White balancing on the 5D?

lee caropolo

lee caropolo

Active member
Im not really sure how to go about it. Ive mostly been shooting in the woods working on my own film and have usually just set it to tungsten balance because i like the blue look i get. Eventually in post i would like that silvery grey washed out look. Can anyone explain the process of white balancing using the different charts ive heard about. Also the color temp wheel on the 5d how does that come into play? Sorry for this newb question some links would be great Thanks again!
 
Google should be full of info regarding this. There are several youtube videos as well.

Check your manual for manually white balancing - you shoot a still of a white or grey card in the environment you're using, and then select that image as your white balance. Some DSLRs let you save that image and name it, such as "forest" or whatnot.

Some DSLRs let you manually set the kelvin temp. You can eyeball this, but having an understanding of the Kelvin scale for color helps a lot.

You can also do things like shoot a light blue card; this will push your balance warmer (thus they call them "warm cards"); or shoot a warm/orange colored card which will force the balance cooler. And it doesn't need to be a paper card; you can shoot a shirt, a wall, whatever, just knock it way out of focus. Usually with a DSLR, when you shoot the still that will be your white reference, you'll need to turn autfocus off, as there's nothing to focus on (and shooting a very blurred card will even out any color differences).

There's a world of info on the web about the theory ( temps and what they mean) and practice (how to do this for specific cameras).
 
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