Shutterstock Photographer Forum :: View topic

mikeledray · Posted: Thu May 14, 2009 10:46 am

Ok Cats and Kittens, here is another Serious thread that hopefully Everyone can learn from.

White Balance, How do You set it?

What do you use and how do You set your white balance in your camera?

I see on the market, Grey Cards, White Cards, Grey, Black and white combo Target cards, and cards of the Spectrum of all the Primary Colors.
All being sold as the One and Only way to set your correct Balance / Color Balance.

Whats the Best Way to get consistant Correct Color and White Balance?

jmpaget · Joined: 05 Sep 2007 Posts: 1190 Location: UK

The WhiBal's are pretty good i found. I only use it when out of the studio though as you get to know what WB you are shooting under different lighting setups.

uzuri · Joined: 12 Jun 2007 Posts: 520 Location: The Netherlands

I like the Whibal as well, altough I don't use it too often. White balance on auto and shooting RAW does the trick most of the time for me.

jps · Joined: 08 Feb 2007 Posts: 12094 Location: Denmark

IS there such a thing as correct wb?
hm? the backgrounds in isolations are pure white.
But else? You might be in situations where you want to cool or warm up a picture, or even reduce the colour in a single channel.

But anyway. Smart way to get a correct wb is to shoot a 18% grey piece of something, fx a standardized grey card.....
and then open both this pic and the other from the series and select the gray from the grey card and transfer it to the pictures that should be corrected.
Thats the pro way. But who cares? I like to tweak them a bit. So therefore I get rejections. Then I tweak them back and they are OK.
Thats life.

ccaetano · Posted: Thu May 14, 2009 10:58 am

First, I set in camera default setting for the current light conditions I'm in. Then, I take a shot and see it in the camera screen and fine-tune WB if needed. Other correction will be done in PS.

yaromir · Joined: 11 May 2006 Posts: 2276 Location: NCG

When you shoot RAW (and you always should) WB set in camera doesn't matter.

kaycee · Posted: Thu May 14, 2009 11:26 am

I know the function of a grey card but never used one....
While shooting in raw and some knowledge of color temp will do the trick for me.
Sometimes I see a picture of mine with correct WB but I don't like the colortemp. so I change it to a warmer or cooler colortemp...
But I keep the white,white as possible no tweak to red or blue,green or yellow only if it bennefits the image.

jmpaget · Joined: 05 Sep 2007 Posts: 1190 Location: UK

karimala · Joined: 04 Sep 2005 Posts: 2218 Location: Sacramento, CA

I use the Lastolite light balancing disk before every shoot, because I don't like the results of fixing stuff in RAW.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/501661-REG/Lastolite_LL_LR1252_Waterproof_EZ_Balance_.html

wholeoh · Joined: 16 Apr 2009 Posts: 30 Location: MIA, So-Flo

dumb question here... when shooting an isolated object, shooting RAW helps how?

jmpaget · Joined: 05 Sep 2007 Posts: 1190 Location: UK

britishstock · Joined: 14 Jul 2006 Posts: 391

Photoshow · Posted: Thu May 14, 2009 5:57 pm

Directions for setting a custom white balance for YOUR CAMERA may be found in YOUR CAMERA MANUAL

When shooting in the studio I tend to set a kelvin temp of 5600 and then if I want warmer or cooler I simply can make minor adjustments in RAW before I convert.

kenny123 · Posted: Thu May 14, 2009 6:04 pm

Here's how you set custom white balance for Nikons"

Select a neutral coloured object to set your white balance
It’s best to avoid using a white target. The camera prefers grey.( Print yourself a grey card: In photoshop-
File> New Click on background square in toolbox
select: Red 127; Green 127; Blue 127 from color chart-Print)

In white balance menu select "Custom"> "Preset"
select "measure"
Press shutter release halfway to return to shooting mode
press WB button until a blinking "Pre" appears in control panel and viewfinder
frame reference (grey card) so it fills the frame
and press shutter release all the way down (Camera won't take picture)
If camera was able to register a value for white balance "Good" will flash in control panel and GD will flash in viewfinder
If lighting is too dark or bright "no g d" will flash in viewfinder and control panel

If you use white in direct sunlight you'll always get a "No Gd" response from the camera because the Matrix meter is rendering it white instead of grey. Thus the trick is to select the centre-weighted meter when using a white reference in bright light and you'll get "Good" from a camera. Remember to set back to Matrix metering as soon as you're done.

Regards, Ken

jeffbanke · Posted: Thu May 14, 2009 6:55 pm

Mike,
Give up shooting JPG, set the camera on 5600K (one less thing to think about in the heat of the moment) shoot RAW and fix everthing in the RAW processor when you have the comfort of a Southern Comfort and your arm chair to think about what temperature you want the image to be!

Here is an example of what I mean
As shot

As I wanted it

Now that is a radical teperature shift impossible with JPG's, OK so I added a moon for greater realism:)

Oh, BTW, thanks for the op to pimp once again mon ami!