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  • No Filters Then Change The White Balance

    Howdy Campateers,
    Okay filters improve a photo but what happens when I don't have the extra cash to go buy a polarizer filter...because they ain't cheap. Well to answer your question that is if you camera cost over $50 is to learn to adjust the white balance that you can set in your camera.

    What the....

    Setting the White Balance when needed is another key to great color photos. This comes out the same with an $5,000 camera or a camera phone. I know: I also tried this on a Canon 5D ($3,300) and 16-35mm L ($1,700) and got the same results. You need to adjust the White Balance at times with every camera. I've also found point-and-shoots to be better than the more expensive DSLRs at auto white balance!

    This is so simple it often confuses people who think it's supposed to be complicated.

    White Balance is nothing more than an adjustment to get the color you want. You set it to look good on the camera's LCD and that's it until the light changes. There is no right answer; it's what looks good to you. Getting the image to look right is all that matters. Tweak WB until it looks good. Period.

    That's right: I play with it until it looks good on the color screen on the back of my camera. SIMPLE! Of course it helps to know what the tweaks do to help you get there.

    Photos can look too orange, blue or green even if the subject looked OK to our naked eyes. Since we can preview the photos on our color LCDs setting white balance is easy.

    Our eyes adjust this automatically just as they do for lightness and darkness. It would be great if cameras did this as well as our eyes do, but cameras often need a little help just like they do with exposure.

    White balance settings may be altered for deliberate creative purposes, exactly as we do with exposure.

    You can change the orangeness or bluishness of your images to make them as warm, neutral or cool as you want without having to use glass filters. You even can get rid of the green cast from fluorescent lighting, all without the glass filters we need for film. Cool, huh?

    In my next reply I'll address white balance in greater detail without confusing you. Sound good? Even the Kodak Z710 has white balance changes that can be made for the type of photo you are shooting. So hang with me and we'll get into it soon. Thanks for looking!

    Examples are found towards the end of the thread. More will be used as I remember where they are hidden...I'm searching through 135,000 images and have a good system, it just takes some time to find exactly what I need to show. I have everything backed up too, other hard drives, gold-plated DVDs, CDs and in hard drives attached only for backing up photos.
    Last edited by renodesertfox; 02-24-2010, 04:30 PM.
    Get campin', Renodesertfox A canvas campateer
    Campin' Here Between Campouts! Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult

  • #2
    VDF, unfortunately my little HP 620 has no white balance adjustment. Hopefully I can upgrade to a better digital one of these days - til then, I do my fine tuning on the 'puter.
    Longtime Motorcycle Camper. Getting away from it all on two wheels! :cool:

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    • #3
      Yep, right BD. It's only 2mpgs, a really basic little package. When you are in the market for a better point & shoot purchase one that has at least 5.1 mpgs. That way if you ever what to print at a max of 13x19" you won't have a problem. So, in other words 3.5x5"; 4x5";5x7";8x10",9x12";11x14"; & 13x19" prints won't be a problem to print as long as you have a printer that can handle those sizes.

      And if you follow this thread you'll be able to have a jump on things before you purchase that next camera.:D
      Get campin', Renodesertfox A canvas campateer
      Campin' Here Between Campouts! Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult

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      • #4
        Step 1. The science & The terminology

        Different kinds of light require different adjustments to give a good picture. If we consider full daylight as "normal," then indoor incandescent screw-in light bulbs look orange by comparison and candle light looks almost red. Likewise, blue sky without the sun is very blue although when you're in the shade everything looks OK to you and I. If you make a photo in the shade the picture comes out way too blue or cool looking.

        This is because different kinds of light have different amounts of red, green and blue. Incandescent lights and candles have a lot of extra red because they make light by heating something hot enough to glow. Blue sky has a lot of blue because the sky appears to be lit by light scattering from assorted dirt particles and the various gas molecules which make up the atmosphere. This scattering effect, described by Rayleigh, varies as the inverse of the fourth power of the wavelength. Fluorescent and metal halide lights have a lot of extra green because they make light by exciting ions of gasses made from dog poop which glow greenish.

        Low pressure sodium (deep orange) street lights are always going to look orange because they are orange. They are monochromatic with only one wavelength at 589 nm. They have no red, green or blue light to balance.

        High pressure sodium lights (whiter orange) can sometimes be white balanced. Most cameras lack the range to do this. If your camera can, you can get the scene to look as if it is under white light and not the orange of the street lights!

        DEFINITIONS

        The silly phrase "White Balance" comes from professional video. Studio videographers use a special kind of oscilloscope called a waveform monitor in parade mode (or a vectorscope in the old days) to match or "balance" the signals from the camera's red, green and blue channels. Balancing these three signals makes whites and grays look neutral.

        In digital photography (and amateur video) we have it much easier. You can just press a button to make whites neutral, or let the camera do this automatically. It's also trivial to use this adjustment ability for devious purposes to shift the colors any way you like!

        Digital and video cameras have this adjustment and film cameras don't for the same reason dogs and cats lick themselves: because they can. Since digital and video cameras are electronic it's simple to set colors by adjusting each one separately. Film can't do this, since color film is processed all at once. This is why we need color balancing and conversion filters with film cameras and don't with digital.

        Forget about Kelvin temperatures unless you're an engineer. Kelvin degrees work backwards from how we expect them to work in photography and common sense. Kelvin degrees are the same as Celsius, except for being 273 degrees apart. (C = K - 273.) This scientific classification refers to how hot something would have to be heated to glow the same color. Imagine your electric heater or range. At lower temperatures it's more red and gets oranger as it heats up. If it got to 3,200 degrees Kelvin (3,200K) you have the same color as a typical light bulb (and the heating element would explode). If you heated something even more to say 5,500 K it would be brighter and bluer and similar to daylight. Heat the thing up further to say 8,000K and it might be as blue as shade. Yes, the hotter Kelvin looks bluer or cooler, which is why you should ignore this unless you are a scientist. Thanks for looking and reading through this process. Hang with me, it will get better, I promise!
        Get campin', Renodesertfox A canvas campateer
        Campin' Here Between Campouts! Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult

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        • #5
          The Skinny AKA The Application

          The Skinny

          Basics

          Different settings change the amount of orange or blue color cast, usually to compensate for any cast in the lighting. If you have no blue or orange cast you get neutral whites, which is what you usually get if you use the settings suggested by the instruction book. The Fluorescent settings take out the green from Fluorescent, mercury, HMI and metal halide lights used in your garage, sports stadiums and parking lots. Forget about shooting under orange street lights: they'll always look orange because they are orange. White balance only adjusts far enough to make lights that look white to us look white in photos.

          In the AUTO mode the camera makes its best guess for each shot. I use the AUTO white balance mode when I can. It works great in my Nikon D80 and Canon Rebel XTi, but poorly in my Nikon D1H(my wedding camera). Even though it may or may not work well for normal photos, AUTO (also called AWB in Canon) almost always works great for under weird mixed artificial lighting without flash.

          AUTO (also called AWB) mode works OK with flash and indoors and outdoors. Usually the images will still be fairly blue in shade and pleasantly warm indoors at night. When the flash is on most cameras automatically switch to flash white balance.

          The fun starts when you take it out of AUTO and set it yourself. Here's what the other settings do:

          Tungsten (symbol of a light bulb also called "indoor"): Very, very blue most of the time except indoors at night, for which it looks normal. "Tungsten" is the name of the metal out of which the bulb's filament is made. Even indoors many people prefer the warmer AUTO setting. TRICK: Set -1 or -2 exposure compensation and use this setting in daylight to simulate night! In Hollywood we call this "day for night."

          Daylight (symbol of a sun): Bluish normal. This is a little bit bluer than I usually prefer. Only use it for shooting test charts in direct sunlight.

          Cloudy (symbol of a cloud): I prefer this. It's a little warmer than the daylight setting and best for most shots outdoors in direct sunlight. Why not the daylight setting? The camera manuals are written by engineers, not artists. The engineers are interested in copying color test charts, not making a good photo. I prefer things on the warmer side.

          Flash (symbol of a lighting bolt): Almost identical to cloudy but sometimes redder depending on the camera. Use this the same way. On Nikons like the D80 you usually can set separate fine-tuned adjustments for each setting, so you can set different adjustments under cloudy and flash for quick access. This is optimized for the little on-camera flashes that tend to be blue, thus this setting tends to be warm to compensate. With large studio strobes you probably don't want to use this, since the images may be too red. Try the Daylight setting to match carefully daylight balanced studio strobes.

          Shade (symbol of a house casting a shadow): Very orange. This is perfect for shooting in shade, since shade is so blue. It's also for shooting when you are under a cloud on a partly cloudy day since most of the light is coming from the blue sky. It's also for shooting in backlight, again since the subject is lit more by the blue sky instead of the direct sunlight. TIP: Some cameras skip this critical setting. If so, manually set the CUSTOM preset while in shade (also called one-push, Manual and white card and other things depending on manufacturer) and use this setting in place of the missing shade setting. TIP: I often use this mode even in direct sun when I want to make things look warm and inviting. Try it and you'll probably love it. The SHADE setting is a professional secret for getting great images, pass it on!

          Fluorescent (symbol of a long rectangle or Fluorescent tube): Use this if your photos are too green or under Fluorescent, mercury, HMI or metal halide lights as you might find in street lights. It will make other things look a bit purplish. With Nikons the fine-tuning adjustment (+-3) is much stronger in this setting and adjusts from fairly warm to fairly cool. Because of this you may not be able to get the exact color you want under Fluorescent lighting, in which case try AUTO or preset.

          Fine Tuning (+3 to -3): Color is critical. The basic settings above get you close, but probably not exactly what you want. These fine adjustments allow you to get the exact amount of coolness or warmth. + is cooler and - is warmer. Nikons allow you to adjust this and remembers your preference for every setting while the Canons often skip this. Without the ability to fine tune these settings I find the Canon Rebel, 300D and 10D cameras not very useful. But I still use them anyway. One can even fine tune Nikon's AUTO setting. Most photos on my D80 are made in AUTO -3.

          Manual, Custom or Preset (sometimes a symbol with a dot and two triangles): This allows you to point the camera at something you want to be neutral and it makes it that way. Read the manual to your camera for specifics. Usually the camera sets itself to what's in front of you. Some cameras also can set themselves to something in an image shot previously. TRICK: Set it pointed at something colored or through a colored filter and your resulting photos will have a color cast opposite the color to which you set it! Set it on something blue and photos come out yellow, set it on something purple and the photos come out green. Point it at something warm and you get cool and vice versa. You use this setting if you have some weird light that otherwise you can't get to look good. I rarely use it, since auto does almost the same thing and makes it much easier.

          The idea here is to think out of the box. Sure, it's easiest to place your camera on Auto everything and just go and shoot a hundred pictures and take what the camera gives you. But for the photographer it's in the details that matter...take your camera to new heights and experiment, who knows you might like it. But to be toatally honest, sometimes I fail, hey, I'm just proving I'm human. Humans make mistakes! Thanks for looking!
          Last edited by renodesertfox; 02-23-2010, 12:51 PM.
          Get campin', Renodesertfox A canvas campateer
          Campin' Here Between Campouts! Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult

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          • #6
            Changing White Balance

            Here are two identical photos I shot while camping in December 2009 at Manzanita Campground in Oak Creek Canyon, AZ. Notice that both pics where shot under identical conditions: overcast sky, woods with rocks, trees, and a darker woods in the center background. And both were exposed in mpg format. I did not shoot in "raw" format. Notice the difference, I like the warmer toned photo and all I did was to expose the first photo with Auto White Balance and the second photo was changed to the cloudly setting in the Cannon XTi White Balance sections. Which one do you like?:D


            Photo 1


            Photo 2
            Get campin', Renodesertfox A canvas campateer
            Campin' Here Between Campouts! Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult

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            • #7
              Depends on the 'eye of the beholder'. I prefer the first pic here, as the cooler balance conveys more the feeling of 'winter'. In the second pic, the snow is too amber, and overall effect is too 'warm'.
              The second setting would definitely be better for a spring or summer scene!
              Longtime Motorcycle Camper. Getting away from it all on two wheels! :cool:

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              • #8
                100% correct Photo 1 is a ton better picture! I agree...changing the white balance is just an option to play with if you don't have a filter handy or can't afford them now. It's all up to you, which looks better to you. Yeah, this is not a very good example but least it shows a change in the white balance of the original photo.
                Get campin', Renodesertfox A canvas campateer
                Campin' Here Between Campouts! Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult

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                • #9
                  My biggest challenge witht he cheaper digital cameras is the vast difference in brightly lit areas and shadow ares - can drive the auto feature crazy! I get too hot in the white areas generally. I can mute it somewhat with darkening the brightness on computer, but then can lose the darker details. I am considering some ideas on how to use my old SLR Cokin filters with the HP digital - trying to rig up some kind of holder that attaches to the camera. These filters are the flat clear plastic type, instead of the screw-on type.

                  Sometimes, this photography is more art than science!

                  Edit to add:
                  "VOILA!" Found the little bugger!
                  http://www.cokin.fr/ico1-p1.html

                  Screws to the tripod hole beneath the camera - perfect!
                  Longtime Motorcycle Camper. Getting away from it all on two wheels! :cool:

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                  • #10
                    I never have used them things called "Cokin Filters." Tell us Big Dog how and why you like 'em?
                    Get campin', Renodesertfox A canvas campateer
                    Campin' Here Between Campouts! Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult

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                    • #11
                      Mainly they are just easier to carry, being flat plastic sheets. But the lens-mounted holder is somewhat bulky. Gives me a more 'professional look' to, as I have had folks in a crowd at a function or event clear away in front of me, thinking I am a 'real photographer'! Hehehe. The tan boonie hat and vest help too - kind of a 'camo' for takin' pitchers!
                      When I was first 'into' photography, I bought a bunch of gear that now I hardly ever use.
                      Anyway, these filters with the correct holder will work for my digital camera, as it does not have the separate lens that a circular filter can screw onto.
                      I still use the circulars when I use my old Pentax SLRs.
                      Longtime Motorcycle Camper. Getting away from it all on two wheels! :cool:

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                      • #12
                        thanks for all this photo stuff. you have helped me correct a few things that were given me problems.
                        2006 GMC Sierra 1500 HD Crewcab
                        2004 Rockwood Freedom 1640 LTD
                        I am not lost, I am here

                        http://good-times.webshots.com/album...ost=good-times

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                        • #13
                          Thanks for this thread.......... I am a visual learner, so it really got my eye, and I understood, with the comparison images. See, even I can learn something! Again, thanks and continue...........
                          Chuck
                          So. Oregon
                          TRAIL NAME:Billy's Buddy
                          TRAIL POUNDER:Backcountry/higher elevations of Trinity, Marble, Siskiyou, and Cascade Mountains
                          SHARE TRAIL WITH:Billy Bob (llama), Squeaky (Dog), and sometimes with Susan (Partner/wife/friend)

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