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11/11/2009 04:18:45 PM · #1 |
Hi guys,
As the title says, i suck when it comes to understanding the white balance in my camera.
BUT some photography friends of mine showed me a few tricks, well hell with it they told me I was 50% paralyzed if I knew not how to read an use the white balance thing on my camera. And so far i have been using it but last night i had a strange problem, how to i know what my white balance should be when i use my 580ex II??? Can any one tell me?
thanks in advance.
Can-on |
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11/11/2009 04:33:58 PM · #2 |
| White balance can be subjective to what look your looking for in a image. If taking a low candle light shot and use the flash as fill you might want more yellow in the balance then true whites or if taking a sport shot in doors your'll prob. want true whites. I just did a wedding last weekend using 580ex didn't want true whites. My best answer is shoot in raw and adjust to what look you looking for. If this makes any sense....Lol |
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11/11/2009 04:52:25 PM · #3 |
Hehe, did not help me much since I did not understand it:$
I am really new to photography and still trying to read some books for knowledge and I don't understand is true white and use the flash as fill
But still, Thank you very much for trying to help :) |
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11/11/2009 05:06:38 PM · #4 |
The human brain compensates for the color cast of different types of lighting, so you never notice it with your eyes. The camera, however captures that color cast. This is why indoor photos often have a yellowish cast to them. On the left of following pair, you can see the heavy yellow cast that was induced by the artificial lighting on a stage.
It was a tough one and it had to be fixed in post processing (corrected image on the left). None of the preset types of WB or the auto mode could compensate for it. I used "click white balance", which is where you click on an area that you know should be white and the software then adjusts. If you shoot JPEG, the white balance has actually been locked in and there is less you can do to fix it. This is part of why most of us end up shooting RAW when using an SLR. We can set it afterwards, with far more control. If I am using a JPG-only compact, however, I must be conscious of the WB setting at the time I take the photo.
As far as your 580 ex goes, I have found with my 430ex, that the setting for fluorescent light is usually suitable. The flash WB setting does not look right to me. The best way is to shoot in RAW (RAW captures all the data from the camera sensor and saves it with no processing applied) , and then when you adjust your RAW and convert to JPEG or TIF, you can adjust the white balance so that it looks right.
Message edited by author 2009-11-11 23:03:57. |
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11/11/2009 05:17:33 PM · #5 |
Originally posted by Can-on:
Hehe, did not help me much since I did not understand it:$
I am really new to photography and still trying to read some books for knowledge and I don't understand is true white and use the flash as fill
But still, Thank you very much for trying to help :) |
Couple things you should be aware of- when you use your flash, it is communicating with the camera and telling it what white balance to use in order to get accurate colors (but this only holds true for where the flash is lightnig... everywhere else will be different). What this means is that if you use that flash indoors, in mixed lighting (meaning, there are lights on somewhere around OTHER than your flash... be it a lamp or a halogen worklight) you will have multiple white balance issues to contend with. The way to get around this is to "gel" your flash so the light it emits is approximately equal to the same white balance as your ambient.
Failure to follow this approach leads to all sorts of gross outcomes like pallid green shadows in flourescent settings, amongst others. You might also have really bad orange tinging in the shadows too.
What  ace flyman was saying about "accurate" can be explained by this- if your white balance is "accurate" it means something that is true white in the scene appears true white in your photo. If your white balance is set for daylight and you take a photo indoors with incandescent lighting everything will be yellow/orange, even though that isn't how it appears to your eye. For a more indepth discussion of gelling and how to do it, I urge you to check out Strobist and read through Lighting 101.
Sometimes, as ace flyman said, you do NOT want your WB to be "accurate." Capturing the warm glow of candlelight, for instance, adds an environmental feel to a photo and isn't always something you want to eliminate. Or if you want a harsh industrial scene, you might intentionally make things appear a bit more blue to enhance the sterility or harshness of the scene you are capturing.
Shooting in RAW allows your to change your WB after the fact so you aren't so tethered down to your on the scene choices, therefore you have a much more flexible and useful image for work later.
Sorry for such a long post, hope my ramble made sense. |
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11/11/2009 05:31:27 PM · #6 |
Lol....You know I was where you are when I came here some years ago. I had no clue. The last time I was into photography was in high school shooting b&w many moons ago. If you have thick skin and have a drive to learn. I couldn't recommend a better place then here to learn. I'm still learning........Good Luck.....ace
edit; Thanks spiritualspatula for the detail clarification of my response.. :)
Originally posted by Can-on:
Hehe, did not help me much since I did not understand it:$
I am really new to photography and still trying to read some books for knowledge and I don't understand is true white and use the flash as fill
But still, Thank you very much for trying to help :) |
Message edited by author 2009-11-11 22:34:49. |
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