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White balance for stadiium performance...

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themdg

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Hi Everyone:

I'm shooting at a Drum Corps event this weekend. I want to get my white balance right. I've been encouraged to "set my white balance." I suppose I'll shoot a card, and set the custom white balance. I've never really used this feature.

What I'm curious about is the changing light.

The stadium I'll be shooting at has great lights. Very bright. The show starts at 6pm, and I'm sure they'll have the lights burning the whole time. the sun will be up at 6pm, and will do down during the show. Do I re-set my white balance between each performance?

I'll be shooting a Sigma 2.8 on my XT

Any ideas on the WB?

Matt

--
themdg.org
 
Fadia said:
Another option would be to shoot RAW and then adjust WB later in
DPP or other similar program.
Click to expand...
Thats a good idea, but I've been asked to shoot only JPG.

I've been reading about custom white balance. I've read that I can use a white plastic lid (pringles or something) to cover the lens and shoot a periodic white balance pic. But, I don't quite understand that. Where do I point it? At the light? At the ground?

Is white/gray paper better than the lid?

Matt
 
you'll have access at the target area to set the white balance. If that's the case, just set it off a white card catching the primary light which will be the stadium lights even at 6:00pm. If you'll be a good distance away then you're just going to have to guess, use auto or as mentioned shoot raw and quickly process to give them JPEGS. You can't set wjite balance at a distance. If you can get into postion to get a meaningful reading then check it as frequently as convenient. White balance readings have to be taken in the same way as an incident light meter.
Regards,
Kurt
 
I read about this method here on dpreview a while ago and it's worked really well for me:

Take 2 white coffee filters with you in your bag. Cover the front element of your lens and aim at the light source and take a shot. (this is based on an XT - I'm not sure if the menus are the same for an xti) Select custom wb in the menu and then you need to scroll down in the menu to where it reads "custom wb" and press set. It will show the last picture you snapped. When you get to the right pick of the coffee filter over the lens press set again and you'll be good to go. The same thing works with a lid from a can of Pringles (I've never tried it). Test it out at home tonight and see if you're getting better results.

Good Luck!

-PZ
themdg said:
Fadia said:
Another option would be to shoot RAW and then adjust WB later in
DPP or other similar program.
Click to expand...
Thats a good idea, but I've been asked to shoot only JPG.

I've been reading about custom white balance. I've read that I can
use a white plastic lid (pringles or something) to cover the lens
and shoot a periodic white balance pic. But, I don't quite
understand that. Where do I point it? At the light? At the
ground?

Is white/gray paper better than the lid?

Matt
Click to expand...
 
themdg said:
Fadia said:
Another option would be to shoot RAW and then adjust WB later in
DPP or other similar program.
Click to expand...
Thats a good idea, but I've been asked to shoot only JPG.
Click to expand...
They can't really care what mode you shoot in, as long as you give them jpegs. Unles you have to turn over the CF card right after the game, I'd take Fadia's suggestion and batch process the raw files.

Anything else will be a bit of a gamble. A diffuser over the lens sounds like a good trick, but you probably won't get the same balance of natural and artifical light that's falling on the players.

--
JerryG
 
I checked your earlier posts and it seems that you are not experienced using RAW converter. However, you should learn to use it as it will save you many shots with bad exposure or wb. You are probably using Zoombrowsers RIT and you should adjust exposure bar first (according to your earlier post).
 
And if they only want you to shoot .jpg to download to a CD from you memory card, I would say just use AWB because it is better than messing up on WB by always setting it. AWB isn't perfect but It has been close enough in all most all instances.

But if you can do post processing by all mean shoot RAW and convert to .jpg to give them the finished product.

--
http://www.robertsonphotos.com/
 
White balance is no problem with raw; it is with jpeg as you know. Shoot raw, fix WB, convert to jpeg. This would be the very best way to go.

jgb
themdg said:
Hi Everyone:

I'm shooting at a Drum Corps event this weekend. I want to get my
white balance right. I've been encouraged to "set my white
balance." I suppose I'll shoot a card, and set the custom white
balance. I've never really used this feature.

What I'm curious about is the changing light.

The stadium I'll be shooting at has great lights. Very bright.
The show starts at 6pm, and I'm sure they'll have the lights
burning the whole time. the sun will be up at 6pm, and will do
down during the show. Do I re-set my white balance between each
performance?

I'll be shooting a Sigma 2.8 on my XT

Any ideas on the WB?

Matt

--
themdg.org
Click to expand...
--
Galleries: http://www.pbase.com/jon_b
 
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