Custom White Balance suggestion
- Thread starter enewmen
- Start date
in the Canon camera user manual suggest something white, actually anything in neutral tone are good for custom white balance. so card, paper, cloth are fine as long you make sure they are neutral in tone.
there are many custom white balance tools commercially available as well. I'm using the Exposdisc and Datacolor Spyder Cube.
there are many custom white balance tools commercially available as well. I'm using the Exposdisc and Datacolor Spyder Cube.
Diavonex
Senior Member
I don't know, but this does sound wayyyyy cheaper than anything in here. I'm new btw. Hi CSers!
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/11/set-perfect-white-balance-with-starbucks-coffee-cup-lid/
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/11/set-perfect-white-balance-with-starbucks-coffee-cup-lid/
There have been threads about such DIY approaches. Doesn't need Starbucks, any kopi shop foam cup will do.
Octarine said:
True. Even styrofoam bowls and cups will do too.
it all depends on how serious you are about whitebalance... but then how serious is the thing really?
White is no good, in jpg you record in all three channels 256 and hence have no clue if there is a colour cast. you need something grey. now finding an object with even grey is not easy, most greys got a colour cast to blue, red or green.
same applies to foam cup lids, they may have colour cast.
the most accurate and durable item would be a Whibal card...
But if you shoot RAW then you can always adjust to what you like later... which may not be what the custom WB gives you
anything neutral in color is good.
I have a question. I have some problem with the gray card white balance because everytime I face the gray card at different angle at the same place; sun casting onto gray card vs sun did not cast on gray card, I get a different colour temperature photo. So where do I actually face the gray card?
when the sunlight casting on gray card, the WB is similar to preset "sun", when the sunlight not casting on the gray card, is similar to "shade".
there is no fix rule on which one should you use, depends on what you want to use as color temperature of the light source, aka your preference.
for an example, if I'm taking people under the sunlight, and it is during early hour or late hour of the day, I will let the sunlight be warm. any another time of the day I will let the sunlight be neutral.
it depends on which light source's color temp you are looking at.
normally, I'll get the reading when the card is exposed to the main light
Expodisc itself does not measure anything. It's always the camera. Secondly: you can use Expodisk in both ways (it's described at the website). Either you point your cam with Expodisk directly to the light source and measure this or you point it to the subject and measure reflected light.
Depends on the situation. You can use the camera preset for 'sunny' as well. But Auto WB can get fooled by a dominant colour in the image.
willdoang
Senior Member
I use anything white that's available in the location 
eg:
before costum WB
after i take a pic of the white plate(yup the one on the table) and set the custom WB with it
in open sun my AWB never let me down so far
eg:
before costum WB
after i take a pic of the white plate(yup the one on the table) and set the custom WB with it
in open sun my AWB never let me down so far
So for outdoor shoot can just forget about the gray card thingy except for indoor? Because I always get a "too warm" feeling with my AWB in the sun so got myself a cheap gray card and realised that it caused very different colour temp depending on where I face my gray card. I took part in a alot of overseas competition and there are cameras around for live broadcast and there will be this person holding a light gray card for all the camera to calibrate too. He was pointing it upwards towards the sun so I believe shooting in the sun needs WB calibration as well.
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