white balance

My camera has various white balance modes and I am unsure about 4 of them...

1. Shooting under "daylight" flourescent lamps
2. Shooting under "warm white" flourescent lamps
3. Shooting under "cool white" flourescent lamps
4. Shooting in incandescent light

How do I know which of these above conditions is the condition I am in at
the time?

"Beck" wrote:

My camera has various white balance modes and I am unsure about 4 of
them...

1. Shooting under "daylight" flourescent lamps
2. Shooting under "warm white" flourescent lamps
3. Shooting under "cool white" flourescent lamps
4. Shooting in incandescent light

How do I know which of these above conditions is the condition I am in at
the time?


IMO it's a matter of taste with all that white balance stuff. AUTO ist the
most
convenient mode if you are editing your pictures on the PC/Mac you can
easily finetune afterwards. There are many types of flourescent lamps so the
mentioned presets can only deliver average results. I would do shots with
each
of this presets ("white balance" bracketing).

Andreas

--
http://www.subworld.at

How about using auto white balance?

If you shoot RAW you can always adjust WB.
www.alldigital.fotopic.net

Arthur Small wrote:
How about using auto white balance?

I have it set to auto anyway. Was just having a look through the settings
again and found them. Manual is not much help.

If you shoot RAW you can always adjust WB.
www.alldigital.fotopic.net

Camera does do raw photos I have no experience with post processing though.

John A. Stovall wrote:
On Mon, 17 Apr 2006 14:11:45 +0100, "Beck"
wrote:

My camera has various white balance modes and I am unsure about 4 of
them...

1. Shooting under "daylight" flourescent lamps
2. Shooting under "warm white" flourescent lamps
3. Shooting under "cool white" flourescent lamps
4. Shooting in incandescent light

How do I know which of these above conditions is the condition I am
in at the time?


Look at the light bulbs or just shot a couple of test shots.
************************************************** **

With so many different types of lighting, looking at the bulb is not going
to help.

Andreas Thaler wrote:

IMO it's a matter of taste with all that white balance stuff. AUTO
ist the most
convenient mode if you are editing your pictures on the PC/Mac you can
easily finetune afterwards. There are many types of flourescent lamps
so the mentioned presets can only deliver average results. I would do
shots with each
of this presets ("white balance" bracketing).

Does auto usually come up with the best results in your experience?

On Mon, 17 Apr 2006 14:11:45 +0100, "Beck"
wrote:

My camera has various white balance modes and I am unsure about 4 of them...

1. Shooting under "daylight" flourescent lamps
2. Shooting under "warm white" flourescent lamps
3. Shooting under "cool white" flourescent lamps
4. Shooting in incandescent light

How do I know which of these above conditions is the condition I am in at
the time?


Beck,
Fluorescent lighting can be difficult to judge because our
brain adjusts for the difference in color temperature & there are a
few common types in use. In general *most* office/industrial
fluorescent lighting tends to be cooler (closer to blue) or "cool
white".

How to tell which setting is best in part depends on your
camera. Many newer digital cameras will show you the effect of
changing the White Balance (WB) in the "live LCD" before you actually
take the picture, if you have the LCD on & it's not a DSLR.

If you can see the change in the "live LCD" than that may be
enough for you to see which settings renders the most natural "White"
light *before* you take the picture(s).

If your camera does not show you the manually selected WB in
the "live LCD", you may need to take a few test shots & review/compare
the results.

In general terms "incandescent/tungsten" refers to "most"
common screw-in light bulbs & "most" tiny white Xmas tree or rope
lights.

1 more thing to consider is your camera's flash. If the flash
is set to automatically fire in low lighting, it's WB may be different
than the manual WB you selected. So keep this in mind, if there is
enough light to take the pictures you want without the flash, then you
may want to turn it off. The beauty of digital photography is that
it's virtually free to experiment with such setting & gain some
experience with the different settings & what works best & where.

Lastly, if your camera has a custom WB mode, you may whish to
learn how to set it & consider that option too!

Best of luck, I hope some of this is helpful to you.

Respectfully, DHB


"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President,
or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong,
is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable
to the American public."--Theodore Roosevelt, May 7, 1918

DHB wrote:

How to tell which setting is best in part depends on your
camera. Many newer digital cameras will show you the effect of
changing the White Balance (WB) in the "live LCD" before you actually
take the picture, if you have the LCD on & it's not a DSLR.

Yes my camera has this although its quite difficult to judge the differences
especially when the LCD often does not reflect the actual picture taken -
sometimes pictures that look dark on the lcd actually look alot lighter when
on pc or printed.

1 more thing to consider is your camera's flash. If the flash
is set to automatically fire in low lighting, it's WB may be different
than the manual WB you selected. So keep this in mind, if there is
enough light to take the pictures you want without the flash, then you
may want to turn it off. The beauty of digital photography is that
it's virtually free to experiment with such setting & gain some
experience with the different settings & what works best & where.

I don't like to use the flash much as it can show harsh shadows, but at home
my living room lighting usually leaves gold haze so it needs the flash.

Lastly, if your camera has a custom WB mode, you may whish to
learn how to set it & consider that option too!

Now there is a bit in my manual about custom white balance. It says to hold
up a piece of paper under the light source so that it fills the entire
screen then press shutter button. Its not clear, when I hold the paper up,
do I photograph just the paper with the light behind it?

Best of luck, I hope some of this is helpful to you.

Much help thankyou.

On Mon, 17 Apr 2006 14:11:45 +0100, "Beck"
opined:

My camera has various white balance modes and I am unsure about 4 of them...

1. Shooting under "daylight" flourescent lamps
2. Shooting under "warm white" flourescent lamps
3. Shooting under "cool white" flourescent lamps
4. Shooting in incandescent light

How do I know which of these above conditions is the condition I am in at
the time?

Well, short of using spectrometer, you just have to estimate it -
especially as it's common to get mixed lighting, such as a room with a
sunny window that also has fluorescent lighting.
If your camera has the feature, it's often best to put a white piece
of cardboard (or other white object) in place of the subject, shoot a
test shot, & set your cameras white balance from that. If your camera
supports it, one of the best methods is to shoot in 'RAW' mode (rather
than 'JPEG' mode), where the white balance can be changed *after* you
take the shot & have uploaded it into your computer for processing.
Typically, you can then set the white balance by simply clicking an
eyedropper on an area of the shot that you know is white, such as (for
example) a note pad, foam plastic cup, or a white shirt/blouse.

In fact, one sneaky trick I invented myself is fast & very effective
for people shots under mixed lighting, when there's nothing white or
grey in the shot at all. The method is to enlarge the subject's face
to 100%, then take a white balance from the white of one of their
eyes. This nearly always gets you a reasonable white balance, which
you can then tweak a little towards yellow (to compensate for the
yellow cast that most people have in their sclera) to get it dead on.
--
W
. | ,. w , "Some people are alive only because
\|/ \|/ it is illegal to kill them." Perna condita delenda est
---^----^---------------------------------------------------------------

On Mon, 17 Apr 2006 14:57:20 +0100, "Beck"
opined:

Andreas Thaler wrote:

IMO it's a matter of taste with all that white balance stuff. AUTO
ist the most
convenient mode if you are editing your pictures on the PC/Mac you can
easily finetune afterwards. There are many types of flourescent lamps
so the mentioned presets can only deliver average results. I would do
shots with each
of this presets ("white balance" bracketing).

Does auto usually come up with the best results in your experience?

It depends a lot on the brand & model of the camera, the lighting
type, & with some, even the shooting mode.
IME, the AWB on Canons (10D & 1Dmk2) do very well under indirect
sunlight, but can be very inconsistant under artificial lighting, even
when the light's strongly dominated by a single colour temperature.

I'm afraid your question is one of those "how long is a piece of
string" kind of questions, so you'll need to narrow it down a lot to
get a useful answer.
--
W
. | ,. w , "Some people are alive only because
\|/ \|/ it is illegal to kill them." Perna condita delenda est
---^----^---------------------------------------------------------------