The magic of white balance

[NJ Lunatic]

This is with my point and shoot. Cameras have come a long way since the film days.



I hate post processing photos. To set my white balance for this shot it took me all of 2 seconds, it can be tweaked a bit but you get the idea. The bluer picture is with auto white balance.

 

[NJ Lunatic]

I did not quite finish this post the other night, sorry about that I had a server crash and posted what I had at the time.

In any case if you have a high end point and shoot or DSLR you can do custom white balances. I know the other post in this forum talks about lighting gels but I only see those useful on cell phones and what not because custom white balances are just not possible with those devices currently. Would it be easy for the manufacturers to add it? Probably not, but until then you are stuck.

My first picture above is a custom white balance set with 90% blue and 40% white lighting and I think 15% magenta at the time.

The use of white balance in general can take the place of color filters/gels.

Setting a custom white balance is easier than you think and might be worth your while to look into if you have the option.

 

[JRWOHLER]

Can you explain how you did it? What camera do you have? I stink at this and my camera probably does it.

 

[NJ Lunatic]

Can you explain how you did it? What camera do you have? I stink at this and my camera probably does it.

It is simple depending on how you want to do it.
For my DSLR:
You take a picture under your tank lighting of a white surface.
You will want to save the picture and have it accessible in your camera all the time (I have multiple saved for use depending on the time of day for my light settings).
When you go to the menu setting you will have to locate white balance. It will be set most likely to AWB. Nearby should be a option for Custom White balance and that is what we are looking for.
Next it will bring up your picture history and you will want to select the picture you took with the white surface.
You will not have to just make sure you have the camera set to Custom for White Balance and take your pictures.

There is another way to do it but it is a bit more involved but much more precise.

Point and shoots work similar if they have the option or it might be called white balance preset which works similar to the above.

Best thing though would be to grab the camera manual and look up white balance as each camera is a little different.


I use a Nikon Coolpix S9100 and a Canon D7.

 

[TanksNStuff]

I've been wanting to do this with mine for a while now. I just never got around to it because I wasn't sure about a few things:

1. What do you use as your base "white surface"? Piece of copy paper? Piece of white plastic? There are different shades of white, so finding the right item is key I would think.

2. Where do you put the "white surface" item? On the outside of your tank? Inside the tank? On the outside of the other side of the tank? Directly under the lights, above the water? Where do you put it?

3. What settings do you put the camera on when taking the reference pic? Custom (if so, what other settings do you recommend) or Auto?

 

[JRWOHLER]

Thanks for asking George...I get to save allowed questions.

 

[NJ Lunatic]

I've been wanting to do this with mine for a while now. I just never got around to it because I wasn't sure about a few things:

1. What do you use as your base "white surface"? Piece of copy paper? Piece of white plastic? There are different shades of white, so finding the right item is key I would think.

2. Where do you put the "white surface" item? On the outside of your tank? Inside the tank? On the outside of the other side of the tank? Directly under the lights, above the water? Where do you put it?

3. What settings do you put the camera on when taking the reference pic? Custom (if so, what other settings do you recommend) or Auto?

I use a piece of paper, plastic or one of my white reef rocks that is never normally in the tank. You do not need pure white either, like a touch of gray usually works as well. Deal is it has to be under the light (it is reading color temperature and adjusting accordingly), you can do that either in the tank or out because you can make minor adjustments (shifting) as you take your picture or use white balance bracketing. Bracketing is useful if your off by a bit as it will give you 3 pictures basically, one at current settings and one each high and lower a step from your current settings.

When taking your reference pic it really does not matter what your settings are but auto white balance should be on.

To use the white balance setting you set you have to make sure white balance is set to custom. As for my other settings I change all the time but mainly I shoot with Aperture Priority as my lenses are F2.8 with image stabilization. I keep ISO as low as possibly and never go over 400.

 

[TanksNStuff]

Thanks for asking George...I get to save allowed questions.

There's an allowance on questions? But I'm going to have a million!

Thanks for the reply lunatic. That answers a lot. At least enough to get me started (if I find the time). Once I give it a go, I'm sure I'll have more questions.

Just to clarify one I already asked though...

So I can just use a piece of copy paper (or whatever I use) and put it say right under my LED's (above the water) and use that as my balance photo? The white balance object doesn't need to actually be in the tank, under water? This was the most confusing part of the process for me.

 

[JRWOHLER]

There's an allowance on questions? But I'm going to have a million!

Thanks for the reply lunatic. That answers a lot. At least enough to get me started (if I find the time). Once I give it a go, I'm sure I'll have more questions.

Just to clarify one I already asked though...

So I can just use a piece of copy paper (or whatever I use) and put it say right under my LED's (above the water) and use that as my balance photo? The white balance object doesn't need to actually be in the tank, under water? This was the most confusing part of the process for me.

That was one too many no more answers for you.

Plus the paper doesn't do well under water.

 

[NJ Lunatic]

There's an allowance on questions? But I'm going to have a million!

Thanks for the reply lunatic. That answers a lot. At least enough to get me started (if I find the time). Once I give it a go, I'm sure I'll have more questions.

Just to clarify one I already asked though...

So I can just use a piece of copy paper (or whatever I use) and put it say right under my LED's (above the water) and use that as my balance photo? The white balance object doesn't need to actually be in the tank, under water? This was the most confusing part of the process for me.

You can do it out of the water, it is mostly so you can compensate for color temperature. If you get a chance play with the white balance presets in your camera to see what I am talking about. They have compensation for sunny, fluorescent, incandescent, etc. lighting. It all comes down to what color temperature you the light is so you don't have to put it under water.

When you get started I am sure there will be many more questions and we can get into the white balance bracketing which comes in handy when you have your white balance close to what it needs to be.

 

[TanksNStuff]

Haha, nice one James.

Lunatic, yea I've played with all the presets and none of them worked well for my tank. I think they are geared more towards outdoors shooting. That's why I was interested in the custom wb procedure.

 

[NJ Lunatic]

Haha, nice one James.

Lunatic, yea I've played with all the presets and none of them worked well for my tank. I think they are geared more towards outdoors shooting. That's why I was interested in the custom wb procedure.

Yeah, none of the presets work as they are for everyday use and our tanks are anything from normal run of the mill lighting condition Kelvin wise. When I used to run MH lights I was using 20,000K, presets probably top out at about 10,000K.

I known I said paper before, but to get a more accurate wb you will want to get the reference shot from near where you are going to take the picture. So in the water is best but not necessary. I use a white plastic lid from old food.

 

[TanksNStuff]

Yeah, none of the presets work as they are for everyday use and our tanks are anything from normal run of the mill lighting condition Kelvin wise. When I used to run MH lights I was using 20,000K, presets probably top out at about 10,000K.

I known I said paper before, but to get a more accurate wb you will want to get the reference shot from near where you are going to take the picture. So in the water is best but not necessary. I use a white plastic lid from old food.

Now that's the kind of tips I'm looking for!

When you take the sample shot, do you zoom in on only the white lid? Or, do you just edit the pic afterwards and crop out all but the lid? The goal is to get just the "white" object all by itself, correct?

 

[NJ Lunatic]

depending on camera you need a full frame, normally as long as you can get as much as you can centered in the shot it will work fine

 

[dirtycontour]

Great thread! Playing around with my Nikon L120 I took a couple comparison pics.

Without white balance

With white balance

Without

With

Without

With

 

[NJ Lunatic]

Looks like you have the hang of it. You may want to explore how to use white balance bracketing as well.

 

[dirtycontour]

You may want to explore how to use white balance bracketing as well.

Will do.
Again, thanks for posting!