Custom White Balance

[darryl_hammond]

<p>I've been shooting with my Canon 5d mark II for a year and a half. However, I take a picture with my greycard and I tried my Expodisc, then set my white balance to custom white balance. It has recently then taken pictures that have a GREEN tint to them! Does anyone know why this is? I shoot in manual so I imagine that it has to do with maybe some of my other settings - ISO, fstop, shutter speed. Thanks for any help. <br /><br />*** I've been shooting in custom WB for over and year and never had this problem.<br>

Thank you!<br>

Darryl</p><div></div>

[bobatkins]

<p>Nothing else but WB affects WB.</p>

<p>Some lights (some types of fluorescent and arc lights) can vary in their color temperature as they rapidly flicker. This can cause custom WB to be off if the lights were in different states when you set WB and when you shot the image. Some fluorescent lights may change color temperature as they warm up.</p>

<p>Does it happen in daylight or just under your indoor lights? What happens under tungsten lighting?</p>

[devon_mccarroll]

I find it interesting that her Minnie Mouse, her socks, and the backdrop sweep are white, but their skin and the back of the

backdrop are green. Are you using mixed lighting?

[alan_bryant1]

<p>That's a pretty severe color balance problem.</p>

<p>Have you changed your lighting rig recently?</p>

<p>Flickering lights can be dealt with by keeping the shutter speed slower. But it has to be pretty slow, like 1/30 or longer, to reliably get past the flickers. Also, I think all light sources change color as they warm up, the effect is fairly pronounced with tungsten.</p>

<p>If you're shooting straight JPEG, I'd change to RAW+JPEG so you'll have more options to fix this in post.</p>

[darryl_hammond]

<p>I shoot in RAW, this is the first time that this has happened. I even tried WB on a white sheet of paper out of the studio and got the same results. My tungsten works great, I may just use that; my shutter for most part is always at 125. I haven't shot differently for the past year or so. For some reason, it's the custom white balance. I appreciate the help. </p>

[g dan mitchell]

<p>RAW is not affected by WB adjustments. "RAW is RAW" - essentially (pretty much) what the sensor "saw." If the lighting was actually this color the image will be this color. </p>

<p>Your best bet is to try to get back to a more normal adjustment in post - probably in your raw conversion program or Lightroom. </p>

[alan_bryant1]

<p>I've shot with tungsten a lot. I used to shoot with custom balances, but recently I've just been setting the camera for tungsten and tweaking in post. But back when I did set custom balances never saw anything like this. If it's consistently happening, I can't think of an explanation other than something's wrong with the camera. As Bob suggested, maybe try to set a custom balance in daylight and see if you have the same issue?</p>

<p>Other thoughts - have you done a firmware update? Or installed Magic Lantern?</p>

[darryl_hammond]

<p>Not familiar with Magic Lantern...I've heard of it though.</p>

[William Michael]

<blockquote>

<p>" I take a picture with my greycard and I tried my Expodisc, then set my white balance to custom white balance. It has recently then taken pictures that have a GREEN tint to them!"</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Check that you do not have any White Balance Correction set (toward Green).</p>

<p>WW</p>

[elisa_elgstrom]

<p>I'm having the exact same problem. it's never happened before and now there's a massive green tint! someone suggested that it might be stored wb from past adjustments. apparently the nikon d800 only has the capacity to store 4 custom wb's. maybe it's the same for canon 5dIII. does anyone know if this is the case? Do you know how to delete past adjustments? </p>

[paddler4]

<blockquote>

<p>my shutter for most part is always at 125.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>As Bob pointed out, this is irrelevant. Shutter speed, aperture, and ISO have nothing to do with white balance.</p>

<p>It seems to me that the most likely culprits are the lighting under which you took the custom WB shot (Bob's post) and white balance correction (see WW's posting above). You could test this by checking the latter in the menus and then taking a custom WB shot under daylight or tungsten. You could also reset all settings to factory defaults. Only after doing these three things would I start worrying about something malfunctioning in the camera body.</p>

<p>The simplest solution would be to stop using a custom white balance. There is no need for one if you are shooting raw, because as G Dan pointed out, it has zero effect on the raw file. It will affect how many software packages first render the image, but that is of no consequence at all. In tricky lighting, you are better off taking a shot with a neutral card (I use a whiBal) and setting white balance in postprocessing. I have never once bothered setting a custom white balance since I started shooting raw years ago. I don't actually know how to do it on my newest camera body.</p>

[randy_cooprider1]

<p>I take pictures in a basement under fluorescent lighting. To get the green out I had to use a powerful strobe to overpower the tint. Mixed lighting is always tough. I think a previous responder mentioned that raw is raw and not affected by white balance which agrees with my experience and other posters (other threads). If you set the white balance way off does the unedited raw image also have very wrong colors? Cute kid.</p>

[g dan mitchell]

<p>OP wrote: "I shoot in RAW..."<br>

<br>

If so, this is not* a camera WB problem. It is either that the lighting is actually producing this coloration or that something in the post-processing workflow is doing so. (I suppose it is possible that there is a camera malfunction, but that seems unlikely here.)<br>

<br>

It would be somewhat easy to localize the problem.</p>

<ol>

<li>Make some photographs in regular old daylight and see if you have the problem. If so, it is most likely something in your RAW conversion settings or possibly elsewhere in your post-processing routine. (It isn't impossible that you have a camera problem, though it is unlikely.)</li>

<li>If you do not see the color balance problem in daylight, the coloration almost certainly comes from the lighting at the time of the exposure. Either the lights are different than in the past and the new ones are of a type that has a strong color cast or something like the cycling of the lights is creating the problem. (I doubt that the latter is at work here, though if in a closely-spaced series of photos in the same light there are frame-to-frame variations, this could be the issue.</li>

</ol>

<p>Dan</p>

<p>* If you use Canon's RAW conversion app, it will use the WB settings to apply "corrections" to the RAW file during conversion. You can override these.</p>