Quote:
Originally Posted by Bluenoser
The really confusing part is where it's held up to the camera to tell it what colour is white. Are you taking a shot of the card and using those readings to set your WB before recomposing and taking the shot?
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I'm glad you asked! I was forced into the world correct color tone when my impromtu employed forced a WhiBal card me. Boy the troubles I had figuring out how to use the dang thing. Here are my expirences...
Say you take a white peice of paper out of the printer right next to you. Inside, under flourescent light it looks.... White!
Take that paper outside under streetlights and it looks... White!
Set the paper on fire and it looks... Charred! (sorry!)
Thin thing is your brain adjusts what it "perceives" as white. That paper was really a ugly greenish blue inside, and a horrific orange under the high pressure sodium lamps that the state loves to use. How in the world can the camera tell what your bran thinks? It can't. Short and simple there is no way of telling! But you can get close! There a few ways to use a grey-card that I have found:
- Calibrate Your Camera! - Somewhere DEEP within your camera is a way to set a custom white balance. Essentially the camera looks at the grey card, sees the color that are NOT grey, like that horrible streetlight orange, and applies compensation to make it white again! HOWEVER This is only usefull where the light will not change, take the calibrated camera inside and everything looks purple! Use this where you are going to be taking a lot of photos under fairly consisitent lighting, like inside a stadium, or under that ghastly streetlight
- Use The Card As An In Picture Refrence - If you Like doing everythoing in software afterwards just have your subject hold the card for a quick shot, just for refrence, then keep shooting without. MAKE sure your camera is not in auto White Balance mode, or the shots will not be consistent, in other words the camera will try to figure out the white balance every shot, with inconsistent results. Recording in RAW helps, but is not strictly nessasary.
I hope this helped! If you have any more questions or need clarification please ask!