Manual white balance

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

shoot raw & post process
Aye, thats what I have Adobe Lightroom for :)
Loads of nice ways to correct inaccurasies there.
 
Atip for you paint a big white square on you fins this works for me when i for get my white board and its always with you please don't paint underside of fin's as it bloody hard to white balance i know i tried lol
 
I still need to figure out how to orient myself so that when I aim the camera at my fins, I don't start somersaulting. Maybe it's my trim?
 
Is the subject of your photo's always the same distance from the camera as your white board (fin)?

Isn't that really part of the proper science behind manual whit balance control?
 
Probably also supposed to be in the same angles with regards to sun and horizon???
 
Probably also supposed to be in the same angles with regards to sun and horizon???
A manual WB set in the water you are diving in is still probably better than whatever generic "UW" setting is built into the camera. Even if the angles or depth change somewhat. If the change is significant, it should only take a second to get another white balance setting. Really no different than if you took a couple dozen shots in bright sunlight and then moved to a shady area or if a cloudy sky suddenly moved in.

Still, it's probably best IMO to shoot in raw (or jpeg + raw) and fix the picture in Lightroom or Aperture. But even then, a good white balance will still help if you are chimping your shots to see how well they are focused, etc.
 
The best is to carry a white slate and then use to set the manual white balance orienting the camera with the same angle you will use to shoot. The slate has to fill the frame you can't use a tiny little thing like a piece of tape as you should be shooting with center weighted average so balancing light over the complete frame
As you shoot mostly with upward angle that is the same angle you should use and make sure you don't cover the slate with your shadow.
You should adjust the white balance every few meters or when you change the background (a lot of sand or white bits make a change)
 
also remember that when you will use the internal flash you would have to set white balance again. i used to use a credit card shaped white plastic thing which i clipped to the lanyard.

Althoug Jonix is technically correct the reality is that with internal flash you can only shoot macro and for macro it is actually better to use the camera UW setting unless you have complete control of aperture and shutter speed

This because when you shoot macro your light is the dominant source and you are not interested in the background colors besides if you have a Nudi with white spots those will tend to be over exposed
 
Or just shoot RAW and fix it later :)

You can use lots of things to calibrate white balance if you dont have a card. Lots of places have white sand for example. Here and other places we use the awful alminium tanks whose only saving feature is they're a neutral gray in color.
You CAN use the palm of your hand to get it approximate too.

As said though to calibrate properly you need to have the card about the same distance from you as the intended suject and at the same angle. And redo this whenever you change depth. Remember to ensure the white card is properly exposed. A camera will tend to underexposure a white card (as its trying to make the scene grey) if you don't intervene.

Camera UW modes are problematic in that they're calibrate for certain waters at a certain depth only (typically blue water 10m or so) so once you deviate from that its not accurate. Manual is better.

Me? I shoot RAW on compact and DSLR :)
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

Back
Top Bottom