AWB on 20D versus Mark II

mercphoto

I know the 20D came out after the 1D Mark II. And I know the 20D had a very nice improvement of auto-white-balance over the 10D. But after shooting a night motocross last night with the Mark II (very difficult lighting conditions) I found the results rather poor in terms of the white balance, and to some extent exposure as well. I'm very lucky that it was a small race and that I shot RAW, which I rarely do.

Is the Mark II not as good at AWB as a 20D is?

pathfinder

What was the illumination source for the track, Bill?? Sodium lights?? Halogen? Probably not tungsten.

I shoot with a 1DMkII and a 20D and have not really felt the AWB was inferior to the 20D. My first impression, ( and it is only an impression at best) would favor the 1DMkII - but that is just from shooting birds, mostly in sunlight.

Some sources of artificial light are really funky though

mercphoto

pathfinder wrote:

What was the illumination source for the track, Bill?? Sodium lights?? Halogen? Probably not tungsten.

I shoot with a 1DMkII and a 20D and have not really felt the AWB was inferior to the 20D. My first impression, ( and it is only an impression at best) would favor the 1DMkII - but that is just from shooting birds, mostly in sunlight.

Some sources of artificial light are really funky though

Good question. Not sure the lights they use at the motocross track. Probably were funky.

USAIR

mercphoto wrote:

Good question. Not sure the lights they use at the motocross track. Probably were funky.

All HID (high intensity discharge)lights give off a funky light for cameras

Probably Metal Halide lamps for track they give off a very white light but has a blue cast to them.
Next is Mecury Vapor also white light but give a yellow cast.
High Pressure Sodium are yellow mostly for security...parking areas

Fred

ziggy53

Bill,

Raw Shooter Essentials, or the full Raw Shooter, has the ability to show the white balance that the camera "guessed" for each RAW frame. I would suggest looking at that information and then at the images themselves to determine if there was (insert shudder here), "mixed lighting". If you notice a pattern of different white balance for different locations or when you pan the camera in a different direction, that's usually the problem.

Once you determine a pattern, you can group similar images into groups, and then process optimally for each group.

If you can't detect a pattern, I would guess a problem relating to that specific camera. I have read that white balance and color management is very similar between the 20D/30D and the 1D MKII/n. They all use the same Digic II for image and video processing and camera control , as does the dRebel XT for that matter.

Best,

ziggy53

Scott_Quier

Riding on Ziggy's shirt-tails in offering help: I have found that ExpoDisk (see it here) to be very easy to use. It works well for both RAW shooters as well as those shooting JPG.

Put the "filter" on the camera, shoot one frame aiming at the light source. This produces a frame that shows the difference between the light you are getting and an 18% gray. You can use that reference frame in post to color correct all your images shot under that light.

Alternatively, you can do the same reference frame thing, but use that frame for setting your custom white balance.

leebase

I like the expodisc -- used it a lot as a jpg shooter -- however for raw, I use a WhiBal. Cheaper, and easier on the workflow.

I will say that some lighting -- it's not about "white balance" -- but the lighting itself is deficient and can't be corrected by merely setting a proper wb.

Lee

Seefutlung

What was your shooting mode? I shot a night club performance last night with a friend. He tends to shoot in AV ... I in manual. The low lighting and spot lighting completely threw off the metering in his N ... I didn't have a problem with the 20D in manual ... just an FYI

mercphoto

It probably was a problem of cycling lights. As I went around clicking with the white balance eye dropper, the temperature and tint was not showing any consistent pattern from photo to photo. I think shooting at 1/125 shutter speed, with flash on but not in high speed synch mode, will go a long ways next time to helping the matter. (1/125 guarantees to catch a full half-wave of the light cycling).