White balance rant

swanseamale47

swanseamale47

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wayne clarke
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On last weekends wedding it befell upon me to set the white balances for the service. Our assistant had fallen off the radar, the other tog was trying to coax the B+G out of a locked room (don't mention the stag night! lol) after a full blown row, so I thought I'd set the cameras ready in case things worked out and the wedding happened.
What a pain in the arse, I was wading my way through menus and pics of white paper when the video guy walked up, pointed his camera at the white table cloth, pressed a button and walked away.
Why oh why isn't it that easy with digital SLR's???
 
OK, this might sound daft to those more qualified than I (errrm, that's most here!) but what's wrong with either (1) Auto WB, and/or (2) adjusting in PP with a single preset..?

This sounds to me as though things are being made waaaay more complex than they actually are...!
 
yeah take pic go through menu and tell it to set as wb

I tend to shoot auto in raw and tweak the first image in PP then sync those tweaks gives nicer control
 
The video guy was maybe lucky - white tablecloth isn't the best WB yardstick.
He'd have been far better sticking to a preset.
Camera companies spend fortunes tweaking these video/dslr presets for optimum accuracy. Why not use one of them?
 
takes about thirty seconds on a canon, take a pic at a light source with filter on, select custom wb on menu, select image you have just taken and bobs your uncle. I change it for each job so do it loads of time so I think its become an auto option.

Setting a custom WB by the way is miles better than auto white balance imho

stew
 
Although they are expensive, an expodisc does help with this. Clip it on, take a photo pointing at light source, and then make sure you have the white balance on your quick access menu page. Should only take 10-15 seconds and makes life so much easier than when you're processing than if you use auto. While weddings are pretty intense, 10-15 seconds each time you change locations is pretty manageable.
 
I set white balance at ice hockey just the once.. using the ice... compared it to auto white balance and i couldnt tell the difference.. this on a 1dmkIII
 
I know it doesn't really take long but when your doing 3 cameras (all canons) it's just a pain in the arse, and does it need to be that difficult, if you can set a video WB with a single button, why not a camera?
I know you can do it PP, bit im my opinion it's better to get as much right in camera as you can.
Gets off soapbox.
 
Yv said:
DO Canons not have a single button for WB presets? I know both my Nikons do and the presets do generally cover most situations, only requiring more indepth menu tweaking for more unusal lighting situations. :shrug:
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For the presets, but some places have really strange lighting, in those cases we have found it often better to set a custom rather than use a preset.
 
I'm inexperienced obviously, but I've never set custom WB, and any WB adjustments I have had to make have always been in PP. That's just as quick, especially in LR where to apply a custom WB setting to hundreds of images takes just seconds.

Auto WB does the job for me well enough. :)
 
Can I just ask for a bit of clarification on this.

1) Is a A4 sheet of paper a decent source to take a preset off?

2) If I was in a situation where I had multiple sources do I select preset, hold my A4 white card in the same light in which my subject is in and then use this preset?

3) I think that is all, but feel free to add anything else. I heard someone mention the insides of Lowepro bags?
 
theMusicMan said:
I'm inexperienced obviously, but I've never set custom WB, and any WB adjustments I have had to make have always been in PP. That's just as quick, especially in LR where to apply a custom WB setting to hundreds of images takes just seconds.

Auto WB does the job for me well enough. :)
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Having the same camera I pretty much stick to auto but I have used a custom setting occasionally. The E3 does have a (minimum of) 3 button press solution provided it is setup as such in the menus beforehand. Assign Fn to be custom WB and it is as the aforementioned video man ... hold Fn down, aim at something white and press the shutter, then store it (an additional button press for custom setting 1 or several if choosing custom setting 2, 3 or 4).
 
Bruce120 said:
Can I just ask for a bit of clarification on this.

1) Is a A4 sheet of paper a decent source to take a preset off?

2) If I was in a situation where I had multiple sources do I select preset, hold my A4 white card in the same light in which my subject is in and then use this preset?
Click to expand...

Thats exactly how the multitude of instructional DVDs I have watched tell you how to set custom WB
 
Never, ever use Auto white balance on a wedding. The reason being that the camera will make a best guess for each and every shot so you can have variations shot to shot throughout. Nightmare PP time!

A lot of the time we are dealing with mixed light sources and people moving around in the location so the white balance changes as people move nearer windows and/or away from artificial light sources.

Two ways of dealing with it. One is custom balance. Advantage? done in camera and pretty accurate for more stationary subjects, i.e. ceremony. Disadvantage? Moving subjects and mixed lighting.

The other is to select a preset. I've seen a pro who shoots all his indoor shots on flash WB. Yes they are all wrong, but they are all wrong by the same amount so he simply corrects the whole lot as a batch in PP.

I've not done that one yet but thought I'd mention it. :)
 
AliB said:
The other is to select a preset. I've seen a pro who shoots all his indoor shots on flash WB. Yes they are all wrong, but they are all wrong by the same amount so he simply corrects the shole lot as a batch in PP.

I've not done that one yet but thought I'd mention it. :)
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I do that too sometimes & in fact ask my 2nd to do that and I just process her images to match my measured ones later, but no, AliB's not referring to me :D

DD
 
Thanks Ali that is a good point, Is that only really essential on indoors because of mixed lighting as outdoors are going to be easier to get right as there will be in most cases onel light source
 
I shoot raw so it's not a massive problem but even when shooting JPEG where post-processing isn't as easy, the camera's presets are pretty spot-on I think.
 
Like Ali says, could you not choose the nearest pre-set (not flash), then adjust the batch in post? This should give you perfect colour balance, and also ensure that your histogram is accurate for exposure.
 
AliB said:
Never, ever use Auto white balance on a wedding. The reason being that the camera will make a best guess for each and every shot so you can have variations shot to shot throughout. Nightmare PP time!

A lot of the time we are dealing with mixed light sources and people moving around in the location so the white balance changes as people move nearer windows and/or away from artificial light sources.

Two ways of dealing with it. One is custom balance. Advantage? done in camera and pretty accurate for more stationary subjects, i.e. ceremony. Disadvantage? Moving subjects and mixed lighting.

The other is to select a preset. I've seen a pro who shoots all his indoor shots on flash WB. Yes they are all wrong, but they are all wrong by the same amount so he simply corrects the whole lot as a batch in PP.

I've not done that one yet but thought I'd mention it. :)
Click to expand...

That just makes so much sense DOH!! I spent 20 minutes adjusting the WB on a christening I went to a few weeks ago. TOP TIP :thumbs:
 
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