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06/13/2007 02:59:59 PM · #1 |
I have a black, white and grey card that I got with a photoshop book.
I want to try using it to set custom white balance. The way I understand it the most correct way to do that is using the neutral grey as the white balance, right?
Any tips as to how to actually obtain the reference?
Should the card fill the whole frame of is it enough to just point meter off it?
Any specific angles that are better?
I was asked to shot at a wedding (they also have a pro shooting) and due to space problems am considering shooting in jpeg instead for RAW, thought it might be wise to be able to set the WB correctly before the shoot.
any advice is appreciated.
Michael |
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06/13/2007 03:15:17 PM · #2 |
My advice, don't. Shoot in RAW (or whatever Nikon has). Adjust later. It's a wedding and you have to get it right. Unless you're a guest. In that case, it'll be hard for a guest to interupt the shooting pro to say, "Excuse me, can is take a reading before you get that important shot?"
Don't be a Uncle Bob.
edit: Should've read the post first. I still say buy the extra memory and shoot RAW.
edit again: I think you should fill the frame with the grey card. I've never done it tho. What's nice is the bride should be in white and the groom should be in black. Should be easy to get those balanced. But you'll need to get the skin tones correct. That's the hard part.
Message edited by author 2007-06-13 15:21:27. |
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06/13/2007 03:33:06 PM · #3 |
The D70 Manual download
Page 52 of the manual describes how to do it correctly.
You need to fill the frame with your grey card in the light that you will be shooting in. Keep in mind that if you move outside or to another room, the Custom WB setting will no longer be valid and may cause a color cast. Practice doing this with a collapsible grey "card" that you can stick in your pocket so you can make the adjustments quickly and then save your money for big card and shoot RAW, I get 200 shots on my D2x (19mb files) on a 4GB card. If I recall I got 12MB files on my D70. 4BG cards are 30-60 dollars now.
Good Luck & Have Fun! and let us know how it turns out! |
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06/13/2007 03:37:39 PM · #4 |
If you're having to ask this question, please shoot RAW. You can fix mistakes then. Bad thing about weddings is that light WB is almost always mixed and you'd have to be switching constantly.
If memory is a problem (memory is cheap), just be more selective in what you shoot. You'll get better shots that way anyway.
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06/13/2007 04:21:16 PM · #5 |
I just looked at memory prices. I'll buy a 4 GB CF card tomorrow and won't have to think about that anymore.
Sorry for wasting your time.
Cheers
Michael. |
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06/13/2007 04:28:24 PM · #6 |
Originally posted by Refwhett:
I just looked at memory prices. I'll buy a 4 GB CF card tomorrow and won't have to think about that anymore.
Sorry for wasting your time.
Cheers
Michael. |
Not wasting our time at all. Have fun shooting :-)
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06/13/2007 05:22:49 PM · #7 |
| More spendy, but there's always the ExpoDisc. |
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06/13/2007 11:13:53 PM · #8 |
| Make sure you have a shot of the gray card in each lighting situation. Its sometimes easier to copy a white balance off one image than find something that is truly white -- most white clothing has blue in it to make it look whiter, it may be from "bluing" in the detergents used in washing (not sure about the bride's dress though). |
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06/17/2007 10:33:45 AM · #9 |
Originally posted by Nullix:
My advice, don't. Shoot in RAW (or whatever Nikon has). Adjust later. It's a wedding and you have to get it right. Unless you're a guest. In that case, it'll be hard for a guest to interupt the shooting pro to say, "Excuse me, can is take a reading before you get that important shot?"
Don't be a Uncle Bob.
edit: Should've read the post first. I still say buy the extra memory and shoot RAW.
edit again: I think you should fill the frame with the grey card. I've never done it tho. What's nice is the bride should be in white and the groom should be in black. Should be easy to get those balanced. But you'll need to get the skin tones correct. That's the
hard part. |
What's wrong with Uncle Bob? And how did he get above those people for all of those shots. |
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11/30/2007 03:06:41 PM · #10 |
looks like the best advice here is to shoot RAW and fix later...will this also fix skin tones if the white balance is off?
(I planned on doing this, leaving on AutoWB and shooting RAW)...is this the way I should go?
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11/30/2007 03:09:36 PM · #11 |
also recognise that if you are shooting in mixed lighting, white balance will not fix the multiple different colour casts introduced. You can if you want to spend a lot of time, fix it with multiple white balance conversions and layering/ masking but you'll still get bleed over between the sources.
You can fix it by properly balancing either your additional light sources, or controlling the light sources in the venue - but that isn't always possible, either.
RAW isn't a panacea for mixed lighting.
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11/30/2007 03:10:51 PM · #12 |
Originally posted by ragamuffingirl:
What's wrong with Uncle Bob? And how did he get above those people for all of those shots. |
Uncle Bob is really, really tall. He is kind of clumsy though and actually squished a few guests. |
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11/30/2007 03:16:29 PM · #13 |
Originally posted by Gordon:
also recognise that if you are shooting in mixed lighting, white balance will not fix the multiple different colour casts introduced. You can if you want to spend a lot of time, fix it with multiple white balance conversions and layering/ masking but you'll still get bleed over between the sources.
You can fix it by properly balancing either your additional light sources, or controlling the light sources in the venue - but that isn't always possible, either.
RAW isn't a panacea for mixed lighting. |
The approach that I use at receptions, assuming the venue is lit mostly with incandescent, is to use a Rosco Full sun Gel to take the flash from 5500K to about 3300K. Then I either set a custom WB using just the flash or just use the incandescent setting on camera. Lower wattage bulbs may appear more yellow, but it usually looks OK. |
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