White Balance ?

F

flinty

Veteran
Is it me or my DSLR ,why cant i set my 550Ds white balance ,on page 99 of the manual it goes through the steps but they dont correspond,pressing the WB button just moves the white square as you would do for focus area, i have tried in photo mode as well, the presets are not bad but checking ,custom WB is another option that does not work for me :Drogar-Mad(DBG):
 
take a picture of white card then go to menu and set white balance from this picture.Then you have it in custom white balancesetting,last one.
 
Are you in video mode? If so, try pressing the Q button (just above and to the left of the WB button), then use the scroll wheel behind the shutter release to cycle through all the white balance choices. Stop on the one you want. If you are in photo mode, you can press the WB button, use the scroll wheel to choose the white balance you want, then hit the set button.
 
You have to use the method bwwd posted. It's not as simple as focusing on the white card and pressing the white balance button like on video cameras. You have to take a still picture and then in the menu system select that picture for your custom white balance setting.
 
I'm cautious about manual white balance actually, for instance if I were to manually white balance using a white card in my bedroom right now, it would turn everything a very grey, snowy color - manual white balance seems to try it's best to turn everything starkly and unnaturally white, grey, and black, instead of preserving the natural colors to a location. What gives? I generally thought that manual white balance is supposed to give the colors that our eyes see based on the color of a white card mixed with a bit of calculation on the camera's part to find the absolute perfect and most natural color for that location, something that's supposed to just be a better version of whatever temperature balance we'd choose ourselves for the type of lighting we're under, I didn't think it's purpose was to turn every location into the same exact snowy white color. But maybe somehow I'm doing it wrong.
 
yes i agree snapper doing it like cams makes sense but this way does not ,why do DSLRs make life as difficult as possible,and whats the point of page 99 in the manual.
 
Snapper123 said:
, I didn't think it's purpose was to turn every location into the same exact snowy white color.
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Actually, that is the purpose. By manually white balancing to the same white or grey card at every location, you are telling the camera what should appear white, regardless of what the lighting is. So, if you are in a room with a tungsten light, followed by a room with a daylight balanced light, followed by a room with an ugly fluorescent light, and you did a custom manual white balance for each room, the footage should look the same for all three rooms, even though your eyes would see things very differently as you walked from one room to the next.
 
@markblasco

I think what snapper means is that you should't get increased contrast and reduced saturation because of a white balance setting, but the white-card method usually leads to that
 
Oh sorry I actually did mean I was confused on what the purpose was - I was very confused wether manual white balance was used to get just a more perfect image out of camera, or was used more to give the perfect tones across all lighting sources, I'm guessing for post work? The contrast was also one thing I brought up a long time ago once too, I was wondering if a same-throughout white balance had any negative effects, like say, green appearing much more green in another shot despite manual white balance just because of the stronger blues or whatever that have to be applied depending on the source.

Main tip would be; is a white card really the way to go? Do any certain color cards automatically give just a bit more of realistic tones across the plane? There's always the mention of 12% grey cards, what about say, a 12% blue or red card, if they make anything around that? Would there be any slight positives there?

And I guess as mentioned above, would different kinds of light sources require stronger saturation or contrast beyond the white balance? It seems soft diffused sunlight really seems to wash out subjects a bit in my tests...
 
I use an 18% grey card, but you can use a white card too. The important thing is to know that your white card is actually white. If you just grab a piece of paper, you may be surprised when you find out it was more red, or more blue, and your hues are off. Many people suggest using a newspaper, but I have never tried this.

There are white cards designed to be slightly more blue, or slightly more red, so that you can white balance but still get a warmer or colder look. They still look pretty much white, just with slight hue differences.
 
Well, right around now, I'm trying to get my foot in the door by casually doing interviews, musical artistic collages, small indie commercials, ect ect and the main problem is I just don't have minimal editing experience, so I'd rather personally get perfectly balanced videos in camera so that I can simply stitch them together in a timeline and be done. I'd simply use the white balance tempeture presets for each lighting type I'm under, but I have the T2i lol.

It's also a seriously confusing topic on how to white balance for low-shutter, night photography...
 
For low shutter night photography I'd suggest shooting RAW, which eliminates the white balance issue, since you have the latitude to adjust afterwards.

As for the other shots, I haven't had any issues when manually white balancing to a card, and if you do that for all of your shots, they will all look the same. If you later wanted a warmer or cooler look, it would be easy enough to do that in post.
 
After some experimenting with custom WB i still find no advantage using it, i get as good if not better colour with the presets and if you are filming on the move they work for me,my 550D maybe ?
 
White balance is still a pending dillema for me, because I get what flinty experiences... better colour with presets. In theory I believe is still better to white balance and get to that nice color in post, but on the other hand, I've read a thread where some people were saying they prefer not to use custom white balance because sometimes results in an artificial boost of the blue channel, not good particulary with this cameras.

I still don't know, haven't tested throughly what I should do yet.

Maybe somebody can point out a little bit of theory?
 
I saw once where someone was sayin that even with manual white balance, that each individual camera might have a bias toward a certain color, which I guess the color grid on these cameras helps (I think that if you set the grid in a certain direction, both the manual white balance and presets will always have that direction untill you change it). And for knowing what direction you need to go in, I'm guessing that's where the color histogram comes in handy. Honestly though, I feel like all of that is a bit too extensive for many types of shooting styles out there, half of people out there use these cameras for quick interviews and I'm wondering if the presets create great white balances for that purpose? If so, 60D, here I come.

P.S. I just tried white balancing using one of those white/grey/reflector tools, and I first tried using the white side and everything came back with a greenish hue, and then I tried the grey side, which I'm guessing is 18%, and everything came out looking much more accurate and realistic in color. I'm not sure I'm totally satisfied with the 18% grey, something about the color still struck out to me as though it could be improved, but it was truly an improvement over what the white card results were getting. It was literally changing a green tinted image to a "no tint" image, and that's exactly what manual white balance should do. So I'm very glad I tested this!

One question; can an 18% grey card be used to find the correct exposure as well? I wish there was a great tool that simply helped with exposure, and I'm positive that there's a specific shade of grey out there that helps with this, just, I'm not sure if it's 18%.
 
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I believe the 18% card is designed for exposure, although with video, if you are going to be doing any post work at all, you may want to adjust based on what you are shooting.

The reflectors are not going to be good for white balance, since that isn't what they are designed for.

I guess one thing to keep in mind even if you prefer the preset white balance colors over manually setting it is this: If you are manually white balancing every time, you should always get shots with the same (or very similar) color profiles, no matter what situation you are shooting. If you shoot an interview in two different rooms with two different sets of lights using the presets, they may come out looking different. If you custom white balance for each shot, you should get the same color balance in both shots. That is ultimately the advantage of custom white balancing.

Flinty, you say you get better color with the presets, but does that mean the color is more accurate, or that you like the look better than when custom white balancing? These are two different things. I can certainly understand that a properly white balanced shot may not look as good as one that is slightly warmer or cooler depending on the situation, but I think it is important to make a distinction as to whether or not "better" means more pleasant, or more accurate.
 
markblasco said:
I believe the 18% card is designed for exposure, although with video, if you are going to be doing any post work at all, you may want to adjust based on what you are shooting.

The reflectors are not going to be good for white balance, since that isn't what they are designed for.



Flinty, you say you get better color with the presets, but does that mean the color is more accurate, or that you like the look better than when custom white balancing? These are two different things. I can certainly understand that a properly white balanced shot may not look as good as one that is slightly warmer or cooler depending on the situation, but I think it is important to make a distinction as to whether or not "better" means more pleasant, or more accurate.
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Both realy although i know there may be times when custom setting may give whiter whites it does not work for me, in the coastal town part of these clips white was not perfect all the time http://vimeo.com/16582939 plus several other 550D films but overal the presets will do, the same thing aplies to my HV 30,the only time i use AWB is filming under changing artificial light conditions, carnivals /indoor bands etc.
 
Theres no "theory" about white balance, here are the basics that nobody has brought up yet: Every type of light source, whether it be the sun or a light bulb, has a different color temperature (measured in Kelvin). Tungsten and halogen lights give off an orange hue, and as you go up the color temp. Scale to daylight, it turns blue. White balancing is essentially telling your camera what white it is under whatever lighting conditions you're in (which is why its important to do it every time you set up a new shot.) your eyes adjust automatically to the change in color temperature, cameras aren't nearly as sophisticated. If you white balance your camera under tungsten light, white will appear white only under tungsten light. If you were to not white balance again and shoot outside, the image would have a blue cast over it because of the color temp of daylight. So again, white balance and let the camera know that under that light, the white card you're taking a photo of is white.

The goal of white balancing is to get the camera as close to what your eye sees. And don't leave it till post, color correcting for white balance errors is tough and idiotic. Get it right on set.

That being said, I've have pretty good luck with my t2i's AWB + Presets.
 
What I want to ask is well, on the cameras like the 60D and 7D, the white balance presets are diverse and there's generally a preset for every possible type of common temperature. As long as you know which one to use properly, wouldn't these presets be what using a white/grey card would be? Wouldn't these presets themselves be based on every color temperature you'd come across and most likely based on tests done by Canon for every common scenario? It's not that I mind using a card, but like exposure, these things never tend to be perfect when using cards. Such as exposure, you can barely tilt card in the wrong direction and the exposure it's telling you to achieve will be off - white balance could possibly be just as delicate. So I'm keen to want to do something that's more solidly based in camera. Plus, when I'm just doing test videos and clips, a card is really very annoying to deal with; I bought one of those $9 white balance caps but it doesn't stay on, so it's just as annoying.

But I think I got white balance pretty much figured out, I'd love to talk about exposure again. As I mentioned, I've been trying to expose also using my 18% grey card, yet actually using it is about as confusing as not using a card at all. Barely tilting the card up or down changes the exposure meter's readings completely, and I'm never sure what position the card should be in, as I'm mainly testing this in natural settings that have very confusing shadow and light directions. An exposure card seems like something that only works properly on set where the overall illumination can't really be mistaken - what in the world can I do to expose for other scenarios? I'm really perfectionist about white balance and exposure, unless either are at their exact degree they should be, everything just looks bad. Auto white balance isn't the most horrible feature, but auto-exposure really is, it never gets anything even close to right - you can't change the exposure type (spot mode, center-weight, ect ect) in video mode, and it just sucks.
 
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