What is going on with my WB????

Graham Cracker · October 14, 2009

I am taking high school football at night, I just moved up to a 1DM3 this year from a 40D and I can manually set the White Balance to what I want then when I take a burst of photos the WB is different on multiple pictures. Im sure it is my novice understanding of the powerful machine I have but it is frustrating. I am attaching the link of two photos taken friday night one right after the other and you can see the difference. Any help is much appreciated. http://patrickgraham.smugmug.com/Other/DGRIN/9963729_8Lb2Q#680604263_SeqfH
Thanks Patrick

Dano · October 14, 2009

Light cycling. The reality of bad lighting at most high school fields.Not much you can do about it. Just do a search there is tons written about it.

Graham Cracker · October 14, 2009

Dano wrote:

Light cycling. The reality of bad lighting at most high school fields.Not much you can do about it. Just do a search there is tons written about it.

OK Thanks, I have one more question. In setting my White Balance I have noticed that many of the settings require more light and decrease the burst rate. What do you use for your WB setting? I know you use a flash but if you didn't use a flash what would the preferred setting be? Thanks Patrick

cecilc · October 14, 2009

Graham Cracker wrote:

What do you use for your WB setting?

Automatic White Balance (AWB)

Graham Cracker · October 14, 2009

cecilc wrote:

Automatic White Balance (AWB)

When you use AWB, don't you end up with varied colors in your photos or does the flash make it consistent?

johng · October 14, 2009

Graham Cracker wrote:

When you use AWB, don't you end up with varied colors in your photos or does the flash make it consistent?

With or without flash I shoot with AWB on my 1dmkiii. Without flash there is often a yellow color cast - but I have a photoshop action to tone that down. But as mentioned, the lighting and cycles make a specific white balance unusable - at least I haven't had much luck with it. Although if the stadium were sufficiently well lit with constant lighting you'd have a better shot at it. The more the light is constant and light fields overlap the more the cycling averages out. Which is why in most HS gyms I can set a custom WB even in poor lighting. The lights are close enough that the light fields overlap and you get a fairly average temperature. Maybe one in 20 shots has a bad color cast to it. Not so with football - at least not at the HS stadiums I've shot at. For me, AWB with the mkIII has worked best for football.

Graham Cracker · October 15, 2009

johng wrote:

With or without flash I shoot with AWB on my 1dmkiii. Without flash there is often a yellow color cast - but I have a photoshop action to tone that down. But as mentioned, the lighting and cycles make a specific white balance unusable - at least I haven't had much luck with it. Although if the stadium were sufficiently well lit with constant lighting you'd have a better shot at it. The more the light is constant and light fields overlap the more the cycling averages out. Which is why in most HS gyms I can set a custom WB even in poor lighting. The lights are close enough that the light fields overlap and you get a fairly average temperature. Maybe one in 20 shots has a bad color cast to it. Not so with football - at least not at the HS stadiums I've shot at. For me, AWB with the mkIII has worked best for football.

OK Thanks, I'll try it tomorrow night.

Graham Cracker · October 15, 2009

cecilc wrote:

Automatic White Balance (AWB)

Do you ever turn the flash on and off without changing your ISO and leaving the AWB on?

Ann McRae · October 15, 2009

Another way to deal with WB and cycling lights is to set your WB with a grey card at the field. This does help the camera deal with the cycling light. Since I moved to shooting RAW, I haven't bothered

ann

cecilc · October 15, 2009

Graham Cracker wrote:

Do you ever turn the flash on and off without changing your ISO and leaving the AWB on?

Whether or not I'm shooting with a flash, my white balance setting is always set on "auto" or AWB when shooting a high school football game under stadium lighting ....

Ann McRae wrote:

Another way to deal with WB and cycling lights is to set your WB with a grey card at the field. This does help the camera deal with the cycling light.

The simple response to this is: No, it doesn't ....

Setting your white balance with a grey card might help with ONE shot out of a burst of 3 or 4 shots, but that's it .... And NOT setting your white balance with a grey card might help with ONE shot out of a burst of 3 or 4 shots, too .... it won't matter either way because of the cycling lights.

And you can verify this on your own the next time you go to shoot a high school football game under the lights. Set your white balance on AWB and take a burst of 4 or 5 shots, then review them. You'll see a variable color balance for every shot. Next, set your white balance with a grey card and take a burst of 4 or 5 shots. You will STILL see a variable color balance for every shot.

I have maintained for many years that you cannot get consistent, accurate white balance out of high school stadium lights - the cycling of the lights just won't allow it ....

There's a very informative thread on SS about shooting in cycling lights: http://www.sportsshooter.com/message_display.html?tid=34303

beetle8 · October 16, 2009

cecilc wrote:

Whether or not I'm shooting with a flash, my white balance setting is always set on "auto" or AWB when shooting a high school football game under stadium lighting ....

The simple response to this is: No, it doesn't ....

Setting your white balance with a grey card might help with ONE shot out of a burst of 3 or 4 shots, but that's it .... And NOT setting your white balance with a grey card might help with ONE shot out of a burst of 3 or 4 shots, too .... it won't matter either way because of the cycling lights.

And you can verify this on your own the next time you go to shoot a high school football game under the lights. Set your white balance on AWB and take a burst of 4 or 5 shots, then review them. You'll see a variable color balance for every shot. Next, set your white balance with a grey card and take a burst of 4 or 5 shots. You will STILL see a variable color balance for every shot.

I have maintained for many years that you cannot get consistent, accurate white balance out of high school stadium lights - the cycling of the lights just won't allow it ....

There's a very informative thread on SS about shooting in cycling lights: http://www.sportsshooter.com/message_display.html?tid=34303

It's all true,

nw scout · October 16, 2009

Wow. I am a little confused

Why would you WHITE balance with a GREY card. You are making a setting for pure white correct?
I have always used a white card, how else is the camera going to make the correct adjustment for white?

In the studio and on location, been using white cards for years with no problems

beetle8 · October 16, 2009

nw scout wrote:

Wow. I am a little confused

Why would you WHITE balance with a GREY card. You are making a setting for pure white correct?
I have always used a white card, how else is the camera going to make the correct adjustment for white?

In the studio and on location, been using white cards for years with no problems

A grey card is actually the more accurate way to obtain correct WB under controlled situations.

18% grey I believe,

You can use a white object and get fairly accurate read though.

cecilc · October 16, 2009

nw scout wrote:

Why would you WHITE balance with a GREY card. You are making a setting for pure white correct?
I have always used a white card, how else is the camera going to make the correct adjustment for white?

No, and you won't have a problem using a white card to set your custom white balance ..... and neither will you have a problem using an 18% grey card to set a custom white balance ....

Take a frame of something that you consider to be pure white - a white card; a bright white piece of paper; a white sheet; snow; .... whatever! Then open that image up in Photoshop or some other photo editing software ....

You'll find that that image is NOT pure white .... or, in RGB terms: it's NOT 255,255,255 .... and it's not a mistake: this is what your camera's meter is designed to do ....

So, you can set your "sample" image for a custom white balance by shooting a white card or an 18% grey card - your camera will render them both the same!

nw scout · October 16, 2009

As far as I know, 18 % grey card is for metering exposure, not white balance.

Can someone enlighten me here?
How can you possibly get an accurate white balance off grey?
Maybe this is something new, and I have something to learn, but I have been shooting professionally for a long time, and have never heard of anyone using a grey card to white balance.
Just makes no sense to me

cecilc · October 17, 2009

nw scout wrote:

How can you possibly get an accurate white balance off grey?
Maybe this is something new, and I have something to learn, but I have been shooting professionally for a long time, and have never heard of anyone using a grey card to white balance.

There's no need to take anyone's word here about using a grey card for white balance ...

Just do a search for "grey card and white balance" (or use your own search terms to that effect) and see what you come up with. I'm sure there are more in-depth explanations and samples around the web than what I could explain here .....

And please don't misunderstand me here: I'm not saying that the ONLY or BEST way to set a custom white balance is with a grey card ... I'm just saying it's A way .....

nw scout wrote:

How can you possibly get an accurate white balance off grey?

Again, it has to do with how your camera "sees" white .....

scottkwest · October 20, 2009

This advice will do you no good since you shoot sports, sorry.

The lights cycle at 60 Hz. So if you shoot at 1/60 sec, you will get one entire cycle, and all photos should be consistent in term of white balance. Shoot at 1/30 sec and you'll get two full cycles, still consistent. 1/15, etc. For sports you will get a consistently colored, motion-blurred image.

Shoot faster than 1/60, you'll get a partial cycle. Maybe the warmer half, maybe the colder half. AWB doesn't seem to keep up too well. I shoot raw and fix it best as I can later.

I shoot in a gym where some of the lights seem to be on a different circuit that the rest, so foreground and background colors go funky near those. Any window light mixed in adds another color. At that point I call it artistic and leave it alone...

What is going on with my WB????

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