Custom White Balance

futureal33

futureal33

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Hiya,

This is my first post here and im looking forward to posting more as I hopefully get some decent photos to upload and discuss etc :)

My first question is regarding a custom wb.
I have read that for best results a custom wb is required.... To this end I have tried to do this, but I have one very noobish question which hopefully someone will be able to answer for me in a matter of seconds!

When taking the picture of a white or grey surface to set as the white, should I use flash? Or should I just adjust my settings to get the EV to around 0? What if the place I am taking photos is very dark (nightclub photography is what I will be doing) - how can I take a photo of a white surface to tell the camera what WB to use if the white surface is dark or has coloured lighting reflecting off it etc?

And finally.... why can either a white OR a grey card be used? Surely the 2 would give completely different results?

I am looking to produce photos for a local club with similar attributes to Till-Late photos, ie plenty of ambient light coming through and bright colourful photos.

Thanks in advance :)
 
You should use flash only if you are then going to take the photo needed with flash.

I am unsure about the rest :popcorn:
 
To set the right white balance you are effectively measuring the temperature of the light under certain conditions. Therefore, if you are going to be using flash for the actual photo then you should use flash when shooting for the white balance.

In a nightclub however the ambient lighting will change quite dramatically as the lights flash so you may be able to get the WB for your flash set correctly but still have to correct for the ambient light.
 
futureal33 said:
Ok, so if Im taking photos for the rest of the night WITH flash (which I will be, albeit the standard 400D flash) then I should set the wb taking a photo of a white wall for instance using flash?
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Yes but as mentioned above, it is likely to change depending on what lights are being used at the moment you take the image.

I am not a night club photographer but I would suggest setting it to auto then adjusting later by shooting raw.
 
Fash and daylight have the same colour temperature, so there's no reson why you shouldn't set your WB for daylight and subsequently use flash or vicky verky.

White is a known value as far as your metering system is concerned, so regardless of the colour of cast falling on the whites, by taking a custom wb reading from a white card in the light you intend to shoot in, you're effectively 'telling' the meter "This is what white looks like" - the camera does the rest.

An 18% grey card is also a known value for your meter so works in much the same way as a white card, although arguably more accurate as the grey card takes note of the red, green and blue values in the overall light.

As Rob says, things get tricky where you're mixing light sources like daylight and tungsten, or flash and tungsten.
 
-Rob- said:
I've always used a grey card to do a custom white balance. The inside of your camera bag is probably 18% grey to use that.
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Sorry to keep asking the same question but.... if you were taking a photo of the inside of your camera bag in a very dark room, would you use flash to light it up? The reason I ask this is because as soon as the flash lights it up, it is just going to look white... isnt it?

I am taking these photos on a 50mm f1.8 Canon lens so I have to be pretty close in on the subject to ensure that the viewfinder is filled with grey and doesnt have any other areas on it!
 
futureal33 said:
Sorry to keep asking the same question but.... if you were taking a photo of the inside of your camera bag in a very dark room, would you use flash to light it up? The reason I ask this is because as soon as the flash lights it up, it is just going to look white... isnt it?

I am taking these photos on a 50mm f1.8 Canon lens so I have to be pretty close in on the subject to ensure that the viewfinder is filled with grey and doesnt have any other areas on it!
Click to expand...

It will only be white if you overexpose.
 
futureal33 said:
Sorry to keep asking the same question but.... if you were taking a photo of the inside of your camera bag in a very dark room, would you use flash to light it up? The reason I ask this is because as soon as the flash lights it up, it is just going to look white... isnt it?

I am taking these photos on a 50mm f1.8 Canon lens so I have to be pretty close in on the subject to ensure that the viewfinder is filled with grey and doesnt have any other areas on it!
Click to expand...

If you photograph a grey surface with flash it will only look white if you grossly over-flash it. Try setting the camera on AV or even 'P' and the flash on ETTL - you should find that it copes very well with using flash at very close distances. If your test shot is over-flashed, just dial down the flash power until you get a natural result.
 
FR33, dont dismiss the Auto WB / RAW Option.
Yes, its good to explore and utilise all the camera settings, but if you need to ask these questions on here, i'm sorry but you will more than likely risk getting "unusable" shots in the process.
My personal advice would be to play with the settings and get used to it in a non-critical (stable) environment. Also, why on earth would you need a custom white balance in a nightclub environment, where colour values will be continually changing? (i'm not dismisssing the need, but would really like to know the value - honest!!!)

Good luck
 
futureal33 said:
Sorry, i just dont get it!
What white balance should I take the photo with to set the WB?
I just tried messing about on different modes with flash to get a picture of the inside of my camera bag, but everything either comes out totally overexposed or dull and too dark!
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I think you're confusing white balance with a basic exposure problem. The fact that your test flash shots are coming out over or under-exposed is a flash settings problem. White balance is a separate issue altogether.
 
Personally if I was going to be using a flash for my main lighting, I would set my WB to the flash setting. A custom WB is useful when you are shooting under fixed lighting of an unknown colour temperature.
 
-Rob- said:
I've always used a grey card to do a custom white balance. The inside of your camera bag is probably 18% grey to use that.
Click to expand...

i like that tip Rob.... this is why i love this place!! :thumbs:
 
You only need a custom white balance when the colour of the light is unknown. Since you are using flash, the colour is known. So set it to the flash symbol. On the other hand, since the camera knows you have the flash on, when set to auto white balance most cameras will automatically switch to flash anyway.

On the other hand, what you might want to do is balance the colour of the flash with the colour of the ambient light. Given that in a club situation that could be any colour at all, and could also change very quickly, that will be a) hard, and b) hardly matter.

However, if you want to get it right, if the ambient light is tungsten, you would match that with a yellow/orange CTO gel on the flash, and then custom white balance the flash. If the ambient is flourescent, gel the flash to that, usually light green.

Edit: And yes, I think you may be confusing white balance with exposure - not the same at all, but you can also use an 18% grey card for both exposure and white balance setting.
 
It doesn't really matter how your custiom WB shots looks. What matters is how the shots look that you take after you've set that shot to use for your custom white balance.

What camera are you using?
 
futureal33 said:
But when taking the photo of the white or grey card, to set the WB - what WB setting should I take the stock photo with? As having it on any of the preset WBs completely affects the way the grey card photo looks!

Cheers :)
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I think you have totally misunderstood how you take a preset white balance reading. Have a look in the manual for your camera and it will give you a step by step guide.

You're not taking a photo of your grey card, you are taking a reading from it that the camera stores and uses as a new white balance setting.
 
-Rob- said:
I think you have totally misunderstood how you take a preset white balance reading. Have a look in the manual for your camera and it will give you a step by step guide.

You're not taking a photo of your grey card, you are taking a reading from it that the camera stores and uses as a new white balance setting.
Click to expand...

On the 400D you must take a photo of the white/grey card and then go into settings and apply that photo to be the custom WB.
Ive followed the step by step guide in the manual but all it says is to take a photo of a white surface in the lighting conditions you are in, then go to settings, select custom white balance, select that photo, and the white balance will be set.
But my question is what WB do you use to take the photo of the grey/white card in the first place lol
 
It doesn't matter!

The fact that you're taking a custom wb shot and using that will override any wb setting you make on the camera anyway.

Once you have your custom wb shot is doesn't matter whether your white or grey card looks red, green, blue or purple. Once you set it as your custom wb shot you are saying to the camera "This is white (or grey") - regardless of what colour it actually is.
 
you really don't want to use custom white balance for nightclub photography.

I think you're slightly confused as to the point of white balance, it doesn't alter the white itself, but the other colours.

So if you set blue as your white balance setting the camera will compensate everything else with a yellow tint to compensate for the blue colour. In a nightclub you're gonna have lots of colours mingling with the white, so this is gonna be impossible to gauge correctly.

Use AWB and then correct later in a RAW editor. If you're doing paid photography work you're gonna have to invest in some sort of photo-editing software anyway.

Also, you may find you need a monitor colour correction tool as well, so that your monitor shows the right whites. hueyPRO is good.

hope this helps.
 
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