not the camera "having a problem" it is the indoor light that in WB auto sometimes gives a bit of a yellow (incandescent lighting) cast. I always shoot raw with WB on auto and correct later where necessary. This is - at least for me - not a "problem".

As far as I know - by reading the manual - you cannot set the WB "first" for a new camera. Yes, you can set the white balance for a specific source of lighting (see page 66 of the manual). But this should be done for each individual source of lighting separately.

http://www.whibalhost.​com/_Tutorials/WhiBal/​01/

that's a very helpful video how to use the WB .. thanks .. i am getting one WHitebal for me ...

All Canon seem to be biased in tungsten light, to give too yellow an image.

There are other types of light that can fool the Auto White Balance, too.

The suggestion probably was to set a "Custom White Balance". This means shooting a target of a known neutral color (it can be white, gray or black), and then telling the camera to use it as reference point. This will correct of the strange colors some types of light give.

It's also possible to "Set White Balance", where you either choose one of the presets provided (shade, tungsten, sun, flash, etc.)... Or go in and set a specific color temperature (5500, 7200, etc.).

The presets can only approximate any given condition, since light varies a lot. "Shade" for example, will be more or less bluish, depending upon whether the sky is cloudy or not .

In order to set a specific color temp, you need to measure the light (with a color temperature meter) and know what to set.

Therefore often the easiest way to a relatively accurate image rendition is just to set a "Custom White Balance". Read the camera manual how to do it. After doing it once or twice it's easy. There are a lot of different "targets" you can use. A sheet of white paper will work. There are translucent lens caps. A Kodak gray card will work. I use a Lastolite White Balance target that folds up small and is neutral gray on one side, white on the other. I use the gray side, so I can check exposure accuracy at the same time I'm setting Custom White Balance.

You can also take a reference shot with the target in the light situation, and later during post processing use an eye dropper tool to sample it, tell the image processing software to use that as the "formula" to apply to all the images during the shoot. This works with many PP softwares (Photoshop, Lightroom are two I use, and know for certain will work. Canon's DPP also has it.)

You can adjust it a bit later, in post processing, too. If shooting JPEGs, you will have a little possible adjustment. If shooting RAW, there's a lot more latitude.

I usually just correct them in RAW, life will be easier that way =)