White Balance advise

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Archive 2009 · White Balance advise

jhoeft
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p.2 #1 · White Balance advise

In my opinion either of the methods mentioned above will work but with varying degrees of success. Yes a lot of publications and website advocate using a "white" piece of paper was a white balance target but most paper is not really white. Get a piece of paper from three different vendors and layer them on top of each other and see if you don't see some differences in color, at least that has been my experience. Also most gray cards were designed to do one thing reflect ~18% of the light that hits it. They are not always a neutral gray and can add a color shift. If you really want to be safe always shoot in RAW as this will allow you to tweak the WB in post processing. The white paper or gray card methods will get you kind of close and if that meets your needs than great but for consistent results every time I recommend a consistent WB tool.

John
www.photographydvds.com

Nov 19, 2009 at 06:49 PM

stuarty
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p.2 #2 · White Balance advise

exybalance
nice n easy

Nov 22, 2009 at 02:26 PM

dmward
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p.2 #3 · White Balance advise

If you shoot raw and are particular about color and white balance get an X-rite passport (http://www.xritephoto.com/ph_product_overview.aspx?id=1257&tab=videos)
Then use it to calibrate your camera and set white balance. If you use Adobe Camera Raw or Lightroom you can also create a preset in about 5 minutes so the white balance and camera profile can be attached to the file during ingestion into Lightroom or via Camera RAW to Photoshop. This will correct the previews in LR rather than having them use the camera embedded white balance and color space.

Nov 23, 2009 at 09:16 PM

BrianO
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p.2 #4 · White Balance advise

E-Vener wrote: ...The Datacolor Spyder Cube is also supposed to be very good, I just don't have one.

I do, and it's a good little tool for use in post, but not really intended for setting white balance before the shoot.

If you capture in RAW, you don't really need to set WB before the shoot; the latter is for use when capturing in JPEG or TIFF.

When capturing RAW images, if you include the SpyderCube somewhere in the scene -- or in a seperate shot under the same light -- you can then use it after the shoot to correct color and tone after the fact.

Nov 24, 2009 at 04:52 AM

Tom Janz
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p.2 #5 · White Balance advise

Question, say i use a grey card.
Then change my light setup (move a light around and/or change the exposure), will i need to shoot another test shot with the grey card?
I assume so, correct?

Nov 24, 2009 at 06:21 AM

cgardner
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p.2 #6 · White Balance advise

Tom Janz wrote:
Question, say i use a grey card.
Then change my light setup (move a light around and/or change the exposure), will i need to shoot another test shot with the grey card?
I assume so, correct?

Depends on what you are using the card for. If WB then no, because you would have done nothing to alter the WB of the lighting.

Nov 24, 2009 at 10:55 AM

Tom Janz
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p.2 #7 · White Balance advise

Yea, ive heard of AB's having color shift at different power settings. Thats why i was worried about using a custom WB. I normally shoot on auto and .raw, and try to get it close in ACR. But a grey card would make things alot easier. I guess it doesn't hurt to toss the card in there after a change in the lighting.

Nov 24, 2009 at 10:17 PM

cgardner
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p.2 #8 · White Balance advise

Tom Janz wrote:
Yea, ive heard of AB's having color shift at different power settings. Thats why i was worried about using a custom WB. I normally shoot on auto and .raw, and try to get it close in ACR. But a grey card would make things alot easier. I guess it doesn't hurt to toss the card in there after a change in the lighting.

Auto WB is not recommended for flash. It bases WB on the content and can vary shot-to-shot. What you want is shot-to-shot consistency so its possible to batch correct WB.

Even when a gray card is used for Custom WB the resulting technically neutral WB isn't always the best looking color perceptually. Depending on content and intended mood you might want the color slightly warmer or cooler.

All lights change color temp to some degree if the power changes significantly, but in in normal shooting your exposure shouldn't change more than 1/3 stop of so for a given set up. I have AB800s and have never had an issue with color variation.

To ease your worries get a gray card and do some testing: set WB then change power, re-meter and see if there is s difference you can see between the shots. If you can see the difference it matters, if you can't it doesn't.

Nov 24, 2009 at 10:45 PM

ben1017
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p.2 #9 · White Balance advise

BrianO wrote:
farley wrote: Two coffee filters work

I only have one. Will it work?

just put this over your flash and you will be fine.

Dec 08, 2009 at 09:13 PM

TTLKurtis
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p.2 #10 · White Balance advise

I just recently picked up the ColorChecker Passport... very cool and has improved my color accuracy tremendously.

Dec 08, 2009 at 09:47 PM

dmward
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p.2 #11 · White Balance advise

Let's all remember that the white balance setting in the camera is a metadata field in the raw file used by whatever software to "adjust" the preview JPG until whatever you have set in your software sets its own parameters.
Thus, leaving the camera on auto white balance, shooting raw and the using a develop preset in either ACR or Lightroom sets the white balance to whatever you want it set to when importing the files.

Thus, using a passport, its a simple matter shoot it for reference. Then make a camera calibration using it, which includes a white balance setting. Then load the camera calibration and click the white balance eye dropper on the second gray square to get "neutral white balance. Or any of the biased white balance options included on the passport.
Save that as a preset for the shoot and import your images.

It probably takes less time to do it than it did to write this, or read it.

Dec 08, 2009 at 10:25 PM

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