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White Balance

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Afromalone

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Hi all,

I've just started experimenting with the different white balance options on the S5 pro. As I'm just an amateur can someone out there explain how to setup a correct custom white balance. I've been pointing the camera at white walls/objects but this has only resulted in correct colours a couple of times. I find that I have to use the default presets which sometimes don't give me the colours I'm actually seeing.

I read on another thread (which I can't find) that some people carry around a white card and use that to help set the white balance.

Up until recently I was relying solely on the auto white balance preset but I've found that this really only works on sunny clear days and sometimes at night. Before I bought this camera I read that the auto white balance was particularly good with this camera but now that I've discovered how dramatically the other presets can change an image I find that hard to believe.

Do you need to turn the camera off and on when moving to different locations to reset the white balance for each location or is that nonsense?
 
Only had my S5 for a short time. Have played with the WB using a grey card which I found pretty good. Recently brought an 'expodisc' which is very accurate in setting the WB. You don't need to turn the camera on and off to change WB settings. I think you can actually store up to 5 custom WB settings.
Lots has been written about WB settings on this forum by 'daypaws'.
I would suggest you read some of his posts on the subject.
 
OK. Here goes.

For custom white balance (CWB from now on), I assume first that you have read the manual so you know how to store the CWB that you get by pointing at a white or grey object. I have an S3 so the actual buttons you have to press may be different on the S5. But the principle is identical.

I you want your CWB for shooting outdoors, I recommend my own special method of setting the CWB. Lots of people seem to like it. It allows your camera to depict the nature of the ambient light rather than neutralising it. So it makes sunny days look sunny, sunsets look like sunsets and so on, rather than all look neutral and digital.

You only need to set up my CWB once. You need a Kodak grey card (from photo stores) and a cloudy overcast day. I describe exactly what to do here:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1020&message=28006509

Once you have stored that CWB, use it in all outdoor shooting. Don't shoot the grey card again when it is sunny. That CWB also works very well indoors with flash.

On the other hand, if you want a CWB to neutralise the colour of the ambient light, so that sunny days and cloudy days give you pretty much the same colour, then you need to set a new CWB every time you shoot. In that case you would set a CWB on a Kodak grey card in the light in which you are shooting. Sunsets would come out the same as ordinary sunshine and the same as ordinary cloudy days. Studio shooters usually set a new CWB for every shoot to be sure they are neutralising the colour of their studio lights.

It is important to use a completely neutral card. The Kodak grey card is ideal. Use the grey side. A card does not need to be white. It just needs to be neutral. White walls, white paper, shirts, handkerchiefs etc will all give you a tinted CWB which you may or may not like.

AWB is a movable feast. I never use AWB and, despite what anyone says about how good it is on the S5, I would never use AWB. The reason is that the camera sets a new AWB for every shot you take. It is not consistent from shot to shot. And it is designed to neutralise the ambient light. Some people like that. I do not. But it is up to you.

I go into a lot more detail, a fair bit of theory and many examples, in this very long thread:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1020&message=19298294

Finally, the expodisc. You can use an expodisc. There is not much point in doing so unless you want a CWB that neutralises the ambient light. If you do, then the way you use it is to put the expodisc over the lens like a filter and point the camera straight at the light source to set a new CWB each time you shoot.

The expodisc gives a more magenta CWB than a Kodak grey card.

Regarding your question about turning the camera on and off. That has no effect. AWB is set again every time you press the shutter. CWB and all the presets come up the same every time whether you turn the camera off and on or not.

The reason that the presets look different in different light on different days and at different times of day is covered in my long theory thread that I link above. It also explains why they don't give you the colours you are seeing.

If you want advice about how to set CWB for specific types of shooting, just ask.

--
******************************************************
I have a home on pbase
http://www.pbase.com/claypaws/
If you have the time to look
******************************************************
 
Claypaws,

You're a machine man! maybe this post of mine is a bit "of the rules" but I wanted it to figure on my thread history. :-)

Thanks for another great post
Regards
--
Paulo Abreu,

'It is not worthy to make a video of your life - just keep the best moments in pictures!'
 
Paulo Abreu said:
Claypaws,

You're a machine man! maybe this post of mine is a bit "of the rules"
but I wanted it to figure on my thread history. :-)
Click to expand...
I find that "bookmark" usually works quite well ;-)

But I know what you mean. It is useful to find things in "my threads"

Thanks for the appreciation!

I shall also post some images on Monday, with any luck.
--
******************************************************
I have a home on pbase
http://www.pbase.com/claypaws/
If you have the time to look
******************************************************
 
Paulo Abreu said:
terrysm said:
Lots has been written about WB settings on this forum by 'daypaws'.
Click to expand...
"day", night, clay ... who cares? :-)

Regards

--
Paulo Abreu,
Click to expand...
Paulo, I nearly commented on the error myself but it was nice of terrysm to refer to my threads, even if by the wrong name.

I think it is what happens when people set their screen resolution to some huge value.

Sometimes I clarify

c l a y p a w s

Perhaps I should have chosen Claypaws with a capital C.
--
******************************************************
I have a home on pbase
http://www.pbase.com/claypaws/
If you have the time to look
******************************************************
 
I tried shooting with the grey card a few times but I find it not so nice, the color temperature is always around 6000K way to red for me.

or do I do something wrong ??

kind regards
arthur de smidt
 
hos said:
I tried shooting with the grey card a few times but I find it not so
nice, the color temperature is always around 6000K way to red for me.

or do I do something wrong ??
Click to expand...
It is hard to answer that unless you explain exactly what you did.

Did you use my method? Or did you set a new CWB with the grey card in the light in which you were shooting?

What light were you shooting in? Sunshine, cloud?

What time of day?

Was it a Kodak grey card?

Are you sure that you stored the CWB and that you then set the camera to use that stored CWB?

--
******************************************************
I have a home on pbase
http://www.pbase.com/claypaws/
If you have the time to look
******************************************************
 
I use the Claypaws method since 3 months now for portraits (with and w/o flash) and landscapes and I am (to say the least) very happy with it.
It is my "Auto-WB" setting now ;-)))

I am still convince that the AWB from the S5 is very good indeed (especially compared to other SLRs). In case of mixed lights you cannot beat it !
But for the rest the WB can be improved A LOT with the Claypaws method.
IMHO people not satisfyied with the S5-colors are using the AWB.

Dear Claypaws if you read these lines: THANK YOU !
And ... a question: did you tried your method with both S3 and S5 ?

I can remember a S3-thread where you seemed to prefer a lot the S3 colors compared to the S5 ones.
Was it with or without your method ?

A nice day to All of you !
Olivier
 
Saboli said:
I use the Claypaws method since 3 months now for portraits (with and
w/o flash) and landscapes and I am (to say the least) very happy with
it.
Click to expand...
I am glad you like it!
Saboli said:
Dear Claypaws if you read these lines: THANK YOU !
Click to expand...
Thank YOU!
Saboli said:
And ... a question: did you tried your method with both S3 and S5 ?
Click to expand...
Personally, I have only tried it with the S3. But I am so convinced of the theory behind it that I would be confident to use it on any camera.

I had some private email correspondence with somebody who applied my method to an S3, S2, S5, several Nikon and several Canon cameras (not all his own!). He felt that it greatly improved the colour on all of them.
Saboli said:
I can remember a S3-thread where you seemed to prefer a lot the S3
colors compared to the S5 ones.
Was it with or without your method ?
Click to expand...
That is a good question. I was judging only by images I had seen posted from the S5. At that time, few people were using my method on the S5. Probably therefore, I was judging the S5 by its AWB colour.

I would be interested to see more images from the S5 using my CWB method now that more people seem to be using it with the S5.

I also very much like S2 colour (though I do not own an S2 either).

--
******************************************************
I have a home on pbase
http://www.pbase.com/claypaws/
If you have the time to look
******************************************************
 
Thank you Claude. I usually enjoy writing them too!
--
******************************************************
I have a home on pbase
http://www.pbase.com/claypaws/
If you have the time to look
******************************************************
 
nop I had read about you're cwb manual before so I bought a gray card from the store. I waited for a cloudy day to make the shoot and selected that shot into the cwb.

I also tried it a few other times , also with flash to see what happens but one thing was pretty much the same and that was that the color temperature was always around 6000K

can you perhaps tell me what you're color temperature is when you load the picture which is shot with the gray card in for instance lightroom ?

I did this shooting with the gray card setting but find it became to red
http://thehospages.com/pictures/misc/2008-06-01-Laura_Stavinoha/

kind regards
arthur de smidt
 
hos said:
nop I had read about you're cwb manual before so I bought a gray card
from the store. I waited for a cloudy day to make the shoot and
selected that shot into the cwb.
Click to expand...
OK, fair enough.
hos said:
I also tried it a few other times , also with flash to see what
happens but one thing was pretty much the same and that was that the
color temperature was always around 6000K
Click to expand...
6000K seems about right to me. I would expect something around 6000K-6500K
hos said:
can you perhaps tell me what you're color temperature is when you
load the picture which is shot with the gray card in for instance
lightroom ?
Click to expand...
I do not have Lightroom. When I take a raw file that was shot with my stored CWB and load it into ACR, ACR tells me that the colour temp of the WB is 5750K.

If I load the same raw file into HS-V2, it does not indicate the colour temp of the applied WB. But if I adjust the colour temp until the preview most closely resembles the "as shot" image, then the colour temp is about 6500K.

Unfortunately, deducing colour temperature from an image or from WB settings depends on applying an algorithm. And not all software will use the same algorithm.

It is more difficult to match the appearance in s7Raw by setting a colour temperature. I could not manage to get a close match at any colour temperature setting.

I have no idea what you can conclude from all that!

I had a look at the images in your link. I quite like the colour there. Because those images contain flesh tones, it is difficult to judge the effect of WB. I think that raw processors identify skin tones and do special things with them. A lot of people say that the S5 produces reddish skin tones. I tend to prefer those to the more yellow Nikon skin tones.

But analysing the CMYK values of the skin tones you have posted shows them as higher in M than Y. People who say you can judge correct skin tones by numbers would say that those skin tones are indeed too high in magenta. They usually say skin should be higher in Y than M. And they usually quite like Nikon skin tones.

I think that this particular issue is far more complex than WB alone.

It might be that my CWB method does not help you to get the skin tone that you want from the S5. I developed it as a method to depict the ambient light in landscape photography. If you are trying to get a particular rendition of skin tones, I think you will need to explore other aspects in addition to WB.
--
******************************************************
I have a home on pbase
http://www.pbase.com/claypaws/
If you have the time to look
******************************************************
 
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