White Balance on my new T1i

[jeff g]

Hello HiFiGuy1,


I'm definitely an Alabama fan and I live in Saraland (Western shore. I would definitely like to get together sometime, after I get my feet under me. I've got a lot to learn. I look forward to talking to you.





Jeff

[jeff g]

Thanks for all of your comments. It was obvious before I even posted (although I hoped not) that getting the best picture is going to take some work. It's just a little frustrating that getting the right color seems a little harder than it was with a film SLR (or so it seems after only two weeks of having my first DSLR). I'll continue to try to learn and watch this forum. I've already learned a lot.


Thanks.

[Colin]

I'm a big fan of the 'click white balance'


Assuming you've got something white. I might spend a lot of time clicking all over, as the same white might be different depending on the light that's shining on it (in the same picture).


But, if you can take a picture of something that fills the screen which is white or gray, then look at the histogram, the peakson the right side should be pretty even. Or, you can adjust the peaks to even out in the RGB individual settings...


But, certainly, if you're going to get the colors right, you need to get the white balance first. Aside from the color cast, if the white balance is off, you just tossed the dynamic range possible for each color channel. I'm probably not saying that correctly, but hopefully I'm understood anyway []

[Dallasphotog]

For me, getting white balance right out of the camera is MANDATORY. My submission deadline is often to close to the end of an event to even mess with RAW images. (I shootweddings and family portraitsin RAW where there is time to mess with WB). So, I'm trying to minimize editing to just cropping and the autolevel button whenever possible.


I'm try to get perfect jpg's into the laptop andoff to the photo desk, so I want a custom WB whenever possible. My 18% gray card cost $3.99 and it rides in the lid of the pelican case to every event. I've had no issues with shooting the card under event lighting and setting the custom WB feature.


The only time this bites you is when you leave the custom WB set and take flash pictures at the press conference after the game. Not that I've ever done that (this week), but a friend of mine told me it's really bad.

[peety3]

The only time this bites you is when you leave the custom WB set and take flash pictures at the press conference after the game. Not that I've ever done that (this week), but a friend of mine told me it's really bad.
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Ah yes, the dreaded "flash override" issue. Hence the reason I work so hard to determine the color temp/shift of my lighting, so I'm that much more inclined to balance my flashes (or know exactly what gel goes on the first time!).


Easy solution: buy a second camera/lens to use as your dedicated "flasher" camera.

[peety3]

But, certainly, if you're going to get the colors right, you need to get the white balance first. Aside from the color cast, if the white balance is off, you just tossed the dynamic range possible for each color channel.
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Hmmm. I was going to make a strikingly similar comment about this, and then thought twice about it: does it matter if WB is set right/close? In other words, does the camera meter a scene different if the WB is set differently? If the camera doesn't meter differently, you'll come home with the same exposure (the same aperture/ISO/shutter settings), and you'll still have a lot of red (if under tungsten) or green (if under fluorescent) or whatever. As a result, you'll still have blasted reds/greens/whatever. Boy I wish I had a camera at the office to play...

[Colin]

Well, if you're shooting raw, you've got the same data, so it doesn't really matter, in that you can correct it later...


But, if you've got a color cast such that something 'white' is actually using a disproportionate amount of a red or blue channel, that means that not only are you prematurely exhausting headroom in that color, but that the range of saturation, in variance to what 'white' is, will also be more limited.


I've found that many pictures I've taken that looked very poorly saturated, with very muted colors, suddenly come alive and poponce I fix the white balance towards something more 'correct', something I couldn't do by merely increasing the saturation, in part because doing so with the wrong white balance prematurely clips the individual color channels. I may want to slightly slant the white balance for effect, but if it gets far from off, it becomes close enough to impossible to fix.


Subjectively, for me, often when colors look artificially saturated, it's not just because they're too saturated, it's because one of the color channels is being clipped, and this is something that's easier to avoid when you get the white balance closer to right than not.