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12/11/2006 10:25:01 AM · #26 |
Originally posted by Gordon:
Originally posted by MattO:
Thus my warning in the original post about working only when doing nonflash shots. I still dont have that one figured out yet.
MattO |
Flash indoors or outdoors ? Flash is usually pretty close to daylight balanced so you should be able to custom white balance if the other light source is the sun.
Otherwise you should be putting a gel over your flash to adjust for the ambient or other light sources in the scene. E.g., if the rest of the light is tungsten, you need to warm it up with an orange gel, or if the rest of the light is fluorescent you need to green up your flash to balance the rest of the ambient and then custom white balance or use fluorescent white balance.
If you have mixed ambient sources, then you need to switch the worst offender off and balance for the rest of them. |
When you have no control over the lights and whats used ie in a gymnasium or in another place you cant turn lights on and off you have to do what you have to do. I dont have gels and like I said I've not got the best understanding of the K scale to be the best judge of things, thats something I still have to learn but at least I'm still learning. Outdoors I generally use fill flash and thats never been a problem AWB or setting a custom for outdoor works great. Unless there is changing skies then I will use AWB to try and keep up with the changes.
MattO
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12/11/2006 10:28:44 AM · #27 |
Originally posted by MattO:
When you have no control over the lights and whats used ie in a gymnasium or in another place you cant turn lights on and off you have to do what you have to do.
MattO |
If you are using flash in a gym, you do have control over the lights. The available light in the gym is fine, but you must balance your flash to the gym light to be able to set a correct white balance.
Gels cost 1c from B&H in sizes suitable for a small on-camera strobe. Lee will also send you a complete set of about 200 gels if you just ask them. (they call it a sampler pack, but the sizes are perfect for going over a small flash unit) You do have to pull the pack apart and do some work to get a re-useable version but the price is tough to argue with!
A letter size sheet costs $5 if you want to spend more money. Attach some velcro and off you go.
Here's some more info on what to use when and how. The strobist lighting 101 section is worth a read if you want to use flash at all.
You don't really need to know much of anything about Kelvin temperature of lights or the underlying physics, though it doesn't hurt. You just have to start realizing that tungsten lights are orange, sunlight is the same colour as your flash, cloudy skies give blue light and fluorescent light is a nasty green.
Then all that's happening is that you modify the colour of your flash to suit the dominant colour of your light sources. If you can simplify things by switching one or more off then that helps, otherwise you need to balance for the strongest colours.
Message edited by author 2006-12-11 10:58:09.
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12/11/2006 10:48:47 AM · #28 |
Get one of these and you'll have 250 different coloured gels for your flash. You can probably pick one up from your local camera store or just email Lee and ask them to send you one.
The other option is to pick up Rosco Cinegel Swatchbook and/or Roscolux Swatchbooks the next time you order from B&H. Each one will cost you 1 cent each. Either that or ask at your local camera store. I've heard that the Lee swatches are bigger than the Rosco ones. I've only got the Lee gels for now so can't compare.
Those should get you started without it costing too much. You probably will want to buy the CTO & green gels in sheets so that you can make a few. It may even be worth laminating the gels to make them a bit stronger.
Message edited by author 2006-12-11 10:59:23.
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12/11/2006 10:56:37 AM · #29 |
Those are both great links and will help me learn alot Gordon. Thanks so much for your help! I'll look into the gels and see about getting them coming. Perhaps on situations where I have to use flash I wont end up with such inconsistencies now. Thanks again.
MattO
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12/11/2006 10:59:20 AM · #30 |
| Matt, I'm going to have to confiscate your camera if you start any more threads like this... ;-) |
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12/11/2006 11:03:25 AM · #31 |
Originally posted by jhonan:
Matt, I'm going to have to confiscate your camera if you start any more threads like this... ;-) |
I'm with you... LOL
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12/11/2006 11:11:14 AM · #32 |
This whole WB issue is a truly digital thing....
I grew up on film and still shoot it here and there.
What did I use? Daylight balanced color negative film. Whether I was indoors with flash, outdoors or outdoors with fill-flash I had the same WB setting.
Digital gives you control, but as an old-schooler, I am quite prepared to accept some WB imbalances in real-world shoots.
I run AWB balance most of the time, but have started thinking about the advice from kiwiness and others to run WB as Flash all the time - seeing that I rarely shoot indoors w/o flash.
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12/11/2006 11:11:53 AM · #33 |
I'm pretty dense so I'm going to ask some stupid questions!
How do you tell which lights are tungsten and fluorescent? Tungsten are lightbulbs and fluorescent are the strip lights that buzz?
I've shot in a room with several lamps (tungsten lightbulbs?) and used a custom white balance off a pringles cap (I was told it's good as a grey card) but the light was colored different from each of the lamps. How do you deal with that? It's mixed light but it's not mixed light kind of thing.
How cloudy must it be to use the cloudy setting? I've used cloudy -3 to get a warm light even on sunny days (as recommended by Moose). |
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12/11/2006 11:15:12 AM · #34 |
Originally posted by fotomann_forever:
This whole WB issue is a truly digital thing....
I grew up on film and still shoot it here and there.
What did I use? Daylight balanced color negative film. Whether I was indoors with flash, outdoors or outdoors with fill-flash I had the same WB setting.
Digital gives you control, but as an old-schooler, I am quite prepared to accept some WB imbalances in real-world shoots.
I run AWB balance most of the time, but have started thinking about the advice from kiwiness and others to run WB as Flash all the time - seeing that I rarely shoot indoors w/o flash. |
Though many film shooters would use different film for indoor (tungsten balanced) or outdoor (daylight balanced ) and also use gelled light sources if they cared about correct colour. If pretty much everything you shot was either outdoors, or with flash, then daylight-balanced would be all you need, particularly if the indoor shots used flash as the main light and just lived with the warm ambient fill. The labs fix everything else when printing.
There was and is also a huge amount of colour correction done by lab techs that you never see as a film shooter, unless you are talking to them directly. Wedding shooters in particular spend a lot of time working with the lab to get those wedding dresses the right colour as well as working with the gels because of all the mixed light situations they shoot in.
Message edited by author 2006-12-11 11:18:01.
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12/11/2006 11:19:28 AM · #35 |
Originally posted by Gordon:
Though most film shooters would use different film for indoor (tungsten balanced) or outdoor (daylight balanced ) and also use gelled light sources if they cared about correct colour.
There was and is also a huge amount of colour correction done by lab techs that you never see as a film shooter, unless you are talking to them directly. Wedding shooters in particular would spend a lot of time working with the lab to get those wedding dresses the right colour as well as working with the gels. |
Yes, that is true. You could deal with WB at the lightsource level (nice, but often impractical), use color correction filters in front of the lens (basically like setting your WB) or correct at the lab.
But, still it seems digital photographers are much more anal about WB than most film shooters ever were.
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12/11/2006 11:22:10 AM · #36 |
this is probably where my WB setting sits 90% of the time. Flash
Originally posted by fotomann+forever:
I run AWB balance most of the time, but have started thinking about the advice from kiwiness and others to run WB as Flash all the time - seeing that I rarely shoot indoors w/o flash.
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because we are our own lab and don't like having to actually do the lab work? i hate correcting color casts. most other editing i don't mind - but color cast on a batch of photos just plain sucks !
Originally posted by fotomann_forever:
But, still it seems digital photographers are much more anal about WB than most film shooters ever were.
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Message edited by author 2006-12-11 11:22:57.
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12/11/2006 11:25:18 AM · #37 |
Originally posted by fotomann_forever:
But, still it seems digital photographers are much more anal about WB than most film shooters ever were. |
Yup. Couldn't agree more. But I suppose that comes from there really only being two accessible/ practical 'white balances' for film - daylight or tungsten. Everything else fell where it fell or was tweaked in the lab (a lot)
I think what changed is that most users (particularly non-pro) never realised just how much colour correction is going on in their pictures, even the 10c prints from walmart. So now they've got the uncorrected version at home and the colour is all over the place and they want to know why.
Well, they 'why' is because there isn't a trained person fixing every image before you see them ;)
Digital photographers seem to be more anal about a whole host of things that film photographers just accepted. Perhaps that's because there wasn't the option to fix it before, or perhaps it wasn't magnified so much (sharpness/ lens quality)
If most of your prints were colour corrected in the lab and printed at 4x6, you'd never notice white balance or lens quality. Now we see the uncorrected print at '100% magnification' which is often equivalent to a four foot wide print, rather than 4 inch wide.
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12/11/2006 11:25:24 AM · #38 |
Originally posted by jhonan:
Matt, I'm going to have to confiscate your camera if you start any more threads like this... ;-) |
/me installs security system on his backpack!
Acck I need that thing. I'm just beginning to scratch the surface of the stuff I need to know to become a decent photographer!
MattO
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12/11/2006 11:31:46 AM · #39 |
Originally posted by soup:
because we are our own lab and don't like having to actually do the lab work? i hate correcting color casts. most other editing i don't mind - but color cast on a batch of photos just plain sucks !
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nlk Color FX Pro - Pro Contrast filter does a wonderful job at removing color casts ;-)
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12/11/2006 11:36:12 AM · #40 |
Originally posted by fotomann_forever:
nlk Color FX Pro - Pro Contrast filter does a wonderful job at removing color casts ;-) |
Does it work with mixed lighting ?
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12/11/2006 11:39:36 AM · #41 |
Originally posted by fotomann_forever:
Originally posted by soup:
because we are our own lab and don't like having to actually do the lab work? i hate correcting color casts. most other editing i don't mind - but color cast on a batch of photos just plain sucks !
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nlk Color FX Pro - Pro Contrast filter does a wonderful job at removing color casts ;-) |
That one likes to take out red and add blue.
But I agree, Pro Contrast is my most fav filter by Nik.
The Remove Color Cast filter is also very useful and can take out any cast, especially useful when you want to get rid of blue or purple.
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12/11/2006 11:41:41 AM · #42 |
Originally posted by Gordon:
Originally posted by fotomann_forever:
nlk Color FX Pro - Pro Contrast filter does a wonderful job at removing color casts ;-) |
Does it work with mixed lighting ? |
When you want to correct for example a photo that has a yellow cast from the indoor lights but also has sections lit by natural light via the window it will increasse the blue cast of the natural light. Not so pleasant aka extra work.
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12/11/2006 11:42:49 AM · #43 |
Originally posted by Gordon:
Originally posted by fotomann_forever:
nlk Color FX Pro - Pro Contrast filter does a wonderful job at removing color casts ;-) |
Does it work with mixed lighting ? |
If you get close on the WB it can deal fairly well with mixed lighting. The Remove Color cast is better suited for mixed lighting though.
Message edited by author 2006-12-11 11:44:31.
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12/11/2006 11:44:31 AM · #44 |
Originally posted by Azrifel:
The Remove Color Cast filter is also very useful and can take out any cast, especially useful when you want to get rid of blue or purple. |
Again, I'm interested, does that work with mixed lighting ? Or does it just work globally on one specific colour cast ?
Here's an example. Indoor tungsten lighting on her face (warm/ orange)
Outdoor, cloudy sky light in the rear window (cool/ blue)
In this case I don't particularly mind the two colour casts, but there isn't an easy way to neutralise both, at least globally. The window would be relatively easy to fix, but the blue rim light on her nose, forehead and shoulder is more difficult to fix locally. If I fix globally for the tungsten light, the window light would get even bluer. If I fix globally for the window light, the tungsten light would get even more orange.
So do the nik filters handle this ? (Edited to fix the password protected link) Feel free to play with that picture. I'm curious to see how well it could be fixed automatically. I'm not really looking for it to be totally fixed, so don't go spending too much time on it, but I think it is a good illustration of what I was at least trying to talk about.
For comparison this is a more accurate skin tone for that person (though here it is still warmer than natural due to a gold reflector, but still much cooler than the tungsten light)
The ways I can see I could have fixed this:
Don't shoot with the window in the scene
(removes a light source - but I'd still get the rim light)
Close the window.
(removes a light source)
Move her closer to the window and bounce window light into her face.
(reduces the amount of tungsten light/ window to tungsten ratio)
Use fill flash
(basically add more light coloured to the window light, to overpower the ambient tungsten)
Switch off the room lights and just use window light
(removes one of the colour temps again, probably move the subject to the window)
I don't think 'custom white balance' would be included in the list of ways to fix it, least I can't see one that would fix it.
Shoot it on daylight white balance, which is going to be half way between the right values for both light sources and get a shot like above and enjoy the warm / cool relationships in the shot :)
Message edited by author 2006-12-11 11:58:46.
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12/11/2006 11:45:39 AM · #45 |
Gordon, that image is saying Password protected image.
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12/11/2006 11:46:56 AM · #46 |
Originally posted by fotomann_forever:
Gordon, that image is saying Password protected image. |
Sorry - fixed it.
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12/11/2006 11:47:59 AM · #47 |
Originally posted by Azrifel:
That one likes to take out red and add blue.
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I would assume it does that because cooler images appear more sharp to the human eye... just a guess though.
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12/11/2006 11:48:16 AM · #48 |
eh - just shoot TRI-X 400 and stop worrying about color altogether ! ;}
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12/11/2006 11:58:05 AM · #49 |
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12/11/2006 12:00:28 PM · #50 |
Originally posted by fotomann_forever:
This is both together with a slight levels adjustment
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But that's just fixed the tungsten light to get her skin tones more natural. The window light is still blue as are her forehead/nose and shoulders. Look in particular at her eyelash or shoulder - those blue lines are colour casts from the mixed light, not anything in the actual room.
I don't really expect a filter to fix this btw, so I'm not very surprised.
I just think this is a good example of the problem that custom white balance or photoshop filtering doesn't fix easily, which could be fixed at the time of shooting (if I was worried about getting the colour right)
Remember - the window light here is just daylight. It shouldn't be 'blue' at all. There's nothing funky reflecting or anything like that. In fact, the column in the left of this shot below is the same thing that is showing as 'blue' in the indoor shot (it is the edge of the window frame). It is a pretty much neutral stone grey colour.
Black and white certainly is a good fix for this sort of thing too ;)
Message edited by author 2006-12-11 12:13:28.
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