White balance on canon dslrs

N

niceshot

New member
Hi guys,

I recently bought a canon t3i and I find the white balance settings really cumbersome.

I'm used to video cameras where I can just point the camera to something, and with a push of a button it changes to white (as much as it can). Now that I have a dslr it doesn't work that way anymore.
If one of the presets works for me then it's all gravy, but if I want to do a costume white balance then I have to take a picture and choose it via the menu.

I can live with the fact that it's not very comfortable. But my problem is that when I take a picture all the current color settings of the camera affect it, and the final output is never exactly what I wanted.
(The white balance isn't set by the white paper that's in front of me, but by the white paper + the cameras color settings)

So how do you deal with white balance on canon dslrs?

I thought of a couple of options for me:
- Just use the preset white balance and change whatever needs changing in post
- Add more presets by uploading pictures of different hues from Photoshop to the memory card (not sure if it's even possible)
- Just battle with the camera's white balance settings until I get what I want. (Which can take a lot of time on the set...)


What do you think?
 
Install Magic Lantern and get the ability to dial in exact Kelvin values, like you can on more expensive cameras.

ML lets you see the results live as you increment the K temperature values. This is also extremely useful if doing multi-cam shoots, or coming back and shooting more in the same lighting at a later time (want to make sure white balance matches each time).
 
+1 on that. I prefer dialing in my setting manually because with limited color-space and poor compression, I prefer to get really close to what I want in-camera as opposed to pushing all the colors around later.
 
I use custom white balance all the time, it's the best solution for me (doesn't only get the K value right, but also corrects the green component, which I'm really bad at doing manually myself)

and I've never felt the camera settings affect the resulting WB: just shoot the still in RAW, and camera settings won't matter at all

but one thing that matters is stuff around the white card seen in the picture; I haven't ran enough tests to know exactly what part of the image is used for the WB calculations (given how much I use this, I should have), but I'm afraid the answer may be "all of it"
 
NormanBates said:
I use custom white balance all the time, it's the best solution for me (doesn't only get the K value right, but also corrects the green component, which I'm really bad at doing manually myself)
Click to expand...



That's exactly it. Adjusting kelvin temp. or using presets doesn't do anything for green/magenta bias.
 
gonzo_entertainment said:
My experience has been a blue cast and generally too cold look when I use the custom (pointing at a white card).
Click to expand...

The issue may be with your card. If you use a photo-designed white (or pref. gray) card vs. a random sheet of paper. Paper comes in all sorts of shades of white - often it's a little blue to make it "feel" whiter. I have a white card that's a bit blue I use when I want a warmer temp, but other than that, you can get a 3 card set (white, gray, black) that are about 2" x 3" laminated; handy to have.
 
What do you guys think of these for WB:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Keep-white-balanced-value-58mm-White-Balance-Lens-Cap-/370562902721?pt=Camera_Filters&hash=item5647452ac1#ht_1672wt_1139

I was considering one when I lost a lens cap a while back. But ended up finding the lens cap before I could pull the trigger on buying one. I've kind of always wondered if it was really useful or not.

Interesting point about the WB, btw. I assumed adjusting Kelvin temp was the same thing, but if the custom WB tool in camera also helps green/magenta tones, that might be something worth doing again.
 
I have a WB lens cap too, this is what I think about mine: it's definitely not useful as a lens cap (it uses a weird and cumbersome mechanism to attach to the camera; it won't allow you to use filters unless you unscrew said mechanism; I bought a big one and just hold it in front of the lens and take a still) - very useful for daylight shooting, to compensate color cast from lens and filters (in these cases, I always use this method: accurate, fast and easy) - not so useful for indoors shooting, unless all the lights you're using are the same temp (the light reaching your camera may be different than the light you want to set your WB to)
 
Michael Carter said:
The issue may be with your card. If you use a photo-designed white (or pref. gray) card vs. a random sheet of paper. Paper comes in all sorts of shades of white - often it's a little blue to make it "feel" whiter. I have a white card that's a bit blue I use when I want a warmer temp, but other than that, you can get a 3 card set (white, gray, black) that are about 2" x 3" laminated; handy to have.
Click to expand...

I have an 18% grey card, just haven't been using it. Might bring it and give it another try. I've been judging it by the skin tones. When the skin tones look right I've considered it right.
 
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