Whitebalance & Metering

[Rhino172]

Ok, so after getting to grips with ISO, Aperature and Shutter speeds the next step for me is to understand more about whitebalance & metering.

I'm using an Olympus E400 and trying to find some pics to show you the available settings that can be adjusted but I'd assume to a certain extent they'd be pretty simular across all cameras...

So, who wants to explain in Mickey Mouse terms quite what the above is, when to use it and what settings for different environments? E.G to avoid blown out sky in landscape shots and the like...

Any links to references etc appreciated but I find I'm better at hands on learning than just reading a book or something so actual examples would be great

 

[Jungle_Jim]

whitebalance:

Again this goes back to film, basically each type of light source produces a different colour cast (however the human eye adjust so quickly you dont notice it) some have a cool blue tint others have an orange tint etc. when using film you would either buy specific film for the lighting conditions (such as daylight balanced film) or use filters to correct the colour cast. whitebalance in a digital camera is effectively a digitial filter which corrects the cast.

Metering
this just basically tells you what shutter speed / aperture you need for the correct exposure. There are many type of metering mode, like spot metering which will use a single point to determine the exposure or things like average/evaluative/matrix metering where it looks at the whole scene to determine the best exposure settings

 

[Rhino172]

right ok...

so for whitebalance how would you determine what setting is required for what situation? or would it just be trial and error?

And metering is basically if you have the camera set to auto, whatever you point it at and hold the trigger button half way thats when it is used; for the camera to work out the exposure settings (iso, aperature, shutter speed etc). So if shooting in fully manual metering is kind of irrelevent as you are inputtiung the settings yourself...?

 

[dunganick]

Largely speaking Auto White Balance will do, however in some situations like indoors or under flood lights there is too much of a cast for the AWB to sort it. In this situation you can use a preset (there are usually presets like, indoors, cloudy, sunny and a few others)

Alternatively you can set a custom white balance, this is the best way, but isnt always possible if your subject/lighting are changing or moving around.

On Canon you need to take a photo of a plain white surface (when i shoot Basketball i use the backboard) then in the 2nd menu go to custom WB, you select the plain white image and make sure your on the custom WB setting. This works nicely, its usually a little out, but much better than any presets, you can then do fine adjustments in post production.

My advice if you want to learn how a camera works is to shoot in Manual, or at least AV/TV. Auto wont teach you much i'm afraid.

 

[planetx]

I always carry a white card to read from.
And also carry a whole pack of gels for my flash CTO, Window greens etc etc
Sometimes I mix things up and WB for Tungsten and chuck a green/blue filter on.

One of the best guys to learn WB from is Kelvin lol

 

[Rhino172]

Largely speaking Auto White Balance will do, however in some situations like indoors or under flood lights there is too much of a cast for the AWB to sort it. In this situation you can use a preset (there are usually presets like, indoors, cloudy, sunny and a few others)

Alternatively you can set a custom white balance, this is the best way, but isnt always possible if your subject/lighting are changing or moving around.

On Canon you need to take a photo of a plain white surface (when i shoot Basketball i use the backboard) then in the 2nd menu go to custom WB, you select the plain white image and make sure your on the custom WB setting. This works nicely, its usually a little out, but much better than any presets, you can then do fine adjustments in post production.

My advice if you want to learn how a camera works is to shoot in Manual, or at least AV/TV. Auto wont teach you much i'm afraid.

good stuff, not sure my cam has a custom white balance job, definately has the sunny/cloudy settings etc will have a look later...

(I hardly shoot in auto anymore, was just an example to explain the point about metering I was trying to make )

 

[Jungle_Jim]

if you shoot in RAW you dont have to worry about white balance. A trick which a lot of studio based photographers do (mainly product, still life and sometimes fashion) is to use an 18% grey card. Say you are shooting a coke bottle with studio lights, the 1st shot of your batch would have the grey card in front of the coke bottle. you then shoot all other shots as normal. Then using camera RAW you open the first image, and use the grey point tool. click on the image where the grey card is and it will automatically adjust everything for the perfect whitebalance. you can then click syncronize and it will apply these setting to the rest of the batch

 

[planetx]

Same as in levels ^^^^ I often do this, if I am working under a constant light temp, and will save a preset and apply to all ( Jpeg)