Two questions about setting the white balance

[leon_roijen]

<p>1<br>

What do you do if the light is quickly changing, say if one moment there is sun and the other moment not? Then, the auto white balance is the only option and you have to take for granted the slightly off colors?<br>

2<br>

If I shoot a model, and there is natural light playing in his face, where should I hold the gray card to set the white balance? In his face, where the light is playing, or somewhere else on his body?<br>

Thanks for your answers in advance!</p>

[pete_s.]

<p>1. Shoot raw and adjust the white balance afterwards.<br>

2. Depends on what you want to accomplish and your taste. Direct sunlight is warmer (lower Kelvin) than when something is in the shade. If you white balance for shade the sun will look warm and if you white balance for sun the shade will look cold and bluish. Another problem in this scenarios is that direct sunlight in the face may produce too high contrast which probably will be a bigger issue than the white balance.</p>

 

[howard_m]

<p>ditto. maybe snap a whibal/colorchecker frame for each situation and shoot raw. Use the whibal/cc frame to get you in the ballpark.<br>

put the gray card where you want the most accuracy and the brain is most sensitive to skin color accuracy</p>

[leon_roijen]

<p>Thanks Pete!<br>

@1 : I just started shooting in raw but I can't see a great advantage of shooting in raw, especially in this case: if your colors are far off, say if you set a very wrong preset white balance, it's nice if you shot in raw, but if I want to reproduce exactly the right color, shooting in raw and adjusting afterwards is not the solution, because you are just guessing. I was wondering if there is another solution tackling this problem.</p>

[howard_m]

<p>if you really need to 'reproduce exactly the right color', then you're going to need a whibal/cc card anyway. shooting raw just gives you a lot more flexibility to get there (in addition to highlight recovery etc etc)</p>

[leon_roijen]

<p>@Howard: thanks to you too, for your answers. We were posting at about the same time;-)<br>

whitebalancing for the skin, in model shooting, is a very good tip! Sounds obvious but it's not always how it is explained in books about photography when the use of a graycard is explained.</p>

[howard_m]

<p>one thing to be aware of is that a true/perfect white balance of skin is often perceived by the eye as too cold/blue and it's very common/desired to warm up the balance a bit cause the last thing you want is leaning toward cold/blue</p>

[leon_roijen]

<p>@Howard: thanks for the tip! I'll pay attention to this when I"ll be doing my next model shoot.</p>

[pete_s.]

<p>Leon,</p>

<p>A correct white balance and to "reproduce exactly the right color" are two different things.</p>

<p>A correct white balance means that what appears white to our eye will be white in the image. Since you are talking about shade and sunlight you have mixed lighting so there are two different correct white balances. So you can never get the correct white balance in the entire image, only a pleasing white balance. My preference is to white balance for the shade because I hate blue tint in the shaded areas and a warmer white balance is in general more pleasing.</p>

<p>To reproduce exact colors are more complicated than a pleasing white balance because that means that all colors must appear exactly as in real life. Cameras and raw converters don't by themselves produce exact colors. For instance when shooting products or clothes the color might be very important. As a minimum you would shoot a color checker in the scene and use camera profiles for different lighting scenarios. You would probably also work with controlled light only (not sunlight).</p>

<p>BTW, a classic grey card is usually used for exposure, not white balance. For good white balance you usually use something white and spectrally neutral.</p>

<p>But if you are shooting portraiture and stuff like that where colors don't have to match 100% a pleasing white balance is all you need. If it looks good, it is good!</p>

<p> </p>

[leon_roijen]

<p>Thank you very much for your elaborate answer, Pete!<br>

To reproduce exact colors was my desire when I was shooting flowers this afternoon and when the sun was there one minute and gone the other minute... maybe better choose more convenient weather....;-)<br>

My graycard has a white side too, that can be used for whitebalancing, as is advised in the camera (Pentax) manual, but I read on internet that a lot of people simply use the gray card. Also here in this respectable manual they use a gray card for whitebalancing:<br>

<a href="http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/white-balance.htm">http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/white-balance.htm</a><br>

See one of the pictures in the document showing grey cards.<br>

I'd prefer to use a gray card because my camera can't focus on the plain white and does not allow me to release the shutter unless I switch to manual focus. What is the difference (if any) between a white card and a gray card as far as white balance is concerned?</p>

 

[hjoseph7]

<p>When I was shooting marathon races they would tell us to shoot in Manual mode because ETTL and AWB would produce wild shifts in color, but since you said the only choice is AWB then I would shoot RAW.</p>

[GerrySiegel]

<p>Leon, I have been doing some of this research lately myself. For my camera, and my portraits* I find I can take a white balance off any, actually any white card.<br /> (I am informed that neutral grey will work too, but I have not tried that, and I will not quibble yet on that point).<br /> I then store my WB settings, up to 3 of them, in my camera as a custom WB for the conditions I am working with, and time of day reflection off the area I am working in. And I<em> select </em>those conditions as much as reasonably possible. I expect we all do.<br /> Aside: Off colors,well any shift to the red is usable any shift to the blue is less usable, but again we get into debate country...some will look at skin and say, uh uh and I will say I like it, no purity on this matter as already mentioned.<br /> I suppose I try to avoid a range from sun to deep shade and so on and once I pick a soft light for time of day, like open shade, then I WB for that and store it. Raw is not for me. I like the colors as they come out of my camera, an Olympus E-3. If I were to shoot the image and it looked, geewhiz, too warm, I have a scale in camera on LCD that will allow me to make a color shift on the spot, got to try that too one day...<br>

In sum, you can do it on the scene or fiddle later in photo shop, call it as you choose, and I imagine a pleasing (note subjective sense of word <em>pleasing)</em> is achievable either way.<br /> Stick to JPEG and do not be snookered into uncompressed. Or shoot both ways combo and do your own field test. I have seen nothing that persuades me that I have to take the time to diddle with Raw. Call me lazy,fine. Or exeditious? Or just like to shoot more and process less...<br /> Changing light value, that I can compensate for no sweat, changing color temp, a little more challenging but not that much challenge.<br /> I am with you. Make it easy as possible. White card for location. Store and re use in same spot and time of day. I bet you will smile at results. Unless you have an editor looking at the stuff, then all bets canceled:-)<br /> (PS: Hint: Try lowering your exposure value when shooting off the white card, sensor do not like to "blinded" I just discovered. Test it out. )<br /> My two much lately devalued centavos...gerry S.<br /> * skin is tougher challenge to get nice than plants,so I am finding.</p>

[williamlewisphotography]

<blockquote>

<p>I'd prefer to use a gray card because my camera can't focus on the plain white and does not allow me to release the shutter unless I switch to manual focus.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The only thing you have to do to use a white card is focus lock on something in the distance. Then photograph the card. The reason you focus lock on something in the distance is so the focus will be set to infinity</p>

[GerrySiegel]

<blockquote>

<p>The only thing you have to do to use a white card is focus lock on something in the distance. Then photograph the card. The reason you focus lock on something in the distance is so the focus will be set to infinity</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Or, one 'nother thought. Use a Sharpie pen and draw a bulls eye cross hairs on a white "target." That is what came predrawn on the Lastolite purpose- designed WB gray and white sided reflector gizmo I bought. Test and see, Leon,see if camera will then focus and WB for you. If so let us know down the road. Good luck.<br>

gs</p>

[GerrySiegel]

<p>Flash for Leon: I tested the <strong>18% gray side</strong> of my gray and whitish Lastolite pop up vinyl reflector WB product, Leon, and it worked just fine to do a white balance just now . On the Lastolite learning site, they have an interesting studio demo video. The professional shooter says he always uses the gray side as first choice for white balance in stills. And he says a custom WB time to do that setting separates the pros from the duffers, my language....<br /> And he argues incidentally, that a good gray 18% ( a few rebels are going 12% to show that it takes all kinds to make a world:-)) can <em>also </em>help to confirm <em>exposure</em>. A two for one deal! In event you are using a multiple light setup especially or light is tricky and elusive. A win win situation.<br /> He does take it off autofocus for this purpose, you may learn to do that fast.Sorry about that part, Ace... <br /> A long but chirpy/ cute models presentation, hope it may be off some interest to you as it sure was to me struggling w same topic lately. You are justifiably serious about getting WB spot on in camera and not way afterwards where struggle may ensue. Like the green wall setting he illustrates. I sprung for the little card, the pop up one, not cardboard and portable. It is also waterproof and foldable like a potato chip. If the Mars rovers included a grey card for color it must be scientific I am thinking.. About 40 bucks. Perfeshunal. I never cozied up to the white expo disc on the lens cap business, not sure I recall why, must have been a reason.. lens size variants or it did not have instant scientific appeal for me, also cost some money at the time .<br /> Check this out learning feature on WB when you have a half hour to spare and see what you think:<br /> http://www.lastoliteschoolofphotography.com/using-calibration-greycards</p>

[mr._c]

<p>Will there be (much?) benefits or differences in a raw workflow between using a colorchecker sg (semigloss) 140 patch card compared with a regular colorchecker passport?<br>

In a more crowded scene or event, is using the larger sg card practical? Could you hold card up at arms' length to photograph? Or what about (distant) landscape shots?<br>

Though most people will simply make profiles on their camera or lenses at the start with either products.<br>

When shooting raw files, should you use a jpg or raw when taking a pic of the colorchecker? (or will there be much difference? or as long as jpg is also the same colorspace as raw, such as rgb)<br>

Also, in getting a true (exact color) scene rendition, will a moving subject such as a person in a scene render the wb (and or true colors) compared with a static scene?<br>

(eg. you shoot a landscape or indoor scene with uniform lighting, where there is both a shadows dark point, and highlight white point, when you invert at processing time. Though if people come into the scene, with lighter or darker clothing, this changes the landscape or indoor scene overall wb and or perhaps true colors?)<br>

As an alternative, you can search for a uniform static area in which to first take your shot which will then give you a more precise wb? (to then apply on the rest of your shots, provided light remains the same, if this is important to you, such as documenting purposes vs fine art)<br>

Though if you switch to another scene, won't there be a different set of darkest shadow and white highlight point?<br>

This works at times, what about other scenes where there is jumble of movement, people, in a tight crop shot?<br>

Also when stitching shots, such as in a panorama. Which might work best?<br>

Taking a colorchecker shot? Or zooming back out or stepping further back from the scene to take a grander overall (use raw or jpg?) picture of your stitched shots? This way you can view the overall scene and process the wb. <br>

Most times will a correct wb also give the correct colors? (provided profiles are created either now or later on)</p>