Color Temp Setting

[brien_szabo]

<p>I teach some photography classes for Adult Schools. I teach a basic Digital Photography Class that is like a 101 class. I touch on lots of topics. One topic I talk about is being able to change the White Balance to match the Color Temperture of various light sources, i.e. Tungsten and Fluorescent. One student said she does not have that kind of choice and asked me via e-mail the following question:<br>

<em>My Canon EOS 400D doesn't have a color temp setting of tungsten white. It instead allows for white balance correction with a shift for blue, amber, and green. What would you recommend to approximate the tungsten white?</em><br>

<em></em> I don't photograph with Canon so I don't really know how to answer her properly. If someone could enlighten me to this, I would appreciate it so I can answer her with a correct response.</p>

[bryantan]

<p>Your student is confusing the white balance shift/bracket function with setting a manual white balance. Manually setting the white balance can be done in menu "Camera 2" or pressing the down button on the back on the camera. Sadly, I don't think the Rebels have a WB setting that allows you to dial in a Kelvin temperature.</p>

[peter_mckone]

<p>The 400D almost certainly does have a Tungsten setting. My 350D does. I know because I accidently left it set while taking some shots in full sunlight. The preferred method is to shoot raw and adjust the white balance with the software (DPP) that came with the camera or with Photoshop (ACR).</p>

[jim_rais]

<p align="justify">Sure the 400D does have a tungsten setting. Just like what Peter said, the preferred method is to shoot RAW and adjust it in Canon's software DPP afterwards. If your student prefers to shoot jpg: press the button WB on the back side of the 400D (the dial of ISO, AF, WB). A row of WB symbols will be seen on the screen: AWB (Auto), the sun (daylight, 5200 Kelvin), a house (shadow, 7000 Kelvin), a cloud (overcast, 6000 Kelvin), a lamp (incandescent, 3200 Kelvin), a flashing tube (tungsten, 4000 Kelvin), a lightning (flash) and custom setting. After chosing the desired WB push the SET button. Hope this helps.</p>

[digitmstr]

<p>ALL the Digital Rebel line has been 'crippled' so as to OMIT *manual* K settings (bad Canon!). However, they have a 'standard' setting for Tungsten, daylight, flash, shadow, etc... In addtion, users can adjust each of those pre-sets by means of the WB Shift. A very bad choice on the part of Canon for two reasons:</p>

<p>1) If the theory is that the Rebel line is for beginners who would not use the manual K setting then, why add WB shift? A beginner whouldn't know how to use it anyway</p>

<p>2) It would be MUCH faster to simply enter a K value by hand rather than have to choose a pre-set and then, enter a shift value. </p>

<p>I hope that Canon will soon learn that there is nothing to be gained by criplling camera lines...</p>

[brien_szabo]

<p>Thanks guys for all the responses. I think some of these engineers for these camera's have to justify their worth and like to come up with a 100 ways to make no sense.</p>

[KenPapai]

<p>Best quality method is to shoot a grey card in the setting and then continue shooting all in Raw. Then in the Raw conversion use the settings from the grey card for your white balance on the rest of the shots. </p>

<p>What could be better or easier for beginners?</p>

[brien_szabo]

<p>Most of the students I get are moms and retired folks - they mostly have no desire to explore RAW. They just want to understand their camera more. Most never will use Photoshop or their software to convert RAW images.</p>