The Benefits of Using a Custom White Balance

Olympus 14-42mm f.3.5-5.6 ED Zuiko Digital Zoom

02/21/2008 02:19:52 AM · #1

For those that have shot inside a school gymnasium, you will know what I mean by the lighting really sucks! The overheads lights drive a camera's white balance bonkers. Auto-white balance is fooled and it takes a bit of post-processing to fix.
Last night I did some shooting in just such an environment and had it not been for setting a custom white balance, would probably be still wrestling with correcting them.

Prior to shooting, a

(Photovision 14" Pocket One Shot Digital Target)

was used to set a custom white balance and determine exposure. Set a 5D to ISO1250 (available light only used), 85mm set at f/1.8 and 1/640sec shutter speed, and was amazed at what the results were. All were shot in jpeg rather than RAW for the speed in getting them uploaded via FTP for the paper. Editing was as simple as Open, Image, Levels, Options, used defaults of 0.5% in both Highlight & Shadow boxes and hit OK. A couple had minor crops and NR due to ISO.

<--- link to folder with examples.

That was way too easy!

ETA:
Just saw

jtf6agent 's shot from last night made it in the North County Times and rightfully so - cool shot Nick!
(I'mma newbie anyway - was the 1st Basketball Game I ever shot)

Message edited by author 2008-02-21 17:51:22.

yungskeeme

Olympus E-410

02/21/2008 02:50:53 PM · #2

wow...really nice

Gordon

RIM BlackBerry Curve

Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM

02/21/2008 03:12:04 PM · #3

the main problem from what I remember is that the white balance is cycling around the frequency of the power supply, so if you shoot anything faster than 1/50s / 1/60s you'll get different white balance for every shot.

Depends a lot on the light source. Some cycle, some don't. Other's are just nasty sodium slot spectrum sources, which again can't really be properly white balanced for, particularly in the magenta colour range (which you can still see a bit in the shot you posted)

Generally nasty light source all round - you did a good job corrected as much as you did.

Bebe

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM

02/21/2008 03:22:21 PM · #4

Wow - that was brave to go with jpg in that light, but it worked out beautifully for you. The images are great. I'll have to figure out how to use one of those cards. Thanks for posting!

02/21/2008 04:00:40 PM · #5

Here's a bit more in the way of side by side with Histogram overlay:
Exp data was custom White Balance, manual exposure set at f/1.8 and 1/640sec at ISO1250
No in camera tweaks to contrast, saturation etc were done, shot in jpeg highest mode.

Image on the left was straight of of the camera, opened in CS2, Image, resize to 400px on the wide side, Bicubic Sharper resampling method. No other adjustments. Image on the right was corrected using the one-step levels defaults noted in the comment section and also as noted above in the original thread.

rex

Canon PowerShot SD780

02/21/2008 04:07:07 PM · #6

I have been thinking of buying a whi-bal card. You may have just sold me on it.

02/21/2008 04:11:48 PM · #7

Originally posted by rex:

I have been thinking of buying a whi-bal card. You may have just sold me on it.

After seeing what it can do for one of the worst lighting conditions around, I will be using it EVERYTIME I change lighting scenes / locations during the wedding shoot Saturday and every shoot thereafter. This is as close to in-camera perfect as I've ever had and will make post-processing a breeze (aside from the crops & creative edits)

rex

Canon PowerShot SD780

02/21/2008 04:13:48 PM · #8

What is the difference:

//www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=472226&is=REG

//www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/429982-REG/Photovision_DT14010_14_Pocket_One_Shot.html

besides the obvious price and brand?

The whi-bal card states that it is used for RAW editors.