Comments on: A question of balance

By: One more step on the learning curve « Adventures of an Idiot - occasional ramblings of a photography freak

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 21:50:17 +0000

[...] to a previous post where I was experimenting with manually adjusting the white balance using a white card, well, I had [...]

By: forkboy1965

forkboy1965 — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 23:31:44 +0000

I prefer the term sycophant!

By: fotdmike

fotdmike — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 22:02:12 +0000

Now children, the word for today is… “obsequious“!

By: forkboy1965

forkboy1965 — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:53:41 +0000

Hello again Tam! Don’t worry – you’re not alone – I’m just another Yank too!

Apparently Mike is the cosmic center of all things amateur photography related.

We are like moths to his photographic flame.

Teach us my lord and master….we beseech thee…..

By: fotdmike

fotdmike — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 03:08:03 +0000

Oh, and as an afterthought for the benefit of both my fans (yep, got two of them now. Whoopee!), those indoor shots where I was doing the manual white balance stuff were taken using just the ambient lighting… no flash or other lighting “extras”. And camera was hand-held using ISO 400 with shutter speeds varying between 1/4 – 1/20 and aperture varying between f/3.5 – 5.6

By: fotdmike

fotdmike — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 02:58:44 +0000

Hi Tam.

Thanks for the kind comments. Yeah, indoor shots have been a real bane for me, hence my decision to finally get to grips with this white balance caper. I think if one gets one’s head around that it sorts out a lot of the issues re indoor stuff… in my case at least!

Hmm… some of my phrasing can be a bit… um… “impolite” occasionally. But I tend to write these blog posts pretty much as I speak for it seems to me that blogs really lend themselves to an informal way of communicating and imparting info.

By: tam

tam — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 02:47:51 +0000

HEY THERE! LOVE the photos. They are wonderful. Ok, I have to laugh, being from America…but I just LOVE the phrase “sod it”

Congratulations on the great work. I too have difficulty (read as all the time) with indoor shots. I can’t seem to ever get it right. I am working on it though. Again, great photos!

By: fotdmike

fotdmike — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 01:49:24 +0000

Re what you say about the cloudy setting. Odd that, cos I’ve experienced similar results (the daylight preset working better… i.e., rendering more vibrant colours). The conclusion I’ve come to is that whilst our eyes may see one sort of lighting conditions, the actual quality of the light is recorded differently by the camera. Dunno. Guess that’s where experience comes in.

Anyway, what I did was grab a sheet of A4 white card from the local stationery supplies shop and I’m now gonna carry it with me all the time. So far I’ve only used it the one time (in the Bear) but I fully expect to press it into service for outdoors shoots if the light’s in the least bit iffy.
Having sussed out how to do the manual w/b thing on the camera, should be a doddle!

By: forkboy1965

forkboy1965 — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 01:32:50 +0000

I feel your pain, but not your success. While the presets for WB do a pretty good job most of the time while one is outside, there are still too many options: sunlight, cloudy, in-shade (where the camera is shooting from inside a shaded area and into light). The problem is I never know when I’m definitely moving from one situation to another. I’ve tried the cloudy setting on days that were nothing but cloudy. But the net result was that the sunny setting rendered more natural colours.

And don’t even get me started on inside photography. The only setting that works right each time inside is the one for flash IF I actually use the flash. It’s very annoying.

I guess it’s time to bite the bullet and invest in either a white card or a 18% gray card. Or one of those Expodisc things, which are great, but not perfect either. I guess you are once again leading the way….now I need to get out the manual and do the same. Just wish I had a great pub in which to spend the time….