BetterPhoto Q&A
Category: New Answers

white balance

To love this question, log in above
June 18, 2006

To love this comment, log in above
June 22, 2006

To love this comment, log in above
June 22, 2006

Set your camera to daylight white balance and RAW. Take a shot of a NEUTRAL gray card(not all 18% gray cards are a neutral gray) in the same light that you will be photographing. Shoot away. When you download the photos, open your RAW converter, select the photo with the gray card, use the eye dropper tool and click on the gray card. This should render the proper colors. Apply this setting to all of the photos. That should take care of the problem.

I hope this helps.

To love this comment, log in above
June 22, 2006

To love this comment, log in above
June 22, 2006

You mentioned that the church had dim lights, but your pictures had a blue cast. That sounds like the typical orange cast of the lights was over-corrected.

One of the reasons I never adjust the white balance setting on my camera, is that I very likely wouldn't remember to change it again if the light changes, or I decide to use some fill flash, etc.

I use the Auto WB setting on my camera, period. It does a very good job most of the time, and it's very easy to adjust the color temperature afterwards, anyway.

I shoot in RAW, but even if you don't, adjusting the color temperature in your image editor is easy.

Chris A. Vedros
www.cavphotos.com

To love this comment, log in above
June 22, 2006

Chris makes a valid point. It would be pretty hard to get a blue cast from tungsten lighting, unless of course, as Chris said, that your camera WB was set for tungsten and you were using the flash. Or, even though the church lights were on, there was still daylight shining in through windows.
The 20D has several options. Of course, as so many said, you can adjust you WB in photo editing software. However, the better you capture is to begin with, the less time you have to spend edting them at the computer.
Option one. Set the WB to tungsten when shooting indoor available light.
Option two. In the same lighting condition as you plan to shoot in, take a shot of a white card. In the menu, select 'Custom WB'. Using the dial, select the image of the white card and then push the button in the center of the dial to set the WB to the white card. On the top of the camera, press the AF-WB button and turn the dial on the back to select the custom WB icon, which looks like two triangle laying down with a dot in between them.
Option three. If you have or have use of a color meter, take a reading in the light conditions. Take readings from where you know your subject will be to get the most accurate Kelvin reading.
Press the AF-WB button and select the 'K' setting. In the cameras menu, select 'Color Temp.' and adjust the Kelvin degrees to what the meter gave you. Daylight is usually around 5000 - 5200 degrees Kelvin, while tungsten could be anywhere from the low 2000 to mid 3000's depending on a lot of variances in manufacturing, wattage, bulb coating and line voltages.
Most people don't have a color meter and the tungsten setting on the camera is for lighting around 3200-3400. So, for the most accurate method available to most of use, option two would probably give the best results. I have used this method myself because the lights I was using were a new daylight type bulb. Though to the eye they are bluer than regular frosted bulbs, the cameras still sees them as tungsten. However, becuase of the bluish cast, they don't require as much correction as regular bulbs. Using the white card technique and allowing the camera to read and set the WB worked out surprinsingly well.

To love this comment, log in above
June 23, 2006