how do you white balance?

[stewarthemley]

I'm starting this topic after a suggestion by Dustback in his answer about my question on white balance cards. (edit in url: http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index....howtopic=45127)

I hope he won't mind me quoting him: "... another question would be how to whitebalance. Putting it in a different place, slightly different angle, changed lighting etc. can all generate different results."

So, how do you white balance? I think this would be useful advice to many people. Cheers.

[Nick-T]

I'm starting this topic after a suggestion by Dustback in his answer about my question on white balance cards. (edit in url: http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index....howtopic=45127)

I hope he won't mind me quoting him: "... another question would be how to whitebalance. Putting it in a different place, slightly different angle, changed lighting etc. can all generate different results."

So, how do you white balance? I think this would be useful advice to many people. Cheers.

White balancing can be a very creative decision making process.

What's important in the image? is it the model? If so you might want to balance the dominant lightsource hitting her. Maybe you are selling truck tyres, if so you better make sure those tyres are neutral, forget the background. Maybe you are dealing with mixed lightsources so grey balance one side of the image then the other and merge them later. You might just decide to hold the grey card in such away that the light falling on it is an average of those two sources. Grey balancing with a card held in scene is very much like metering with an incident meter in that you are making subjective decisions about exactly what in the scene is neutral.

As an aside in studio I often don't need to put a card in shots I have checked on the neutrality of various surfaces/ pieces of gear in the studio and know which ones are neutral.

Nick-T

[Dustbak]

No problem getting quoted.

As Nick mentioned it is kind of a creative thinking process but that also leaves the question whether there really is something called good or even accurate colors and tonality.

When working in the studio I always shoot a Gretag card. Nowadays I mostly do this to prevent discussions about color accuracy with the client afterwards. Actually most discussions are not with the client but with the studio or the ad agency. Some of these discussions are downright nasty unfortunately, don't get me started about some ad agencies. These type of experiences would make another nice thread

Since working in the studio means using my own light and modifiers I know pretty well what the output will be and what the right white balance will be. The thing I am mostly measuring is the desired tonality.

I also use various pieces of furniture to pick neutrality if necessary. I find metallic objects work fine but since my walls are painted grey these work very well as well.

Outside I usually start with daylight and work from there until I get to something I feel is nice (or accurate depending on what I need/want).

[ced]

Besides the nice little gadget (cube) this company also sells a great plastic sheet which can be cut into 4 parts and shoved in every other bag or case for easy access.
It is slightly matt and can be washed if soiled but is pretty stable colour wise unlike many papers and cartons that are used as grey balance guides.
I don't work for them but here is a link and hope this helps: http://www.basiccolor.de/english/basICCali...ube_index_E.htm
I would turn the card to the main light and make the grey balance that way.
Quite often, depending on the lights the image turns quite cold and all the natural colour ambience is lost so either you use or you just tweak this later in your raw developer.