White Balance - Getting the Light Right in the Camera

Had a quick test using the dome for my godox v1 in my office here which has a mix of daylight lights for video (6500) and the room light which is tungsten (2800). Taking the same shot using the dome to take a pic to set custom white balance vs using auto white balance gave quite similar results - custom WB 4273K and tint -6, AWB 4385K tint -2. It's a noticeable difference and I'm not especially happy with either. This might seem like a silly test, however, there are times when subjects are being lit by widely varying light sources. In practice, I'd set up for the dominant source rather than average out like this is doing. Thoughts?
 
TimHughes said:
Had a quick test using the dome for my godox v1 in my office here which has a mix of daylight lights for video (6500) and the room light which is tungsten (2800). Taking the same shot using the dome to take a pic to set custom white balance vs using auto white balance gave quite similar results - custom WB 4273K and tint -6, AWB 4385K tint -2. It's a noticeable difference and I'm not especially happy with either. This might seem like a silly test, however, there are times when subjects are being lit by widely varying light sources. In practice, I'd set up for the dominant source rather than average out like this is doing. Thoughts?
Click to expand...
Mixed light sources are always mixed and unsatisfactory. It is a fact of life.
Did you take the reading setting from the subject toward the camera position as you should. It is an incident reading that you are taking, the same as for an expodisk.
 
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Terrywoodenpic said:
Mixed light sources are always mixed and unsatisfactory. It is a fact of life.
Did you take the reading setting from the subject toward the camera position as you should. It is an incident reading that you are taking, the same as for an expodisk.
Click to expand...
ahh no I didn't, thanks for the reminder! Doing this results in WB 4010 tint -1, actually the best of the three versions. Does this also work for stage-lit situations?
 
TimHughes said:
ahh no I didn't, thanks for the reminder! Doing this results in WB 4010 tint -1, actually the best of the three versions. Does this also work for stage-lit situations?
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It works in all situations. However they often use coloured gels in stage lighting which will throw things out. But you could shade them out with your hand to just catch the the main light.

In most cases a dome light Collector is better than a flat one as it collects light in three dimensions. (As are used on incident light meters ), A flat disk of white plastic works better when you only want to collect light from one direction, it is then better to point it at the actual light rather than at the camera position.
 
Terrywoodenpic said:
It works in all situations. However they often use coloured gels in stage lighting which will throw things out. But you could shade them out with your hand to just catch the the main light.

In most cases a dome light Collector is better than a flat one as it collects light in three dimensions. (As are used on incident light meters ), A flat disk of white plastic works better when you only want to collect light from one direction, it is then better to point it at the actual light rather than at the camera position.
Click to expand...
Thank you very much Terry
 
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Some fascinating stuff being discussed on here since I last posted!

Meanwhile here at the ranch, I've finally managed to catch the right lighting conditions to try this out. I had the camera on 'preview' so that I could see the approximate results in the viewfinder, then set white balance to 5600K for the first pic. I didn't feel the result looked the same as my eye was seeing and had to increase it to 7000K to get something I felt resembled the way the scene looked to me. Anyway, an interesting bit of mucking about and apologies for the state of our patio - it doesn't always look like that (he lied) but I think it makes the photo more interesting.

Garden 5600K IMG_0339.JPG

Garden 7000K IMG_0340.JPG
Patio 7000K IMG_0342.JPG
 
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