C500: C500 II: White balance without zooming in?

S

seanadl

Active member
Hi folks,

Another day, another newbie question from me! When I'm white balancing using a grey card, is there a way to do it without having to zoom in so that the card covers the entire screen? I.e. is there a way to select a portion of the image containing the grey card and white balance based on that in-camera?
 
You don’t have to necessarily fill the screen. I’ve seen “official” numbers given in the past(with other cameras), that it should be like at least 25% of the central portion of the screen. If you can, fill it up, but if it’s not enough, some cameras will let you know that it’s not and won’t/can’t perform the auto WB.

Dialing-in the temp is another way, BUT be aware that doing it that way is only adjusting the WB up and down through blue/amber, it’s not adjusting green/magenta, and therefore isn’t accounting for any green/magenta bias that may be in the lighting. But most Canons actually have a manual adjustment for that in their menu, as well(it’s actually an ‘off-set’ that will be applied to everything, if I remember correctly).
 
Run&Gun said:
You don’t have to necessarily fill the screen. I’ve seen “official” numbers given in the past(with other cameras), that it should be like at least 25% of the central portion of the screen. If you can, fill it up, but if it’s not enough, some cameras will let you know that it’s not and won’t/can’t perform the auto WB.

Dialing-in the temp is another way, BUT be aware that doing it that way is only adjusting the WB up and down through blue/amber, it’s not adjusting green/magenta, and therefore isn’t accounting for any green/magenta bias that may be in the lighting. But most Canons actually have a manual adjustment for that in their menu, as well(it’s actually an ‘off-set’ that will be applied to everything, if I remember correctly).
Click to expand...

The C500MKII manual states "fill the whole screen." Also, you can dial in the kelvin to get blue/amber and then adjust CC to fine tune green/magenta. It's all accessible via the WB buttons, no need to dig into the menus. Apart from those errors, your post was bang on LOL.
 
That's why I made the note "with other cameras". But you still don't "have to" fill it for it to work(although that is best practice and what you should try to do). Otherwise nothing would have ever been WB'd in the field. Lol. I guess Canon decided to make it easier to access that fine tuning/offset, than it used to be in previous cameras. Good move.
 
Run&Gun said:
That's why I made the note "with other cameras". But you still don't "have to" fill it for it to work(although that is best practice and what you should try to do). Otherwise nothing would have ever been WB'd in the field. Lol. I guess Canon decided to make it easier to access that fine tuning/offset, than it used to be in previous cameras. Good move.
Click to expand...

I know, I'm just pulling your leg.
 
It is a little funny, though. I spent the first probably 15 or so years of my career WB'ing religiously and the last five or so shooting probably 80%-90% preset(mostly with s35 cine cams)(I still WB more with my ENG's, especially mixed lighting situations). A big part of it is color EVF's, but it seems like cameras are a lot more forgiving today, too(and the ability to tweak in post easily if something is a tick off).
 
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