White Balance - my biggest issue lately

I prefer not to shoot raw but white balance is the one really frustrating area with Canon Cameras. I notice its what I have to adjust most in post and many times auto is way to yellow. I tried using a grey card but the problem with that is if the place your in is not completely consistent they you get really off colors. I can usually fix this but I find auto is almost always wrong.

Can anyone offer some suggestions other then just shooting raw?

If you're shooting in mixed lighting, the most consistent method of controlling such issues is to gel the light source(s) so they match.

Anytime you've got, say, daylight through windows and lamps on in a room, you're not going to get them to play nice unless you either alter the temperature of the daylight or the tungsten.

Tommydigi wrote in post #11520024
Can anyone offer some suggestions other then just shooting raw?

If you prefer not to shoot in raw, that's fine. You won't have as much range for adjustment of WB, but small adjustments will work decently.

But I have a suggestion:

Shoot some raw images under the kind of lighting that gives you WB problems and experiment with the various WB options in DPP. They're identical to the camera settings you can use for JPEGs, but you can switch easily between the different settings.

This will give you a better understanding of the WB you'll want to set when shooting JPEGs.

Then you can do the same thing with picture styles, which affect WB quite a lot.

But, as Jay said, mixed lighting is always going to be a problem and often it can't be made to look decent. In that case, you just have to change the lighting. Either by turning off the lamps, using a different light source, or using gels.

-js

Thanks, actually what I usually do is use flash or just shoot raw when its really difficult. I wonder if the next generation of cameras will have a built in white balance that works in mixed conditions.

Tommydigi wrote in post #11525258
Thanks, actually what I usually do is use flash or just shoot raw when its really difficult. I wonder if the next generation of cameras will have a built in white balance that works in mixed conditions.

If they do it'll be an amazing breakthrough. Don't hold your breath...

-js

Maybe you will have good luck with an ExpoDisc?
I have been getting tired of dealing with White Balance in PP (I shoot raw, so it is doable, just time consuming) and switched over to an ExpoDisc now.

Thanks for the suggestions, I see no reason why future updates to camera bodies could not address this at least in some ways. I mean I am not holding my breath but with all the advances in technology a camera that can better manage the temperature of light does not seem that outrageous.

I generally use Nix color effects pro to remove the color cast and it does a good job but just hoping there is an easier way to get it right in the camera.

Try using your presets, based on the type of light falling on your subject. They're generally pretty accurate these days (at least have been on my 40D and 7D).

Tommydigi wrote in post #11525991
Thanks for the suggestions, I see no reason why future updates to camera bodies could not address this at least in some ways. I mean I am not holding my breath but with all the advances in technology a camera that can better manage the temperature of light does not seem that outrageous.

I generally use Nix color effects pro to remove the color cast and it does a good job but just hoping there is an easier way to get it right in the camera.

Cameras have gotten a lot better, I used to shoot AWB all the time, rarely ever presetting WB. I just got a ExpoDisc this week and using custom WB a lot now. When I was using AWB though, it was 90% there about 95% of the time, that 10% did make the image look a lot better and it was frustrating because it seems like you can spend 20 minutes on a single image and still not be satisfied with the WB.

Shooting an ExpoDisc is easy, but it is still equally frustrating, as light changes and you don't always remember to reshoot.

Tommydigi wrote in post #11525991
Thanks for the suggestions, I see no reason why future updates to camera bodies could not address this at least in some ways. I mean I am not holding my breath but with all the advances in technology a camera that can better manage the temperature of light does not seem that outrageous.

I generally use Nix color effects pro to remove the color cast and it does a good job but just hoping there is an easier way to get it right in the camera.

Camera "sees" it perfectly...

But no camera, accessory or VooDoo can blend 5200-5500K sunlight and 2500-2800K tungsten and make them match. Flat out impossible. You either gel for the sunlight or gel for the tungsten and then WB a homogeneous scene.