‽
|
In fixing someone else's images, the main part of which being making the white balance remotely humane (awful, awful camera output ), I've been reading up on white balance, and now I'm curious: what, if any, non-SLR digital cameras allow you to calibrate the white balance using a grey card (or a random grey or white sheet of paper)? Is this a standard feature these days that most people just never discover, or is this typically only found on SLRs?
|
quote |
Member
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: lost in space
|
At least you can always choose between daylight and tungsten presets, which is good enough in most cases, or set it to automatic, where the camera searches for the brightest parts in the image, assuming them to be white and adjusting the images automatically (with terrible results sometimes).
|
quote |
‽
|
Quote:
|
|
quote |
25 chars of wasted space.
|
I haven't heard/don't know much about the adjustments on cameras, but adjusting it on the final image isn't too hard when you have a known white, black, and grey. I do believe that yo have to adjust it for every location though, you can't just adjust it once and be like "well my white balance is set."
I don't get why you'd adjust the white point unless it was consistently off by a lot. If you're serious about color you can always tweak it later in photoshop to make it perfect. Especially if you're willing to use a grey card, it makes it a lot easier to correct later. |
quote |
‽
|
Quote:
This all came to me when I analyzed a bunch of images from a friend which all suffered one and the same horribly, horribly low color temperature. Using the white from a woman's blouse in one of the shots helped me get a much more accurate white; applying this same setting to all images helped tremendously. However, the images still felt like they were lacking large parts of the color spectrum: I had merely shifted what parts were covered (to more accurate averages), not enhanced them. Maybe this wouldn't be as much of an issue when the camera supports RAW, but I'll frequently be getting stuff from people who certainly won't want to support a camera that even supports TIFF (let alone bother with setting the camera up properly before shooting). |
|
quote |
Member
Join Date: Jan 2005
|
Hi chucker, most cameras these days have manual presets for white balance. My camera phone has white balance presets! While semi-professional DSLRS have presets and the option to manually select your kelvin temperature for the perfect white balance.
A grey card is used to get the correct exposure. Not commonly used for white balance. A grey card is what the world would look like if you took all the colours in the world and supposedly put them into a blender, the result is 18% grey. All camera's light meters are 'set' to 18% grey. When a camera's shutter release (that button that takes the photo) is half-pressed the camera's light meter reads the scene your about to take a photo of. If you were taking a photo of snow which is obviously lighter than grey your metered exposure would be under-exposed (it's taking the white light of snow and making it 18% grey). In this situation you would purposely over-expose unless you want your snow looking dirty. Vice versa with scenes at night. Sounds kind of funny, under-expose (make darker) for night time shots where it's already dark and over-expose (make lighter) for things like snow which are already bright. A lot of cameras now have smart light meters that guess that your shooting at night time and of course exposure settings for snow, fireworks, night time, etc. AND wb presets like flash, tungsten, fluorescent. Hope the layman terms were okay edit: In the days of film, you would use a grey card for exposure and filters for colour balance tungsten is an orange/red tinge so you would put on a blue filter to bring the temperture back down to normal Last edited by trevo : 2007-03-19 at 08:38. |
quote |
Veteran Member
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Leiden, the Netherlands
|
My Olympus SP 510UZ does have a manual white balance 'recording' option.
We own a cheap DV-camera as well, which also has this feature. |
quote |
Member
Join Date: Jan 2005
|
I don't quite understand what your saying here. You could shoot with tiffs and not waste any time editing the good ones AND HAVE THE OPTION!!!! to fix up the bad ones that you can't bring your self to throw away.
|
quote |
‽
|
Quote:
I'm more asking how commonly today's consumer cameras have the ability to select a specific point in an image for white balance calibration. Quote:
Quote:
|
|||
quote |
Member
Join Date: Jan 2005
|
edit: I've just thought about it and that makes perfect sense. Using a grey card for WB has never popped up at school or work and I don't know anyone that uses a card for this purpose, not that I think it's a bad idea. Back to your question, I only know that some of the higher-end cameras do offer a manual define option for WB
atm I am only shooting digital with a D200. I was trying to make a point with the analog part edit: damm chucker your so fast at replying when i'm refining my post Last edited by trevo : 2007-03-19 at 08:36. |
quote |
‽
|
If you insist.
http://www.rawworkflow.com/products/whibal/index.html Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
|
||||||
quote |
Member
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: lost in space
|
I don't have my canon ixus here at the moment, but my girlfriend's leica d-lux has the option; you can save even two manual values.
I think it is quite common, but often hidden in the menu, and most people with smaller consumer cameras anyway tend to take more snapshot-like photos, and leave the settings most of the time in automatic mode. |
quote |
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472 Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
|
chucker, to answer you first question, my wife's Canon A620 has custom WB setting as an option to you. I'm not sure where on the scale it fits, but not bad for a point and shoot.
Also, you are right about Grey Cards being widely used now in digital photography to correct WB errors. I've been through a good portion of class about how it will simplify the life if you shoot in RAW/TIFF. However, with something like custom WB on the Canon point and shoot you would have to wait until post production to correct the WB. As odd as this is, I've never learned about using a Grey Card for proper exposure. I understand it's where the idea came from, but it isn't taught in digital classes anymore. Louis L'Amour, “To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.” Visit our archived Minecraft world! | Maybe someday I'll proof read, until then deal with it. |
quote |
Posting Rules | Navigation |
|
Thread Tools | |
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
SD Card Reader Queries | steve77uk | Genius Bar | 3 | 2007-01-25 13:24 |
Mounting an SD card that's in the camera via USB? | trevo | Genius Bar | 3 | 2006-07-21 11:08 |
Express Card 34 instead of 54??? | Mac Donald | Apple Products | 23 | 2006-03-15 14:27 |
Using External Wireless Card with PowerBook | Joe | Genius Bar | 0 | 2005-04-30 15:48 |