White Balance, Auto vs. Custom

I've been shooting with the T2i for about 5 months now and have been satisfied overall with the auto white balance setting. Yesterday I went outside to try out a manual focus Tokina 35-105mm SD on the Canon. My wife's flowers are a favorite target. The color green didn't look quite right, appearing somewhat flat with a slight tinge of blue. I took a pix of my WhiBal calibrated reference card and used it as a custom setting in the camera. The results were obvious and much closer to the actual colors. There was full sun around 4:30PM EST when the photos were taken.
The grey photo is the reference used to set the T2i. The dark spot in the middle (card out of focus) is an "X" target imprinted on the card.

Here is a link to the photos on the Adobe Photoshop website. There is no processing on these pix.

http://www.photoshop.c​om …62a7747a59cccb8​06b81cb53a

C&C ok.

I don't have a whole lot of experience, but I seem to get poor auto white balance under direct sunlight. I haven't considered using a WB card, although it would probably be a cheap yet effective investment. Instead, I've been shooting in RAW and trying to adjust manually.

I use either Auto indoors and Shade outdoors.. Then if any additional work is needed I do it in LR.
Most of my work is HS Sports and the lighting in most gyms is not only terrible but the whit balance can be different from one end of the gym to the other. It all depends on the bulbs used which is based on the best deal they get when they need to buy replacements (green cast to the right, yellow cast to the left)

I shoot RAW 90% of the time, so it's almost always AWB and edited in LR. If I'm shooting JPG for sports, its set depending on the sky conditions; and even then I tweak it.

A grey card is always nice to keep in your pocket, if the wether don't change it'll last the day.

i normally use AWB and edit later if needed.

WB cards are great especially indoors. Shooting in RAW just means you can get THAT much closer to perfection...

AWB I find is fine outdoors (or just set it to daylight/cloudy)

I don’t know how it works in 550D. I tried it once at my 500D, it is done though the file. You would have to shoot, then read this as white balance…I never used it after. RAW editing in Canon software takes care of it. Switch WB to the temperature mode and adjust to natural colors.

I just AWB and adjust later.

The Custom WB is actually off...

this is your photo (with custom WB)

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roosterslayer wrote in post #11201426
i normally use AWB and edit later if needed.

word.

Howard Ting wrote in post #11202101
The Custom WB is actually off...

this is your photo (with custom WB)

| Byte size: ZERO | Content warning: NOT AN IMAGE

This is correctly WB

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I use this during games/plays/concerts
Where all the images count and I dont want to BW 250 photos

http://www.expoimaging​.com …at_id=1&keyword​s=ExpoDisc

but when it comes to portraits i BW all of them in post.

The custom white balance is spot on in the 1st photo. It was taken in the late afternoon when the sunlight was low in the horizon thereby giving the image that "Kodachrome" effect (warm) vs. Ektachrome (cold). The 2nd photo has the flower petals appear as primarily red when they are in fact a orange - red combination.
Correct white balance enables the camera to produce an image that is true to the original colors. Believe me - the colors are accurate in the 1st photo - I compared the image on the LCD to the actual scene. You may not like the colors produced but they are accurate and, of course, can be changed in the software processing.

J Bruja wrote in post #11206659
The custom white balance is spot on in the 1st photo. It was taken in the late afternoon when the sunlight was low in the horizon thereby giving the image that "Kodachrome" effect (warm) vs. Ektachrome (cold). The 2nd photo has the flower petals appear as primarily red when they are in fact a orange - red combination.
Correct white balance enables the camera to produce an image that is true to the original colors. Believe me - the colors are accurate in the 1st photo - I compared the image on the LCD to the actual scene. You may not like the colors produced but they are accurate and, of course, can be changed in the software processing.

by that logic isn't everything correctly white balanced?


Ergo, If I shot a white piece of paper under candle light, it is said to be correctly white balance because what I shot (in the LCD) is exactly what I see (in the scene).

I don't use WB to give Kodachrome or Ektachrome effects. I use it so the whites look white in my picture...

Howard Ting wrote in post #11207733
by that logic isn't everything correctly white balanced?


Ergo, If I shot a white piece of paper under candle light, it is said to be correctly white balance because what I shot (in the LCD) is exactly what I see (in the scene).

I don't use WB to give Kodachrome or Ektachrome effects. I use it so the whites look white in my picture...

A white piece of paper is a poor choice to use as an example as a bluing chemical is added to make it whiter to the eye. Before I say anything else you might want to take a few minutes and watch the tutorials from the Rawworkflow website. Believe me this guy knows what he is talking about.
His is a long history in the digital raw workflow field having worked with a Danish company that has such a good raw processing engine that Adobe bought them out and used their expertise in the development of the Lightroom software.

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

I have a grey card that I use - but mostly shoot Raw and alter the colour temps once in your favorite editing program..