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Let's talk about custom White balance

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as all ready mentioned, use a pringles lid..I have one nestled in my bag, and it works great....
BigMike said:
I thought this would be another good topic for all of us just
getting to know our Rebels a little more intricately. Getting
correct WB can be difficult under certain lighting situations, and
there several different methods mentioned in the book and in this
forum on how to handle these situations. There is Auto-WB,
preset-WB, and custom WB. Custom is where it seems many are getting
good results under difficult lighting. However, which method works
the best for most of you? There are suggestions to use everything
from grey cards, to coffee filters, to cheese cloth. And how far
from the camera should you have the object your going to shoot, to
set the custom WB? If some of you that have experience with custom
WB could explain the correct method for setting custom WB, it could
help a lot of us get a head start using it. Thanks!
Click to expand...
--

tip: If people look at you funny while laughing to yourself, just point to your head and say 'HA HA !! Them voices sure crack me up sometimes!!'
 
the lid makes sure that the light is evenly distributed, which for me has generally given slightly better results than shooting a white wall or white piece of paper. most of the time I actually point the lens/lid directly into the light (which you can't do without the lid)
BigMike said:
Your probably right. I wonder what effect the lid has if your
shooting something white anyway? Maybe it adds the 18% grey factor?
Click to expand...
--



My Photography: http://nubui.com/gallery/newcam

New 300D users, please read the 300D FAQ first! Chances are that your questions have already been answered: http://www.marius.org/cgi-bin/fom?file=68
 
Brian said:
as all ready mentioned, use a pringles lid..I have one nestled in
my bag, and it works great....
Click to expand...
And then you just put the lid on the lens, and snap a picture of the room lighting, such as a table lamp if that is the light source?
 
Michael Louis said:
Upon further consideration of your statement that most of your
photos have mixed lights ie. light off rocks and buildings etc. I
personally find that logic a bit faulty. Lets say it is the sun
that is illuminating all these things, A CWB of the Sun pinpoints
the color of the sun at that moment regardless of what it's
bouncing off of. Isn't this correct?
Click to expand...
No; this is the reason we use WB at all. Sunlight reflects off a leaf and all but the green spectrum is absorbed. This is why the plant looks green to us. When you're shooting in a deep forest with a thick canopy on a bright day, most of the light that reaches the ground will have been reflected off several leaves, and have a green bias and a diffuse character. If a river is wide enough, you'll find a break in the canopy, with full-on sunlight reaching the ground. Landscapes have a way of being more interesting and dynamic when you include both types of lighting in the photo:





The question is whether you would convert these with the sunny setting or the deep-forest setting; if you use a grey-card the question becomes whether you place that card in the sunlight or in the shade. You can take a reading of both, but if you shoot RAW mode you don't have to decide which one ( or what balance of the two ) to use for your CWB point until the "digital darkroom" stage.
 
banzai said:
If you get the WB correct at the time of the shoot, then you're
saving yourself a step in post processing. Also you might not have
a neutral target to use in your pic(s) to set the WB in your RAW
processor. You'd have to either make sure that you shoot a neutral
target for calibration or get the WB right in-camera or - the worst
case scenario - just guess in the RAW processor.

Or, as I always stress, don't worry about getting perfect WB. I
only worry about it when the lighting is terrible - gym lights make
human skin look sickly green. But there are plenty of times when
"incorrect" WB is vastly superior to "correct" WB.

Test the theory: find a beautiful sunset. Custom WB. Shoot. Prepare
to be disappointed.
Click to expand...
 
Jordan Robbins said:
I picked up an expodisc a year ago for $30 used and I dont go
anywhere without it. It is simply incredible. The pringles lid
supposedly works almost as well but I never actually tried it
seeing that I have the real thing.
Click to expand...
And you get between-photo snacks into the bargain. Wondering what makes the expodisc that much better.

regards.
 
is what we all know: with Raw you can change the WB at will. I thought you were going to address multiple light sources as they bounce off different objects. What you described to me was more like a definition of how things have color, not the color of light illuminating these objects of different hues.
Forrest said:
Forrest41926 said:
Upon further consideration of your statement that most of your
photos have mixed lights ie. light off rocks and buildings etc. I
personally find that logic a bit faulty. Lets say it is the sun
that is illuminating all these things, A CWB of the Sun pinpoints
the color of the sun at that moment regardless of what it's
bouncing off of. Isn't this correct?
Click to expand...
No; this is the reason we use WB at all. Sunlight reflects off a
leaf and all but the green spectrum is absorbed. This is why the
plant looks green to us. When you're shooting in a deep forest
with a thick canopy on a bright day, most of the light that reaches
the ground will have been reflected off several leaves, and have a
green bias and a diffuse character. If a river is wide enough,
you'll find a break in the canopy, with full-on sunlight reaching
the ground. Landscapes have a way of being more interesting and
dynamic when you include both types of lighting in the photo:





The question is whether you would convert these with the sunny
setting or the deep-forest setting; if you use a grey-card the
question becomes whether you place that card in the sunlight or in
the shade. You can take a reading of both, but if you shoot RAW
mode you don't have to decide which one ( or what balance of the
two ) to use for your CWB point until the "digital darkroom" stage.
Click to expand...
 
phototakeouter said:
Jordan Robbins said:
I picked up an expodisc a year ago for $30 used and I dont go
anywhere without it. It is simply incredible. The pringles lid
supposedly works almost as well but I never actually tried it
seeing that I have the real thing.
Click to expand...
And you get between-photo snacks into the bargain. Wondering what
makes the expodisc that much better.

regards.
Click to expand...
And with the name, bigmike, those snacks could be the deal breaker :)
 
I havent compared them recently but in the past I have found the exposdisc to give a tad better results than the pringels container or coffee filters. More importantly you cant use the pringles lid or the coffee filters to make the camera into an incident light meter. The $30 was actually a steal... normally costs between $80 and $160 depending on the size.

-Jordan
phototakeouter said:
Jordan Robbins said:
I picked up an expodisc a year ago for $30 used and I dont go
anywhere without it. It is simply incredible. The pringles lid
supposedly works almost as well but I never actually tried it
seeing that I have the real thing.
Click to expand...
And you get between-photo snacks into the bargain. Wondering what
makes the expodisc that much better.

regards.
Click to expand...
--
-Jordan
 
Michael Louis said:
Forrest said:
Michael Louis said:
Upon further consideration of your statement that most of your
photos have mixed lights ie. light off rocks and buildings etc. I
personally find that logic a bit faulty. Lets say it is the sun
that is illuminating all these things, A CWB of the Sun pinpoints
the color of the sun at that moment regardless of what it's
bouncing off of. Isn't this correct?
Click to expand...
No; this is the reason we use WB at all. Sunlight reflects off a
leaf and all but the green spectrum is absorbed. This is why the
plant looks green to us. When you're shooting in a deep forest
with a thick canopy on a bright day, most of the light that reaches
the ground will have been reflected off several leaves, and have a
green bias and a diffuse character. If a river is wide enough,
you'll find a break in the canopy, with full-on sunlight reaching
the ground. Landscapes have a way of being more interesting and
dynamic when you include both types of lighting in the photo:





The question is whether you would convert these with the sunny
setting or the deep-forest setting; if you use a grey-card the
question becomes whether you place that card in the sunlight or in
the shade. You can take a reading of both, but if you shoot RAW
mode you don't have to decide which one ( or what balance of the
two ) to use for your CWB point until the "digital darkroom" stage.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--

fredyr I use raw and PSCS. I leave the white balance on auto and don't even change anything in photoshop, just move the sliders up or down holding alt. key till the historgram is right. Am I doing it the wrong way?
I leave the white balance as shot but as I move the sliders it goes to custom
 
Tried shooting gymnastics indoors and the lighting was horrible, had to use iso 1600 to get shutter speed of 250-320 at f/2 with both my 135 f/2 and 50 f/1.8.

I did the coffee filter trick, however the pics still look funky to me. Here are a few as taken and also with the quick fix appied from photoshop

http://www.fototime.com/inv/4CC97040A1075BF

I did take a few with iso 800 at a a lower shutter speed 1/100 or 1/60 and they were not that bad, maybe next time I will sacrifice some blur in motion for better quality ?

Did I get the custom WB right ?

Still learning....
BigMike said:
I thought this would be another good topic for all of us just
getting to know our Rebels a little more intricately. Getting
correct WB can be difficult under certain lighting situations, and
there several different methods mentioned in the book and in this
forum on how to handle these situations. There is Auto-WB,
preset-WB, and custom WB. Custom is where it seems many are getting
good results under difficult lighting. However, which method works
the best for most of you? There are suggestions to use everything
from grey cards, to coffee filters, to cheese cloth. And how far
from the camera should you have the object your going to shoot, to
set the custom WB? If some of you that have experience with custom
WB could explain the correct method for setting custom WB, it could
help a lot of us get a head start using it. Thanks!
Click to expand...
 
What I got from it was, often single source light carries a cast - and RAW through temp and other controls lets you selectively apply it to taste in mixed lighting (with filtered and heavily reflected light being considered mixed). It also depends on if you're after scene reproduction or image creation. ~ m²
Michael Louis said:
Forrest said:
Michael Louis said:
Upon further consideration of your statement that most of your
photos have mixed lights ie. light off rocks and buildings etc. I
personally find that logic a bit faulty. Lets say it is the sun
that is illuminating all these things, A CWB of the Sun pinpoints
the color of the sun at that moment regardless of what it's
bouncing off of. Isn't this correct?
Click to expand...
No; this is the reason we use WB at all. Sunlight reflects off a
leaf and all but the green spectrum is absorbed. This is why the
plant looks green to us. When you're shooting in a deep forest
with a thick canopy on a bright day, most of the light that reaches
the ground will have been reflected off several leaves, and have a
green bias and a diffuse character. If a river is wide enough,
you'll find a break in the canopy, with full-on sunlight reaching
the ground. Landscapes have a way of being more interesting and
dynamic when you include both types of lighting in the photo:





The question is whether you would convert these with the sunny
setting or the deep-forest setting; if you use a grey-card the
question becomes whether you place that card in the sunlight or in
the shade. You can take a reading of both, but if you shoot RAW
mode you don't have to decide which one ( or what balance of the
two ) to use for your CWB point until the "digital darkroom" stage.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--

If alcohol kills brain cells, then the process of natural selection will thin the 'herd' by eradicating the slowest & weakest... thus making me smarter! - Cliff Claven's 'Buffalo Theory' http://rhodeymark.instantlogic.com

 
Could someone just take the referential WB pictures (RAW or JPG) and put them on pbase.com so other people can download and put them on their CF cards and use them as custum WB ? I did that on my two CF cards and it works fine. Tomorrow I'll put those pictures on my server to share them with you guys.

If you shoot in RAW mode don't forget to post both files ( .RAW and .CRW) otherwise the camera won't see it.

IMO, a perfect 18% WB picture should content RGB(209,209,209) in all the 3 channels (you can verify that by using color picker in Photoshop), why ? - Because pure white (in 8 bit/channel) is RGB(255,255,255) and pure black is RGB(0,0,0), so an 18% white channel should be 255 - 255 * 18% = 209, am I wrong ?

Another thing, don't try to take a picture in JPG mode modify it in Photoshop save it and put it back on your CF to be used as WB picture, it's not going to work, the camera won't see it.

Hope this helps.

Regards
BigMike said:
I thought this would be another good topic for all of us just
getting to know our Rebels a little more intricately. Getting
correct WB can be difficult under certain lighting situations, and
there several different methods mentioned in the book and in this
forum on how to handle these situations. There is Auto-WB,
preset-WB, and custom WB. Custom is where it seems many are getting
good results under difficult lighting. However, which method works
the best for most of you? There are suggestions to use everything
from grey cards, to coffee filters, to cheese cloth. And how far
from the camera should you have the object your going to shoot, to
set the custom WB? If some of you that have experience with custom
WB could explain the correct method for setting custom WB, it could
help a lot of us get a head start using it. Thanks!
Click to expand...
 
This is what I use to do:
  • Shoot in RAW
  • Besides my normal photos, I take an additional test photo of a grey card, business card, pringles lid or your favorite choice of neutral subject under the same light than the rest of the photos
  • In RAW conversion (I use C1 for raw workflow), I select the test photo and set the white balance using the neutral subject (with minor corrections if needed) and then I copy the WB settings to the rest of the photos taken under the same lighting conditions
Regards,
xvrbx
Bones said:
BigMike said:
Bakul Vyas said:
DWBell said:
Stick an opaque grey Pringles lid over the end of the lens
Click to expand...
I am a bigginer.
After getting shot through Pringle lid / Coffee filter, what is next?
Can you please explain the post - process in detail? or suggest
some good site.

This may sound funny to pros - but I am a bigginer.

Thanks in advance

Bakul Vyas
Click to expand...
Decide on what your white source will be - filter, lid, white paper
etc. Then put your camera on manual focus, and shoot a picture of
the object, such as the white paper, so it fills at least the
center of the shot. If using the lid or filter, put those on the
end of the lens, and point the camera at a light source, and snap a
shot. Then, go into the camera menu, and select custom WB. It will
bring up your pictures, so select the one you just shot, and hit
the set button and exit the setup menu. When you are ready to
shoot, push the WB button (the bottom button of the four way
selector on the back) and turn the jog wheel on top the camera to
select the custom WB setting. Then just shoot your pictures. Don't
forget to set the ISO back to auto when you are finished shooting
with the custom WB.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Addison said:
Could someone just take the referential WB pictures (RAW or JPG)
and put them on pbase.com so other people can download and put them
on their CF cards and use them as custum WB ? I did that on my two
CF cards and it works fine. Tomorrow I'll put those pictures on my
server to share them with you guys.
If you shoot in RAW mode don't forget to post both files ( .RAW and .CRW) otherwise the camera won't see it.
IMO, a perfect 18% WB picture should content RGB(209,209,209) in
all the 3 channels (you can verify that by using color picker in
Photoshop), why ? - Because pure white (in 8 bit/channel) is
RGB(255,255,255) and pure black is RGB(0,0,0), so an 18% white
channel should be 255 - 255 * 18% = 209, am I wrong ?
Another thing, don't try to take a picture in JPG mode modify it in
Photoshop save it and put it back on your CF to be used as WB
picture, it's not going to work, the camera won't see it.

Hope this helps.
Click to expand...
I fully understand (but have rarely and with varying success) used a white sheet of paper to set custom wb. I'm willing to accept that the limited success was my lack of experience, not a failure on the camera's part.

However, each time there is a white balance oriented thread, I come across posts that say to shoot an 18% gray card instead. How can shooting a gray card set your white balance?

--
Kate
 
Michael Louis said:
is what we all know: with Raw you can change the WB at will. I
thought you were going to address multiple light sources as they
bounce off different objects. What you described to me was more
like a definition of how things have color, not the color of light
illuminating these objects of different hues.
Click to expand...
Sorry: are you making a point not to understand? If a green leaf is green because it absorbs all of the light that strikes it except green, what does that do to the light that does get reflected? Shooting in a forest, this is what the lighting in the shadows is made of - light that's been reflected off something else, and adopted a color cast.

Why does your camera have a sunny and an overcast WB setting? In both cases the light is provided by the sun...

In a landscape, if I'm concerned about WB I'll take a reading in the open sun, another in the shadows, and possibly another if there's another imprtant lightsource acting on my picture. Then I'll experiment with all the WB references I shot, and come up with the best all-around compromise for the entire frame. In a cityscape - which I shoot at night - I usually click on/toward the edge of the lightsources and strong reflections for a WB reading. But in almost all cases it's more complicated than saying "light = 6,500K" and expecting perfection. If you really want the most accurate WB you can accomplish, you need to understand all of the light acting on a scene and then either find the best compromise ( what I would recommend ), or develope your image in slices.

That's when you're trying to make sensiometrecally accurate images that mimic the way humans see. More often we want to make pleasing photographs, and wind up adding a warm cast ( slightly red, slightly yellow ) to an accurately balanced, but perhaps dull, starting point. Velvia was hugely popular, but not for the strictest color accuracy.
 
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