Preset White balance???

[tom yam soup]

Hi peeps,

How do u get the correct White balance in diff ambience. And how to preset the white balance. Sorry for such a noob Qs:sweat: Pls enlighten. Thanks.

 

[cantaresg]

In the menu, look for the option for white balance. If you do not know where it is, you may need to refer to your manual. Usually the default is auto white balance, which works well in a number of situations. Then you just choose the white balance that you want.

For example, if you are taking a picture under bright daylight, you may choose daylight as your white balance. If you are taking a picture under sunset, you may choose to use the sunset white balance. Suppose you wish to emphasize on the orange tinge of the sunset, however, you can choose to "fool" the system and use daylight for sunset photos.

If you wish to use custom white balance, use a white card or any white surface that you wish to appear white in your picture. Take a picture of the white surface. Depending on the camera you are using, you may need to fill the frame with the white surface. Choose the custom white balance option, and choose the picture that you have just taken for the white balance.

I hope that helps. And experts, please correct me if I explained anything wrongly.

 

[Adelfin]

although most preset white balances work well, i'd really suggest taking ur photos in raw so that u can manually adjust the white balance later... it's a little more troublesome in post processing, but it gives u more control, and u don't have to think about the white balance everytime u shoot... just have to expose correctly...

 

[cantaresg]

That is what I do now. But not all cameras supports raw format, and sometimes you just do not have the time to post process all the pictures. For me, as a good starting point, take a few shots with the raw format, throw it into the default software or photoshop, experiment with the various white balance setting to see the effects. Once you are used to the effects, start to do white balancing with the camera settings (perhaps using the raw format?) until you are proficient.

 

[AQVA]

y not learn to use colour temperature? the higher the value the warmer it is.. the lower the value the cooler it is. try different temperature value settings for various different conditions ur in. personally i prefer to use temperature settings as it is easier for me to guage wut value i should use roughly.

 

[cantaresg]

That's a good idea, but my camera does not have that option. Haha. So I have to stick to the raw or the custom WB.

 

[espion]

Custom WB should work all the time.

And post processing is pretty straight forward too if there is a neutral reference (eg Adobe Camera Raw v 3.7 allow you to sample such a spot and then you correct WB by numbers via Temperature and Tint: Temperature to adjust Red (+)/Blue (-) and Tint, Green (-)/Magenta (+).)

Only prob is when there is no white reference, then either you guess with your eyes or rely on whatever WB settings you used at capture.

But most of the time there is something neutral, need to hunt in your picture and just the tiniest spot will do.

 

[miniUltraman]

Get a Zerocs white balance filter for custom white balance :lovegrin:
http://www.zerocs.com/english/product/product.php

 

[Adelfin]

i believe u have the option to save both jpeg and raw?

do that and experiment until u get it... in case ur white balance is off and the jpeg isn't good... u'll still have the raw to fall back on.... this would be the best way to learn how to set custom white balances... sometimes u may not have the time to set WB so u will just have to rely on raw to PP later....

 

[catchlights]

in most of the conditions, auto WB are working fine, you also can use preset white balance to get close to what you want.

but shooting conditions has many types, once you have a max lighting, eg, daylight + tungsten, the white balance will be very tricky.

to use custom white balance is good too, if you don't want to or can't do any post process later.

to have more control, you can shoot in raw and fine tune it later, provided you have the time and resources.

so if you are looking for a magic formula which is cheap, time saving, and able to fix all problems, sorry to tell you that isn't any.