Need help w/Low Light photos in church

"Is there a manual WB setting that would have been more appropriate for my church setting (w/o going to test cards and temperature settings)?"

- Yes. As I suggested at the very start, try the Tungsten or Incandescent setting; signified by a pictogram of a lightbulb.

A better option would be to take a custom WB setting from a piece of white copy paper held under the church lights. How exactly this is done varies by camera make and model. On Nikons it's pretty easy, but Canon, IIRC, make it rather awkward. You have to make a shot in AWB of a white surface, and then "tell" the camera which shot to use for the custom balance via the menu. Madness!

And to pre-empt the follow ups that'll tell you that you need to use a grey card; you don't! A simple sheet of A4 white printer paper is all you need. I've used white paper countless times to set a custom white balance, and it works perfectly with almost any type of lighting.... except high pressure yellow sodium lamps, which are impossible to correct.

I agree that it you do choose to set a manual white balance preset - then on a 40D use the "TUNGSTEN" setting. (it is termed "tungsten" in the User manual and it is the picto-gram of the light-bulb on the camera display and that sets approx. 3200K).

I think that one (other) good reason to use a manual white balance setting is that you then have a constant when (if) you later Post Process a batch of images. That is the main reason why I use WB Presets.

On some more, more technical points that might be useful

- I am not inclined to make any guess as to what exact type are those lights - (and there might be a mixture) - mixed lighting is often a big challenge

- I had a second thought that maybe some of the yellow cast is from the stained or lots of yellow window glass

- if you do choose to set "Tungsten" then, if there are areas of the Church which are dominated by clear window light, you will probably get a BLUE cast . . . and be sure to remember to UNset tungsten, when you get outside of the Church.

- there is a function to preset an additional "White Balance Correction" - whereby you can "take out" some of the yellow. Note this can be used in addition to the setting of "tungsten" and it might be useful to use if 'tungsten' doesn't take out all the yellow. Details will be in your user manual. basically you have a little graph and you preset more toward "BLUE" to nuke the "AMBER".

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BTW I agree that you do not need to use a Photographic Grey Card to do a CWB, but I do mainly use a grey card because I have a few. A (clean) white table napkin works quite fine too.

Additionally, for all the Church Interiors (eg at weddings and NO Flash) I would tend to make a ONE preset either manual or CWB and then deal with any minor correction in post production - the logic being as already mentions there is a constant Colour Temperature and Hue when each file opnned up

WW

Tim,

IMHO, you are being overly concerned about picture noise.

When you have a choice of camera noise or getting the picture.

- I would choose get the picture and accept the noise, every time.

- Because the alternative is that you do not get the picture, which in my book is not an acceptable alternative.

You NEED to get the shutter speed high enough to freeze the motion, or you do not get the picture.

My D70 had a reputation for poor high ISO performance. Yet the print of my nieces wedding, shot at ISO-1600 (the max ISO) was perfectly fine for the family.

Technical photographers have a tendency to make the problem bigger than it really is, because we pixel peep and see things that most everyone else do not see.

About focusing.

Yes you are correct. In the 1 or 2 seconds that you recomposed the image, your son has taken 1 or 2 steps, and the focus is now incorrect.

Since he is moving, I would do as William said, set the AF to continuous mode (or whatever Canon calls it), zoom out, and keep the center focus on your son.

Recomposing is fine for static images, not for dynamic images, where you subject is moving and the focus constantly changing.

Or you manual focus on a selected spot, and shoot when he reaches that spot. This is how we shot weddings coming down the aisle. But you only get that ONE shot.

About manual exposure.

Don't be scared of it. That is the only thing we amateurs and pros had, back in the older film days, and we survived.

In places like a church or even outside, the lighting is static and not changing. So once you set the exposure, you don't have to change it, until the lighting on your subject changes.

- Set to Av and see what the camera says the exposure is.

- Set to M and set that exposure.

- Make a test shot, and evaluate the image and histogram.

- - If NOT OK, adjust and retest.

- - If OK you are good.

To get your confidence up on manual exposure, do this exercise.

- Go outside on a nice sunny day. With no clouds to complicate the exercise.

- Set the exposure mode to M

- Set the ISO to 500, or close to it. ISO-400 will do.

- Set the shutter speed to 1/500 sec. This is 1/(ISO)

- Set the aperture to f/16

- Now shoot a bunch of pictures for the next half hour.

- Look at the exposure of the pix that you shot. They should all be the same.

- And I gave you the exposure settings without taking a meter reading.

- This combination of ISO + shutter speed (@ 1/ISO) + aperture (@ f/16) is called the "Sunny 16 Rule." Google it to see the entire exposure table. This is what I used before I even had a light meter. Kodak put a piece of paper in the film box with the Sunny 16 exposures for various lighting conditions. And it works.

The HUGE advantage you have with digital, that I did not have with film is, you can chimp your shot and immediately adjust your exposure to correct it for the next shot. I had to wait a week to get the film back from the lab.

Now go and shoot a lot of pictures and practice.

Maybe the church really is yellow, but otherwise using the TUNGSTEN light setting is probably best.

Many cameras give you a fine adjustment within the specific white balance, which pretty much adjusts

for the different tungsten lamp temperatures.

One thing, though, remember to turn it back to AUTO when you go outside. A few times I have forgotten.

The mentioned 3200K and not mentioned 3400K are for photoflood lamps, which run at a higher

temperature, and so have a shorter life, than ordinary incandescent lamps.

Tungsten halogen lamps run at a higher temperature, without a short life.

For ordinary household lamps, 2700K or 2800K might be about right.

> you are being overly concerned about picture noise.

> Now go and shoot a lot of pictures and practice.

IMHO - yes and yes.

WW