Custom white balance, do you use this often and if so why?

[MissionMan]

I can't see how those 'lens covers' can work properly to be honest .. I think the assumption is that you and/or the camera are within the lighting arrangement that is going to cause the issue.




Unless you want the grey card to help you determine exposure, the percentage rating is irrelevant.
The 18% rating is the shade of grey that will give you a neutral RGB rendering(128, 128, 128)

Most grey cards will be 18%, as this is the most common. Handy device for determining exposure if using film(and a light meter is some kind).

If determining an accurate WB is you objective then a grey card is a grey card, as long as it is grey(and not tainted or stained with other markings and so forth)
Note you can also use a piece of (very)white paper, as long as the white paper is clean.

CFL lighting is difficult to balance properly, but mixed lighting is also a challenge to get colour balance right.

Mix CFLs and standard fluoros and daytime ambient, and you have a hard time finding a good balance.


Are these Grey Cards neccesary .. nope!
Handy .... yes for sure ... but not necessary.

My large fold up grey card thing cost about $20. Handy when it's needed, but it's not needed that often.
It folds in on itself down from 56cm to about 20 or 15cm and is easily transported in most camera bags .. so I thought it was worthwhile having.
And I've used it on many occasions too.

I think the lens covers are supposed to be taken off the camera and used in the frame just like a grey card. I think they are just put on the camera for convenience of carrying around so you don't have one extra item to carry.

I agree with what you have said here. Another thing to add is that not all grey cards are 18% grey anyway, even when they claim to be. I have 3 different grey cards (2 fold up and 1 credit card) and they are all different shades of grey. I don't actually mind the different shades as the one I find provides perfect exposure for product reviews photography I do for a Mac website and the other is better for sports so sometimes its worth experimenting with the different cards to see whether one provides better skin tones. You can see the two of the shades, supposed both 18% grey. If you download and save the picture here, you can test the white balance impact by clicking on each.



I tend to use the grey card whether I need to or not under certain conditions (artificial light) as I have learnt through trial and error which ones the camera is likely to get horribly wrong. Sometimes I'll put all 3 in frame to test the output to see if I prefer a particular look.

[Eberbachl]

AWB for me.



At the moment I shoot RAW+, and mostly use the jpegs from the camera, however having the RAW files there also have saved me a few times with WB or Exposure compensation. I use the RAW files as insurance in a way in case I have to save an otherwise good image I can't recover in jpeg.

[rodw]

I think the lens covers are supposed to be taken off the camera and used in the frame just like a grey card. I think they are just put on the camera for convenience of carrying around so you don't have one extra item to carry.

No that's not right, they are designed so you take a photo into the light source with the lens cap on. That gives you a white picture which is loaded into the camera as a custom white balance.

I think that is a different workflow to what you are doing where you place a target in the frame and adjust it back to its known value in post processing.

[arthurking83]

......
I agree with what you have said here. Another thing to add is that not all grey cards are 18% grey anyway, even when they claim to be. I have 3 different grey cards (2 fold up and 1 credit card) and they are all different shades of grey. I don't actually mind the different shades as the one I find provides perfect exposure for product reviews photography I do for a Mac website and the other is better for sports so sometimes its worth experimenting with the different cards to see whether one provides better skin tones. You can see the two of the shades, supposed both 18% grey. If you download and save the picture here, you can test the white balance impact by clicking on each.

.....

As long as the grey is pure grey, the shade of grey is not of importance to the OP's concern here.

The percentage rating is only for exposure purposes.

If there is any colour cast to the grey, then it will affect it's ability to perform an accurate WB setting.
The WB aspect of the grey card has little to do with the percentage rating of the grey point. Just as long as it's grey and not tainted with any other colour bias.

Also note, in some conditions(eg that I know of landscapes at low light!) sometimes you don't want to pinpoint an exact white point.

Remembering that WB is an attempt to make white look white, sometimes this is not actually desirable.

if you look at a white piece of paper with a setting sun casting it's light upon it, the white piece of paper will have a yellowy/orange.
if it's perfect colour accuracy that you want, then a WB adjustment will help to make the yellowy/orange white paper to look white.. but the reality is that it's really a yellowy orange and, for example with a landscape image you probably want that yellowy orange tint anyhow.

[Mark L]

Another reason for RAW (unless you have a specific need to use Jpeg).
I hawe WB permanently set on daylight, with Raw it can be adjusted later.
Why daylight? http://www.ausphotography.net.au/for...lance-for-mugs

[ricktas]

Remembering that WB is an attempt to make white look white, sometimes this is not actually desirable.

I agree with this 100%. A slightly warmer Kelvin Temperature (white balance) for sunsets and sunrises, and even on portraiture can create a better result. On portraiture, especially with 'pale-faces', a slightly warmer white balance gives the person a slight glow.

[arthurking83]

Technically speaking the best WB value to use .. even on a raw file, is what's known as UniWB.

It's a hard(convoluted) process to get it onto your camera, but the reason it's the best WB value to use is for the purpose of exposure of the image.

it's looks dreadful and each and every image then needs to be WB processed later on the PC.
UniWB makes your images look very green, but the idea behind it is to get a proper RGB channel readout on exposure.

I trialled it for a while and found that the pedantic level of exposure accuracy wasn't worth the effort.

Basically it was supposed to help gauge an accurate red channel luminance level relative to the green and blue channel.

[William W]

Is [Custom White Balance] something that is done all the time or just for particular type of photos depending on the lighting? Just not sure how often this is done as i have never seen this done when i've been out and about.

I will often use CWB in the following situations:

When making images in a controlled lighting condition – such as Studio Flash.
When making images under indoor or outdoor (Sports Arena) Floodlights.
When making Available Light images in Low EV and Very Low °K Temperature Lights, such as Incandescent Room Lights.
When making images where there is a strong or significant light source (usually in the background) which is NOT the illuminating Key Light on the Subject and which will potentially stuff up the AWB, variously and differently within a series of shots.

Just seems like one more thing to worry about, and what i really want to do is just capture a shot!!

Then if you need to just capture the shot then do so; but if you have time to control the shot and CWB will benefit, then do so, also.

Mmmm, just wondering why some photographers use those 18% grey cards or lens covers? Are these things then not necessary if it all gets fixed with pp?

Because I already have the 18% Grey Cards – and (as already mentioned) the fact that they are 18% (or 12%) is irrelevant for CWB. A Photograhic Grey Card is a Standard and is Accurate.

I would not use a lens cover. I would use a White Bounce Card or an A4 white sheet of paper, if I did not have a PGC with me and I needed to make a CWB.

***

If you want to get the WB, (colour balance) correct:

Then arguably you will need to shoot, A Photographic Grey Card and also Standard Colour Grid - e.g. the “Gretagmacbeth colorchecker” in the first frame of each lighting situation and then you will need to have a standard studio monitor which is calibrated and then you will Post Produce your files to suit your Printer’s Colour Standards and then you will ask the Lab Tech to “Print WITHOUT any enhancements.

This is very seldom done by amateurs and hobbyists and getting the WB "correct" is not always necessary for professional work, either; as "how it looks" is often more important.

But correct WB might be necessary for many applications such as forensics, just as one example.

WW

[agb]

Forget the rest,what you need is a CBL, search for colour balance lens.

[kenlip]

Mmmm, just wondering why some photographers use those 18% grey cards or lens covers? Are these things then not necessary if it all gets fixed with pp?

In tricky light conditions or for critical images, it can be handy to have one shot that includes a grey card.

This can allow for more accurate (or at least, easier) establishment of the correct colour temperature in the post processing. Of course, all the images would have to be taken in the identical light conditions as the image that contains the grey card, for this to be of help.

[patrickv]

I know some action photographers who, in non controlled weird light, will set WB with the grey card. They still shoot raw, but it saves time in post processing since you don't have to reset it.

[Lantern]

I use AWB and if I'm indoors or in one place. Having a polystyrene cup in one of your shots you can use the colour picker in post to set that for white balance.

[OzzieTraveller]

G'day Andrea

While all the above answers are quite 'correct' in their way, they are all 'boringly conservative'
I am going to suggest something 100% different

Go down to your local newsagent or paper shop and buy a dozen or so coloured sheets of paper to create a rainbow of colours
One day when you feel like having a bit of fun, choose one of the coloured sheets, custom white balance it as tho it was white, and off you go and do some picture taking

I can guarantee the results will be 'different' and definately 'fun'
Regards, Phil

[arthurking83]

.....

While all the above answers are quite 'correct' in their way, they are all 'boringly conservative'
I am going to suggest something 100% different

Go down to your local newsagent or paper shop and buy a dozen or so coloured sheets of paper to create a rainbow of colours
One day when you feel like having a bit of fun, choose one of the coloured sheets, custom white balance it as tho it was white, and off you go and do some picture taking

.....

A couple of points to note tho:

You don't need to use coloured cards to generate wild and funky colour casts over your images.

All you need to do is to reset WB via the software of your choosing.
Almost all good software has the ability to set a WB value that doesn't necessarily have to correspond to the most accurate value at the time of exposure.
I also question real usefulness of doing so in PS/Lightroom on a jpg or tiff file too.
WB should be adjusted on a raw file before any other adjustment is made, as WB affects exposure values.

There is the possibility that your camera may not accept the coloured card easily as the basis for a custom WB setting.
Because WB takes into account exposure in it's calculations, some colours are hard to use as the basis for a WB value.
As an example reds or blues may be hard to use and the camera may simply throw out a No Good error message during WB presetting.

The other alternative you could try is that some cameras have a graph based custom WB setting tool within their menu system.
That is, you would simply mimic this colour card method by using a standard reference point, and then fine tune via the WB graphic and set your desired colour balance preference.

[William W]

I suggest that this:

While all the above answers are quite 'correct' in their way, they are all 'boringly conservative'
I am going to suggest something 100% different . . . etc . . .

is similar to this:

. . . getting the WB "correct" is not always necessary for professional work, either; as "how it looks" is often more important.
But correct WB might be necessary for many applications such as forensics, just as one example.

WW

[Kym]

I shoot raw and Auto WB.
When birding I'll set cloudy and that seems to mean I don't need to adjust in PP as the conditions generally work out for that.

If shooting indoors I'll sometimes set fluro or tungsten if I think about it

[gje38752]

If you are using Canon and expect accurate W/B indoors using auto, you should think again, custom W/B or grey cards both work well, unless of course you are talking about the very later models that seem to work OK.

[William]

Just shoot RAW on Auto White balance, Easily fixible in RAW PP , No drama's , Thats what it is there for

Everybody gets to carried away with the technicalities , Keep it "KISS" Keep it simple stupid

[Tjfrnds]

I'm another shooting RAW and using auto WB. Only time I use custom is when using welding glass as a filter (which I'm still trying to perfect!)

[patrickv]

I'd like to add something to my original post.
- Now that I have bought myself a grey card, it stays in my camera bag, and if I remember I'll set custom WB, which happens now and then, it only takes like 20 sec
- My biggest lesson from playing with WB is not custom WB, it's light consistency. I've had some weird issues when filling in with my flash under tungsten or fluorescent lighting. Since then I have bought some gels, it makes things a lot easier. I've also had some issues with light consistency when shooting indoors without flash where I had two different sources. Now I know to look out for this, and if I can't move my subject, try to mostly overpower it all with the flash to avoid issues.