having trouble with white balance

[eyevan]

tonights special is white balance.I recently bought an expodisc and its one of the greatest and easiest things to use .put it on yourcamera like a lens or just put it over your lens if its too big.Take a picture into the lightsource you want to use I.E.fluorescent light then put into your whitebalance pre category.The camera will then use that picture to set your balance.Do this prior to your shoot and you will have beautiful true colors.You can waste 5 mins now or hours afterwards adjusting your white balance,assuming you can.So ???whos next

EYEVAN

[reval8r]

I've been using a digital calibration target with great success. I cut my teeth in the film days when you used filters to correct color balance. Correcting white balance with digital cameras is some much easier.

[eyevan]

here here ,ill second that.I learned mine the hard way.I took some pics and they were ruined by bad WB,cause i forgot about it .So much to remember.

Eyevan

[dkippen]

Eyevan - I've thought about getting the expodisc but haven't heard a lot of feedback on it yet. Good to know it's working for you. Can you post pictures taken with the expodisc?

[jerryph]

I don't bother with expodiscs or anything like that. I shoot only in RAW and can adjust things perfectly afterwards in post process. ;)

[eyevan]

its actually easy.you just take a pic with the expodisc over the lens and then set the white balance to use that pic for white balance.I will send you a few pics with it .you then take it off ,you dont take pics with it just the first one.

[reval8r]

I'm still big on having things right when you shoot it. I hate spending time in post correcting what could have been in a couple of seconds in camera. Another thing I like about a digital calibration target is it helps speed up things in post. For instance, I changed light sources and take about 20 pictures and then remember I forgot to set the white balance. I can still shoot the target for custom white balance and correct the white balance in the other 20 images with just a couple of mouse clicks.

[jerryph]

I should have exaplained better, my mistake...

If I am going to be in the same conditions, I will chimp a couple pictures off my hand and set WB (caucasian skin is about 1-1.5 stops off of 18% grey as tested on my hand in the past), however, mostly I am in conditions that are changing (in, out, fluorescent, sun, then tungston moving into halogen, to candles and so on), so taking the time to set it is actually longer than doing it in PP. I also found that if using mixed sources (shooting against a window in a room where they used fluorescent for example), none of the basic settings work so standing there looking for the custom setting would take me longer than it would take to do in PP. Also to batch process a series of pics to a particular setting is a walk in the park of perhaps 4 seconds to set.

Here is a thought, though... When shooting with strobes, I very often colour-shift. Meaning, I purposely set the wrong WB setting on the camera (to a colder lightly blue feel), and gel my key flash to CTO the subject so they have a warmer rich feel while the camera is set to a manual but quite cold setting.

Makes some very interesting pictures!

[reval8r]

Having something to set white balance is great, but sometimes having perfect white balance ruins the mood or effect of a shot. Here is one I'm working on from a first time model. I wanted to add some warmth to the images, so the white balance was set for cloudy. I think it works much better than having the white balance set to correct everything properly. This is a preview image for the model and still needs some post to remove fly-a-way hair and burn down the top of the hat if she wants the shot.

http://www.astonishingportraits.com/picts/ericar%20preview%200004.jpg

[coffee]

Stunning Larry. You do wonderful work.

[colelover178]

yes great work i hope i can be that good some day. practice practice and i will get it. good job!!! if i were her i would want it lol. but im sure you got lots to choose from that are great

[reval8r]

Stunning Larry. You do wonderful work.

Thanks for the wonderful comment coffee. This little lady is stunning. She's really sweet and fun to work with.

[reval8r]

yes great work i hope i can be that good some day. practice practice and i will get it. good job!!! if i were her i would want it lol. but im sure you got lots to choose from that are great

Don't worry, you'll probably be even better soon. It's knowing and being comfortable with the camera and a enjoying working with people. If your genuine people sense it and they're relaxed with you.

I'm personally a lazy photographer and shoot very little. I'm not one that walks around with a camera and takes pictures everywhere. So in many areas, my skills are weak. My images are all planned, I visualize something in my head and think about how to create it. I see other peoples images and think about how they created them. I think that's the key to good images, planning and creating your vision. I'm also never satisfied with my images, I always want them better and think about what could be done to make them better. I try to meet and talk to the person/people before we do a photo shoot. When I see someone in person, I can analyze them and visual what to do to make them look good and capture their personality. Then talk out and plan the shoot.

I'm really sure you can do this. If you love people, it comes naturally. You just have to find your personal style, which is your signature in photography. You'll do really great, I'm sure. If I can do it, anyone can.

If you're interested here's a link to a few more of her previews.
http://astonishingportraits.com/blog/?p=76. I'll be glad to answer any questions about how they were created and offer help.

[eyevan]

Lastly go to expodisc.com and look around and watch the videos and tutorials,i think most will be amazed by its ease of use and great results.I do love mine tremendously.

Eyevan