Custom White Balance Question

Shark

After five years of shooting sports without using anything but AWB, I just bought a Phoxle SpectraSnap White Balance Filter. I have a couple questions I'm hoping someone knows the answers to. I will be shooting a high school hockey game tonight, so the filter came at the perfect time. The place I'll be at has lighting that isn't too bad. The home ice I shoot at is like a dark closet, so this place is actually nice.

The directions in the booklet I received, say to put the filter in front of the lens and point the camera at the dominant light source and take a picture. As far as a hockey game goes, does that mean to point out towards the area where the play will be happening, or up toward the lights? I understand that whenever I move to a new spot in the rink, to redo the custom white balance, but I wasn't sure of where to point the camera to take it.

Last night I was testing the filter out at my house. I used my 85mm lens without a flash, and I definitely saw the difference between the AWB and the CWB photos that I took. One thing though, when I went to my camera flash, the AWB shot looked acceptable, but the CWB photos all had a blue tint to them. I had the color on my camera turned up a bit for sports, so I put that back to default, but the flash photos were still blue, compared to AWB. Does this make any sense? I saw in the book how to do a CWB by pointing at the ceiling and taking a photo when you want to bounce the flash on your subject. I didn't do that for these photos since I used the flash that is on my camera. Any thoughts on this?

Also, should I take a CWB with my settings where I will have them for the game, or at default, then change my settings before I shoot the game? And would there be a difference if I took the CWB photo with my autofocus on instead of switching it to manual focus.

Sorry for all these stupid questions, but I've learned everything about cameras and photography (which isn't a whole lot) on my own, as I go. I have had no training, so any help in this matter would be so greatly appreciated.
Thanks everybody.

Shark

Scott_Quier

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Shark wrote:

After four years of shooting sports without using anything but AWB, I just bought a Phoxle SpectraSnap White Balance Filter. I have a couple questions I'm hoping someone knows the answers to. I will be shooting a high school hockey game tonight, so the filter came at the perfect time. The place I'll be at has lighting that isn't too bad. The home ice I shoot at is like a dark closet, so this place is actually nice.

The directions in the booklet I received, say to put the filter in front of the lens and point the camera at the dominant light source and take a picture. As far as a hockey game goes, does that mean to point out towards the area where the play will be happening, or up toward the lights? I understand that whenever I move to a new spot in the rink, to redo the custom white balance, but I wasn't sure of where to point the camera to take it.

Point it at the light source - those things that hang from the ceiling. In all probability, you won't need to reset the CWB as you move around the ice. The exception to this would be if the color of the light is actually different from on spot to the next on the ice.

Last night I was testing the filter out at my house. I used my 85mm lens without a flash, and I definitely saw the difference between the AWB and the CWB photos that I took. One thing though, when I went to my camera flash, the AWB shot looked acceptable, but the CWB photos all had a blue tint to them. I had the color on my camera turned up a bit for sports, so I put that back to default, but the flash photos were still blue, compared to AWB. Does this make any sense? I saw in the book how to do a CWB by pointing at the ceiling and taking a photo when you want to bounce the flash on your subject. I didn't do that for these photos since I used the flash that is on my camera. Any thoughts on this?

Because you weren't pointing it at the dominate light source (the flash). Instead, you were creating a CWB for the tungsten light in the room. When you correct for tungsten, you impart a cooler tone to the image - hence the blue cast. The AWB, on the other hand, get's a look at the light from the flash during the exposure and makes it's best guess at to the correct WB to impart - and usually gets pretty close.

If you point it at the ceiling, you will be setting the CWB for the light that bounces off the ceiling. That can work if you also, when you shoot your shots, bounce off the ceiling. And, of course, you're going to have a problem bouncing the on-camera flash off the ceiling (or any other surface for that matter ).

Also, should I take a CWB with my settings where I will have them for the game, or at default, then change my settings before I shoot the game? And would there be a difference if I took the CWB photo with my autofocus on instead of switching it to manual focus.

I don't do a lot of shooting JPG, so I'm guessing here - I would set the camera as you intend to shoot and then set the CWB. This removes one set of variables from the equation, making corrections later easier should they be needed.

As for the AF part - the camera will have a very difficult time focusing on the device (it's too close to the front element of the lens for a focus lock) and without a focus lock, I wonder if you have the camera set to make an exposure regardless of focus lock? If you do, then it doesn't matter whether you have AF turned on or not - the lens will just hunt a bit with AF on.

Sorry for all these stupid questions, but any help in this matter would be so greatly appreciated.
Thanks everybody.

Shark

HTH

Shark

I did not have the camera set to make an exposure regardless of focus lock. Basically because I don't know how to do it.

Any indoor photos I do, I will most likely use my hot shoe flash, so I will do the CWB by shooting up at the ceiling like the book says.

So tonight at the hockey game, when I set my CWB, I will aim toward the lights, and we'll see what happens.

Thanks for your help.

Shark

rwells

I've had good luck with the ExpoDisk by pointing it AT the light source for your CWB shot.

Make sure of a couple of things:

• When taking the CWB shot, make sure your WB setting on your camera is set to AWB. If it's on something different for the CWB shot, it will give you different results than what your after.
• Most lights cycle and give off different color temps. So, when taking your CWB shot, set your shutter speed down to 1/30 second to get two full cycles of the lights (Note: not all of the lights will be cycling at the same time) Doing so will allow your CWB to have averaged the full range of color temp differences.

Shark

rwells wrote:

Most lights cycle and give off different color temps. So, when taking your CWB shot, set your shutter speed down to 1/30 second to get two full cycles of the lights (Note: not all of the lights will be cycling at the same time) Doing so will allow your CWB to have averaged the full range of color temp differences.[/LIST]

I'll keep that in mind, thanks. Last night's shots were definitely more colorful than usual, but I'm still having a problem getting that shutter speed up without having to set my ISO at around 2000. And even then, the speed isn't what I'd like it to be at, and at times the faces are still underexposed.