White Balanace / Photo Shop

[BurBunny]

Auto or Cloudy is good. Will get you into the neighborhood, but with RAW it truly doesn't matter. Just means out of the camera before you do any adjustments (or if you shoot RAW + jpg if your camera allows) you'll have a good starting point.

 

[alcina]

Manually setting the WB with a slate is pretty impossible with my Canon 20D (won't autofocus).

Thanks.

Your 20D won't autofocus? Why? I use the 20D and might be able to help. Have to say I've never even used MWB with mine so not sure where to start looking for an easy way

If you are shooting RAW I wouldn't even bother messing with MWB on the 20D - it can be a time saver in PP maybe but it doesn't take that much extra time to set it in ACR. And it doesn't matter to the data which way you go - just because you set it to something while shooting RAW you've only told it what to show you...all of the data is still there and can be changed.

 

[Mike Veitch]

Your 20D won't autofocus? Why? I use the 20D and might be able to help. Have to say I've never even used MWB with mine so not sure where to start looking for an easy way

If you are shooting RAW I wouldn't even bother messing with MWB on the 20D - it can be a time saver in PP maybe but it doesn't take that much extra time to set it in ACR. And it doesn't matter to the data which way you go - just because you set it to something while shooting RAW you've only told it what to show you...all of the data is still there and can be changed.

pssstt....

Filters...

I use Cloudy, and tweak after in the conversion if i need to. I got tired of getting different colours in a series of shots using A.... and i like the warmth of cloudy as well.. and of course saves time in the conversion as i don't have to do the WB on a lot of shots

 

[The Kraken]

Now if I can just figure out how to make my E900 work with my DS50 when the camera is in the macro mode or zoomed ?! !?!?!?!?!

the K

 

[jgiddings]

Your 20D won't autofocus? Why? I use the 20D and might be able to help. Have to say I've never even used MWB with mine so not sure where to start looking for an easy way

Alcina -

My 20D won't autofocus correctly when I put a white slate in front of it and try to set it manually (by taking a picture of the slate). It just seems to hunt around for a focus point since it's only "seeing" white. I'm using the Ikelite housing and it's also a pain to try and hold a slate in front of the whole system to manually adjust the WB all the time. So I'm going to RAW to get rid of this problem.

Thanks everyone on advice on what WB to use!

 

[Mike Veitch]

Alcina -

My 20D won't autofocus correctly when I put a white slate in front of it and try to set it manually (by taking a picture of the slate). It just seems to hunt around for a focus point since it's only "seeing" white. I'm using the Ikelite housing and it's also a pain to try and hold a slate in front of the whole system to manually adjust the WB all the time. So I'm going to RAW to get rid of this problem.

Thanks everyone on advice on what WB to use!

your slate only needs to fill about 2/3 of the frame. that way you get a contrast point for the AF

 

[jgiddings]

your slate only needs to fill about 2/3 of the frame. that way you get a contrast point for the AF

Thanks Mike!

I've always wondered how much of the slate needs to be in the frame to get the camera to say "this is white under these conditions". I've always used full-frame on my olympus 5050 (does't need to focus).

 

[AndyT]

For those who are interested here's a link which explains how autofocus works and why it will not work if the white slate fills the frame
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/autofocus3.htm