Manual white balance

[scubarick314]

What do you all use to set your white balance underwater? I saw a guy using a white card with a colorscale on one side. Thanks for the help.

 

[promocop]

My Canon G10 has a u/w preset. The balance card I find to be a giant pain

 

[AndyT]

If I do I just use the sand as long as it's a light colour, obviously not the black volcanic stuff.

 

[bleeb]

One frequent dive buddy carries a slate externally (i.e. not in a pocket). That seems to work the best in the somewhat murky inland environment around here, without carrying something like a dedicated card. I've also used any reasonably clean, uncolored tank that happened to be passing by. In the above mentioned murky environment, all the light is pretty diffuse, so the shininess of even brushed aluminum doesn't seem to be too much of an issue.

I've also heard of people taping waterproof paper or even a piece of styrofoam tray to their buddy's tank.

 

[Brewski]

My buddies VIP sticker is white.

 

[Bubbletrubble]

I stuck a piece of white duct tape on the back end of my primary light. It works great when I'm using my Canon P&S.

 

[maged_mmh]

shoot raw & post process

 

[scubarick314]

Thanks for all of the good ideas.

 

[scottfiji]

a small white dive slate works very well

 

[jcclink]

If you're serious about manual white balance you need to do it every time there is a change in ambient lighting. This includes depth changes, angle of sunlight, cloud cover, visibility, etc. These can constantly change during a dive, which means that you will be constantly adjusting white balance. Or just use Photoshop.