BetterPhoto Q&A
Category: Other Image Problems

Photography Question 

Jennifer Kinsler
 

How to Get White Pictures


i have recently purchased the Canon Digital Rebel, and I am having problems getting pictures white. They are coming out gray or tan. Does anyone have any suggestions?


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January 23, 2005

 

Kerry L. Walker
  You need to understand how a camera's meter reads. It reads the scene as 18-percent gray, so whites will come out as gray. Get an 18-percent gray card at a photo store and meter off that. (Point your camera at the scene you are taking and place the card in front of the lens - about a foot away.) Then the whites will appear white. Alternately, meter off the palm of you hand. Not being a digital photographer, I can't tell you how to set the white balance on your camera. Perhaps some of the digital photographers here can help you. It works either way.


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January 24, 2005

 

Jon Close
  Sounds like a white balance problem. Different lighting sources (daylight, tungsten, fluorescent, etc.) will have different color temperatures and cause different color casts. In the Basic Modes (green box and icon settings), the Digital Rebel uses Auto White Balance, which doesn't always get the correction right. In the Creative Modes (P, Av, Tv, M, A-DEP), you can set the white balance directly, either for one of the presets (daylight, shade, cloudy, etc.), a custom setting metered off a white subject or gray card, or can set it for specific color temperature (say, if you're using 3200°K studio lights).


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January 24, 2005

 

Jennifer Kinsler
  thank you. iwill try getting a gray card.


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January 24, 2005

 
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