Canon S100 - mutiple white balance settings in one picture

[dreed]

From today's release of Canon's S100 comes this little snippet:

"Other features enabled by the new sensor and processor include user control over noise reduction, and a white balance system that can adjust different areas of the image separately to compensate for mixed lighting (when the camera is set to Smart Auto mode)."

Now *that* is interesting.

Try doing that using Lightroom alone! hah!

It will be very interesting to see how this works in real life.

[feppe]

From today's release of Canon's S100 comes this little snippet:

"Other features enabled by the new sensor and processor include user control over noise reduction, and a white balance system that can adjust different areas of the image separately to compensate for mixed lighting (when the camera is set to Smart Auto mode)."

Now *that* is interesting.

Try doing that using Lightroom alone! hah!

It will be very interesting to see how this works in real life.

That sounds promising. I would be more interested in compensating different areas of the image for exposure, though... Not sure if a global shutter (rumored for the next gen of Panasonic MFT cameras coming later this year or 2012) will be a step towards that.

[250swb]

I can't really believe that such fine tuning is necessary in a P&S camera. It can be done in post processing now with any image, so if it is a keen photogrphers requirement surely a large PC monitor and Photoshop would be the better option, as opposed to a tiny LCD and the tiny brain of the camera?

Steve

[feppe]

I can't really believe that such fine tuning is necessary in a P&S camera. It can be done in post processing now with any image, so if it is a keen photogrphers requirement surely a large PC monitor and Photoshop would be the better option, as opposed to a tiny LCD and the tiny brain of the camera?

I bet a tiny minority of P&S shooters use any kind of post-processing software, let alone tweak white balance.

[dreed]

I can't really believe that such fine tuning is necessary in a P&S camera. It can be done in post processing now with any image, so if it is a keen photogrphers requirement surely a large PC monitor and Photoshop would be the better option, as opposed to a tiny LCD and the tiny brain of the camera?

Why don't you include a recipe to exposure different sections of a photograph with their own white balance values to show us just how simple this is and why everyone should be able to do it?

And as for the why - simple - if you're using the flash as a fill-flash, the subjects illuminated by the flash are almost certainly going to deserve a different white balance treatment than other sections of the photograph. If I've (only) got a P&S, chances are that I don't really care too much about Photoshop...

Really, this *is* a problem that the cameras thrust upon us (without us asking for it) and it's quite sensible for the problem to be solved inside the camera.

[BernardLanguillier]

The S100 sounds nice.

Now, the S90 was nice until it suddenly died on me with a lens error. The exact same problem occurred within one month to 2 or the 3 S95 owners I personally know here in Tokyo (they had bought it following my recommendation...)... as well as at least one other on this forum.

In the absence of an acknowledgment from Canon that the issue is a design problem and that they did improved their lenses design/quality, I can only assume that the problem is still present with the S100.

I am personally not interested in wasting more money with them.

Cheers,
Bernard

[dreed]

The S100 sounds nice.

Now, the S90 was nice until it suddenly died on me with a lens error. The exact same problem occurred within one month to 2 or the 3 S95 owners I personally know here in Tokyo (they had bought it following my recommendation...)... as well as at least one other on this forum.

In the absence of an acknowledgment from Canon that the issue is a design problem and that they did improved their lenses design/quality, I can only assume that the problem is still present with the S100.

Did you (or they) send the camera in to be repaired (warranty?) or otherwise directly notify Canon of the fault?

[BernardLanguillier]

Yep, one was under warranty and was repaired for free. The other 2 owners were requested a 250 US$ repair fee that was lowered to 150 US$ after mention that we knew other people with the same issue...

The point is 2 fold though:
- Issue with Canon support -> The frequency of this issue seems to indicate a fundamental design flaw and I would expect Canon to fix such issues for free in this case. Granted, few companies behave this way nowadays and the absolute amount is not a disaster,

- Issue with Canon designs -> It could be my perception, but I expect a high end compact camera like the S to work a reasonable amount of years in reasonably normal conditions. Based on these joined experiences the S has not delivered on this expectation for me and my friends. I have personally been unable to take critical images because of this failure. A camera the size of the S was the only one I could carry on that day.

Anyway, I am not on a crusade against Canon. I am sure they make overall excellent products but my experience has convinced me to look elsewhere.

Cheers,
Bernard

[torger]

From today's release of Canon's S100 comes this little snippet:

"Other features enabled by the new sensor and processor include user control over noise reduction, and a white balance system that can adjust different areas of the image separately to compensate for mixed lighting (when the camera is set to Smart Auto mode)."

Now *that* is interesting.

Try doing that using Lightroom alone! hah!

It will be very interesting to see how this works in real life.

I sometimes mix together two layers with different white balance settings in postprocessing to get a more natural look in mixed light photos, so it is certainly something that is useful, but often it requires very careful masking so I'm skeptical that an auto mode will work well. But we'll see.