Indoor photos are reddish

[Pigelin]

I'm new to photografy with my EOS 500d / rebel Ti. My problem is photgraphs indoors with no flash. I'm familiar with ISO settings and aparture and all that, but I seem to get sort of reddish pictures, especially peoples faces and such.

Mostly I've taken these pictures on program settings (P) with standard exposure. Is my only option higher ISO with more noice or change white balance? When I try to change the white balance I tend to get blue photos instead because no standard settings work... Should I make my own settings for the white balance or shoot in RAW?

[RichardTaylor]

I would shoot RAW as it will give maximum control over white balance.
You may need to up the ISO to obtain correct exposure

[SusanH1970]

Definitely shoot in RAW - you can adjust the white balance in post processing.

I shoot in manual and also use a Delta 18% grey card for correct exposure and a Digital Grey Kard for custom white balance. It's saved me so much work in post processing!

[Chip]

Can you manually set your white balance for a specific Kelvin temperature? For example, in my house for shots without flash, I generally need set the white balance at about 3100-3300 or so Kelvin. Anything higher is too red, and anything lower is too blue.

And if you have 'live view", you should be able to look at your LCD while changing your white balance to help you pick the right temperature.

The white balance settings needed change with each situation, so what's right for you may be different. Just experiment a bit and you'll be getting it right in camera soon.

Unless I'm mistaken, changing ISO impacts your exposure, not your white balance.

RAW will give you flexibility to fix many mistakes later, but getting right "in camera" certainly has its benefits.

[Pigelin]

Thanks for all your help. I suspected you would say RAW
What are those gray cards? Is it something you use to make your own white balance settings?

[wulf]

White balance is the key to colour - an underexposed picture will suffer other problems even if the colour is spot on. Try taking a series of indoor pictures of the same static subject, using a tripod if you have one because even a small shift can make a big difference to the light captured.

Work through the available white balance settings (and remember that there may be options to vary the effect - I think my D40 gives a range from -3 to +3 for each WB setting). Review the set and you will get an idea of what you can do in camera. You could also do something similar with taking a single shot in RAW and processing for different types of white balance; for my needs, I prefer to get a good balance in camera and save on processing time.

There should also be a preset mode, where you measure the colour temperature by photographing a white or light grey surface and telling the camera to adjust for that. I found that incredibly useful when taking shots in some Oxford museums last week; I might get a chance later this week to post a couple of shots that illustrate the difference between AUTO and PRE modes showing what a difference this makes.

Wulf

[kencaleno]

If you are photographing under tungsten lighting at home,you need to be aware that
the problem with the pre-set tungsten white balance is that it is set at 3400 Kelvin for studio tungsten,where generally domestic tungsten is between 2500 and 3200 Kelvin-sometimes you get better results with auto white balance under tungsten lighting,unless,of course you are able to adjust degrees Kelvin manually. regards, Ken

[Pigelin]

My tungsten settings are 3200 Kelvin, and another is 4000 Kelvin. I need something in between these settings to save processing later on.

Wolf, when you adjust for white or gray surface is this something you take from your surroundings you think might work or do you buy a paper with an exact grayscale? Any way of telling what might work best or is it simply guess and remake?

[wulf]

Originally Posted by Pigelin

Wolf, when you adjust for white or gray surface is this something you take from your surroundings you think might work or do you buy a paper with an exact grayscale? Any way of telling what might work best or is it simply guess and remake?

I look for something in the surroundings that is white or light grey. For example, in the shot below, the walls of the exhibition room were painted white and the lighting was consistent throughout, so I set my white balance preset using the wall:



I still haven't got round to posting the pair of pictures that show before and after WB results.

Wulf

[wulf]

Originally Posted by wulf

There should also be a preset mode, where you measure the colour temperature by photographing a white or light grey surface and telling the camera to adjust for that. I found that incredibly useful when taking shots in some Oxford museums last week; I might get a chance later this week to post a couple of shots that illustrate the difference between AUTO and PRE modes showing what a difference this makes.

Here are my shots illustrating AUTO vs PRE:



Neither are brilliant photos but, by showing the same object, it is easy to compare and see that PRE made a huge difference. To set it, I took a shot of a space revealing the white background of the display case.

Wulf