Re: Custom white balance when using external flash

Richard Karash <Richard@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In article
<161425cd-08af-4cd5-bdb7-ba006dfe9fc4@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Dave <djohannsen2@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I own a Canon 30D, and I've found it to be weak with white balance. I
started experimenting with custom white balance / grey card and have
been getting good results.

When I threw flash photography into the mix, my custom white balance
shots coloring were off again. I've tried taking reference shots with
and without flash then taking my custom white balance shots with flash
and ugliness ensues.

The basic starting point should be "Flash" or "Daylight" or 5500 if the
flash if the main illumination. Then...

1. RAW, at least until you can experiment enough to work this out.

2. WhiBal... Seriously, I have found it terrific for getting the right
white balance. Watch their tutorial on web site.

3. If you are shooting flash in a room with incancdescent (tungsten)
lighting, then the flash will be very different color temp vs. the room
lighting. Especially evident if you use Slow Sync, where the
foregroudn will be illum by the flash and background by the room
lights. I tend to set the white bal for flash, and let the
(background) areas go red. All bets are off with most fluorescent
lighting.

Or gel the flash to the tungsten colour temperature and set camera to
tungsten which completely removes all the problematic colour temp
differential difficulties.

The problems rear their heads again when you propose to flash in a
room lit with a mix of tungsten and fluorescent, to which there is no
simple colour matching solution apart from turning one set off and
gelling the flash to the other's colour, pref the fluorescent because
gel-matching for them is more complex.

--
Chris Malcolm cam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]

.

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  • Re: Custom white balance when using external flash
    ... When I threw flash photography into the mix, my custom white balance ... shots coloring were off again. ... I use Rosco Cinegel filters to correct or adjust the color temp of my ...
    (rec.photo.digital.slr-systems)