White Balance

[sageone73]

Does anyone have any great online resources explaining the use of custom white balance? I'm not a rookie, but not a pro either. I never shoot in the auto zones and always in the creative zones. I know all about manipulating the camera to the fit the shot, environment, etc. However, the one thing that still eludes me is white balance and it's importance. Any help would be appreciated.

[grnofslt]

White Balance to digital photography is comparable to what daylight and incandescent films are like to film photography. Daylight film had a color balance that was for use outside or eith electronic flash, but under incandescent light, everything had a yellowish, orangish, reddish tinge which was cused by tungsten light which is of a different wavelength than sunlight. Tungsten fiom on the other hand had its color balanced that when shot under tungsten light the colors were natural and normal, that is, what we would expect to see.

White Balance does the same thing for digital photography. Everything I pass on from here on is based on my experience with an Olympus E-500. I can't speak for the other camera makes and models out there. I noticed that when I left the white balance on auto, when I opened the images on my computer, all of the images had a bluish cast and in camera raw, I had to do a lot of tint adjusting as well as exposure, shadow, contrast, and brightness adjustments. I took a chance and experimented one day when I was shooting outside in the bright sun and changed the white balance to the pre-set setting for bright sun. My colors became more true and there really is lots lest adjusting. I found that i prefer to leave the setting (again this is for my camera, the Oly E-500) on the bright sunshine/daylight preset. This came about when I set the white balance for the shady or cloudy settings. This produced to my eyes colors that did not seem natural, but rather like colors that had been rendered by warming filters in the same manner as they would on film. Not everyone finds this unappealing. So you adjust the white balance to make sure that your colors are rendered the way they should be.

With the Oly, there is a way that I can set the white balance for the light I am shooting. First one needs a piee of white paper and you have to have the paper in the light you are going to shoot without any shadows falling across the paper. Then by setting the proper controls for your camera, you create your own custom white balance preset that you can save and come back to at those times you need to. I am sure that you can do that with any good, high end digital camera, especial the Digital SLRs that are out there.

Hope this helps

Billy J

[The Repro Kid]

I was wondering if anyone was going to chime in about this. Really, I think you can treat manual white balance, (the white sheet of paper) as calibrating the camera, the same you would a scan by using a grayscale in the scan bed or calibrating a inkjet printer with a spectrophotometer. You tell the device what is white and then the resulting image is a balanced image that has little or no color cast. The point is you are removing the color cast with his method of manual calibration so it may not be a good idea in some photos, for example, a sunset.

I've seen very detailed descriptions of how to use this feature on Scuba Diving webpages, as it is a great way to cancel out the tremendous blue/green color cast of underwater photo. If I can find the link the article I will post it.

[sageone73]

I've been told that outside in sunny conditions, AWB is ok. It's really indoors when things get dicey...different sources of light, different temperatures, etc. So using things like a piece of paper, pringles cap, grey card will work.

[big pix]

Shoot in RAW with auto white balance and you have full control

[The Repro Kid]

There you have it, sageone73, from the man himself.

My little olympus 2040 won't shoot RAW, and I'm to broke to afford, no, not a new camera — a new underwater housing! They are flippin' expensive!

But I have done some experimenting with Manual white balance with my camera and just like scanning with a grayscale to set the white and black points of an image that has no easily identifiable white or black, you get a much fuller histogram using the manual white balance, as opposed to auto.

But I suppose that would not make a difference if I could shoot RAW.

P.S.
big pix, your post shows as 4:26 PM California time. What time was it in Australia?

[dognamedblue]

dont know if this is of any help, mainly because it's not really the kind of technical answer that the question was seeking, more an artistic reply

I'm totally new to cameras let alone digital so I don't use white balance for it's original intension but using my er, artistic temperament I often set it to aid my desired intent for a finished picture.
I carry a few pieces of card with me white, black, yellow, red and blue and use the WB setting to change the outcome
plus I find setting it to the different colour of cards really helps me in producing tonal depth in the camera's black and white setting

like I said of no technical use at all, but until I can afford a decent slr digi and exploit its raw
plus I find in some instances it can aid manipulation in cs2 or at least lead to some things I hadnt seen when taking the picture

d.n.b

[big pix]

what you have described above can be done in Camera RAW in CS2 without having the coloured cards and resetting you white balance........ and yes you may need a Digital SLR that shots in RAW

[dognamedblue]

I'm supposed to reset it?

probably explains some of my more funkier recent pix d'oh!


d.n.b

[phenn]

Found this to be rather interesting:
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/white-balance.htm

Having added that, count me in on the shoot in RAW crowd.