White Balance on 5D Mark II

Hey all,

Ok, I have a problem. I've been using Auto White Balance all the time lately, because it comes off pretty nice and I seen no complaints.

However, I want to manually white balance now and I'm just confused about how to go about it.

If anyone has a tutorial or how to (or just common knowledge) on how to do this, please let me know.

Thank you.

Are you talking about setting a custom white balance in-camera, or something else?

joecar2000 wrote in post #11617644
Hey all,

Ok, I have a problem. I've been using Auto White Balance all the time lately, because it comes off pretty nice and I seen no complaints.

However, I want to manually white balance now and I'm just confused about how to go about it.

If anyone has a tutorial or how to (or just common knowledge) on how to do this, please let me know.

Thank you.

Its pretty simple to do, but first some advice. Shoot raw and you wont have to worry so much about perfect white balance in the camera. If you want to set a custom white balance just shoot a shot under the lighting conditions you want to balance. Ideally it would be of a gray card, or target but something white will do in a pinch. Then go to the menu, select white balance, custom. It will ask if you want to use the last shot as the basis for custom, hit okay and then go back to the WB setting on the LCD and select the custom setting.

gonzogolf wrote in post #11617776
Its pretty simple to do, but first some advice. Shoot raw and you wont have to worry so much about perfect white balance in the camera. If you want to set a custom white balance just shoot a shot under the lighting conditions you want to balance. Ideally it would be of a gray card, or target but something white will do in a pinch. Then go to the menu, select white balance, custom. It will ask if you want to use the last shot as the basis for custom, hit okay and then go back to the WB setting on the LCD and select the custom setting.

I have been shooting RAW. I'm not shooting for pictures though, just video, I don't know if that changes anything.

I just shot 3 frames (raw) this morning side by side (a 3 image panoramic) in daylight and AWB delivered 5350, 5050, and 4950 with close but different tints. While I suspect that no one will ever notice I am not so sure AWB is as useful as I would like. Maybe I need to bring a gray card with me and use it to set a manual white balance. If I shot with a fixed WB of 5000 I would still be able to adjust the WB in processing tools. Is there any reason I shouldn't set the WB to a fixed value aside from adjusting to lighting during PJ or street work?

Setting it to a fixed temp. is probably a good idea. I see no advantage to doing a custom white balance other than it saves you a few seconds in post.