Odd White Balance results with Grey/White Card - Tips Please

**Bruce in Philly** · 10-25-2010, 09:11 PM

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<p class="MsoNormal"]5D
MKII, 24-105L
<p class="MsoNormal"]I
usually shoot RAW but always have issues with proper white balance (WB). In
general, the auto-WB on the 5D MKII does an OK job but not perfect – I almost
always tweeze it up a bit. So, I followed some advice and would shoot a
first pic with a gray card and then adjust subsequent photos in Canon's Digital
Photo Professional (DPP) afterwards using the “Click White Balance” to then
adjust the rest.<span> Well this just results
in disaster in my opinion.
<p class="MsoNormal"]So….
What the heck am I doing wrong here?<span>
<p class="MsoNormal"]I
just shot the following pic in RAW with auto white balance selected (ISO 100,
Standard style) and am holding a gray card and white card in each hand.<span> Then in DPP, I converted one image directly
to JPG with no adjustments, the second and third, I used the “Click White Balance”
on the white and grey cards and output a JPG for each.<span> The most accurate is the auto white
balance.<span> The click-on-white card is way
too green, and the click-on-grey is way too red.<span> In my experience, the gray card produces awful
results and a white card does much better but auto with my own tweaking is
best.<span> What’s up with this?<span>
<p class="MsoNormal"]Click
on the links for the original RAW and larger images of what you see here.
<p class="MsoNormal"][url="http://mywebpages.comcast.net/brucedebonis/5DMKII/Test.CR2]http://mywebpages.comcast.net/brucedebonis/5DMKII/Test.CR2[/url]
<p class="MsoNormal"][url="http://mywebpages.comcast.net/brucedebonis/5DMKII/TestAutoWB.JPG]http://mywebpages.comcast.net/brucedebonis/5DMKII/TestAutoWB.JPG[/url]
<p class="MsoNormal"][url="http://mywebpages.comcast.net/brucedebonis/5DMKII/TestClickGry.JPG]http://mywebpages.comcast.net/brucedebonis/5DMKII/TestClickGry.JPG[/url]
<p class="MsoNormal"][url="http://mywebpages.comcast.net/brucedebonis/5DMKII/TestClickWht.JPG]http://mywebpages.comcast.net/brucedebonis/5DMKII/TestClickWht.JPG[/url]
<p class="MsoNormal"]The
pic below is from clicking on the gray card.<span>
Click the above links to see larger pics of all versions.

**Daniel Browning** · 10-26-2010, 01:25 AM