Custom white balance when using external flash

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.

If I could get some helpful hints and a few how-to's I would be most
appreciative.

If I'm missing some info just let me know and I'd be glad to
supplement.

thanks, dave

In article
,
Dave 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.

*RAW*

On Dec 22, 6:08*pm, "Mr. Strat" wrote:
In article
,

Dave 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.

*RAW*

I was hoping for a little more than this. 8)

I'll try raw format out but i was wondering how to achieve what I'm
after with JPG and minimizing post work. I'm sure there are several
techniques that I'm missing...

In article
,
Dave wrote:

I was hoping for a little more than this. 8)

I'll try raw format out but i was wondering how to achieve what I'm
after with JPG and minimizing post work. I'm sure there are several
techniques that I'm missing...

Shooting straight JPGs is too limiting and a pain in the ass when you
have color balance problems.

Flash is supposed to be white like sunlight. Normal bright sunny days, the
normal WB is close to 5500 so start with that. Shooting Raw will give you
the latitude to be able to correct for the WB in Digital Darkroom. Is your
external Flash TTL?? If your shooting in JPG you can either go auto WB and
let your camera make this decision. But, Strat is right, shooting in Raw
you can correct the shot later. Setting the camera for a normal sunny day
for the white for Flash might bring you back into the correct WB.

Test, test and more testing, then shoot in Raw and test again to see what
happens.

Not4wood



"Mr. Strat" wrote in message
...
In article
,
Dave wrote:

I was hoping for a little more than this. 8)

I'll try raw format out but i was wondering how to achieve what I'm
after with JPG and minimizing post work. I'm sure there are several
techniques that I'm missing...

Shooting straight JPGs is too limiting and a pain in the ass when you
have color balance problems.

On Dec 22, 10:04*pm, "Not4wood" wrote:
Flash is supposed to be white like sunlight. *Normal bright sunny days, the
normal WB is close to 5500 so start with that. *Shooting Raw will give you
the latitude to be able to correct for the WB in Digital Darkroom. *Is your
external Flash TTL?? *If your shooting in JPG you can either go auto WB and
let your camera make this decision. *But, Strat is right, shooting in Raw
you can correct the shot later. *Setting the camera for a normal sunny day
for the white for Flash might bring you back into the correct WB.

Test, test and more testing, then shoot in Raw and test again to see what
happens.

Not4wood

My flash is Canon 430EX Speedlite E-TTL. I've used auto WB with the
flash in TTL mode but Canon is often no so good at WB, especially when
taking indoor shots / varying light sources. I've used all the preset
WB settings and they sometimes help. I was super happy with Custom
WB / grey card in the absense of flash so I'm a bit disapointed that
there is apparently nothing I can do except work with RAW / do post
processing.

So am I to believe the custom WB / grey card techniques do not work
when external flash gets involved?

I'll experiment with your advice, including working with RAW - but i
would like to know all my JPG WB options also.

thanks a lot, dave

In article ofkbj.2488$Pt6.233@trndny07, Not4wood
wrote:

Flash is supposed to be white like sunlight. Normal bright sunny days, the
normal WB is close to 5500 so start with that. Shooting Raw will give you
the latitude to be able to correct for the WB in Digital Darkroom. Is your
external Flash TTL?? If your shooting in JPG you can either go auto WB and
let your camera make this decision. But, Strat is right, shooting in Raw
you can correct the shot later. Setting the camera for a normal sunny day
for the white for Flash might bring you back into the correct WB.

My experience with studio strobes is that they can vary quite a bit
from model to model, let alone brand to brand. And if an expensive
studio light can't do 5600K, then some little hot shoe do-dad isn't
going to be even close to consistent.

On Dec 22, 1:05 pm, Dave 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.

If I could get some helpful hints and a few how-to's I would be most
appreciative.

If I'm missing some info just let me know and I'd be glad to
supplement.
I will echo the suggestion of working in raw. You should be able to
find a color temperature and tint that works for one photo and use
that setting for all of them.

I really don't like using auto white balance, too much chance of
variation from shot to shot.

If you do get a variation from shot to shot, raw is by far the easiest
format to adjust the color from shot to shot.

Raw is also useful if it turns out your monitor is not currently
calibrated perfectly, you have the choice of reconverting the shots at
a later date and getting the color right. You might also decide at
sometime to print from a wider color gamut then sRGB, kind of nice to
have the raw file so you can do that, with jpeg you are stuck with
whatever color space you have the jpeg in.

Scott

On Dec 22, 7:16*pm, Dave wrote:

I was hoping for a little more than this.

WhiBal.

As others have mentioned, RAW will give you much more flexibility, however
interesting post regarding getting it right in-camera.

Normally, with ambient light you would fill most of the frame with a grey
card, but with flash this is obviously not so easy. So, just out of
interest, how are you using flash with a grey card to determine in-camera
white balance?

After shooting the grey card with flash, where is the spike on the
histogram? Is it in the middle?

What happens if you use the in-camera white balance setting for flash? Are
the results OK?




"Dave" wrote in message
...
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.

If I could get some helpful hints and a few how-to's I would be most
appreciative.

If I'm missing some info just let me know and I'd be glad to
supplement.

thanks, dave