White balance, or light?

fredjclaus

I'm testing the white balance, on my camera. Trouble is, it has 7 different fluorescent white balance modes.

Take a look at this shot. it's it a result of not enough light, or the wrong white balance setting? I only had 1 60 watt bulb on this test shot.

pathfinder

I do not know what color your background is - altho I an inclined to think it was a neutral grey of some sort.

The cord is black, of that I am certain. When I measure the RGB values in the cord, I see an excess of red and green and too little blue - hence I believe the image is too warm and too yellow. Kind of like from a low wattage tungsten bulb.....

I think it is 1/2 - 1 stop under exposed as well.

fredjclaus

pathfinder,

Thanks for the information. I'm learning how to adjust my camera for this sort of photography so I'll have to take a look at the settings. The "background" could have been the issue. I have a 13watt CFL (60 watt equivilant) in a photo flood lamp shooting through a Frosted White storage tote. However my main set-up from now on will be white seemless paper, two CFL lights, and some white FoamCore reflectors.

Could the thickness of the tote been part of the problem I noticed a lot of photographer shoot bare bulb through rip stop nylon as a diffuser, could my light been too diffused shooting through the side of the tote?

Sam

Uneven lighting, underexposed and white balance off.

Get a Gretagmacbeth color checker and / or a gray card, shoot RAW,and set white balance off the color checker or gray card. Done.

Also the best thing you can do is get real lighting. Trying to use shop lights etc is a losing proposition.

Sam

pathfinder

What Sam said!

Do a real color balance with a grey card, an Expodisk, or a GretagMacbeth color checker. This should just be routine for studio shooting. It will just save you so much time and hair loss in the long run.

fredjclaus

Thanks Sam and Pathfinder, Lord knows, I don't have to much more hair to loose.

fredjclaus

Pathfinder,

I checked out a video on how to use the Expodisk and it's awsome. Can't get any simpler than that. Does this work better than the color checker cards? I see the Expodisc is only $10.00 more expensive for the size I need.

pathfinder

You will get different opinions from different users.

Mine is that they both work - I find a grey card - actually a grey reflector from Balance Better.com- is very easy to use.

The exposdisc is great IF you can point your camera at the light sources. Sometimes that is not as easy as holding a grey card or a color checker in the planned lighting and shooting the color checker. The beauty of the grey card as opposed to a color checker, is that the grey jpg they can be used in RAW color balancing, as well as an in camera jpg for incamera custom white balancing.

What is even better than balancing off a grey card in RAW processing? Not even needing to because you set up a custom white balance in your camera before beginning your session! See here - http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=90438