I noticed that a few of us were using AWB last night at Astley. The camera tries to "correct" the colour when we use AWB, but the consequence is that unusual or dominant colours may be diluted. This is why that gorgeous orange camper van looks yellow in some shots.
To keep the original colour as seen, use the Daylight setting. In addition, if you use Pentax DSLRs make sure the auto adjust for WB settings is OFF. This feature allows the camera to fine tune a setting such as Daylight within a narrow band, but in fact that too will slightly change the colour.
Paul, I agree, I used one on a mock wedding I did the other week.
I have a Canon, but I'm sure it's the same on all cameras, you take the photo of the grey card, then go into the WB settings on your camera and use custom. The advantage of that is that although you still have a card reference for your white balance when you get to your RAW converter, setting the custom WB this way also maked it look better on your camera screen, which can help a lot.
Going to disagree slightly, whilst the camera will try to correct the light, this would be relevant if you are using the jpg settings, where the saved file has been altered by the camera and is difficult to correct later. If you use jpg and not raw then 'daylight' can be appropriate, likewise it might be better to select something else if there's a glorious sunset for example. In the camper photo, it looks like there was nice light towards the end of the day, which could have been enhanced by using say the 'shade' setting depending on what you desire.
Really its generally irrelevant if you shoot with a Canon and shoot in raw, then process the file through Digital Photo Professional which is included software with any Canon dslr. I'm still amazed how many Canon users who do not use this software. Its a one click on your mouse to convert the photo to any white balance you like, or a mouse slide to alter it via colour temperature, or use the eye dropper to select a white or near white object within the photo to do it that way.
Where AWB can be a problem is where there are different sources of light, tungsten, fluorescent, etc, then you may need to use a grey card, or if assisting with flash then maybe a coloured gel on the flash, but then it can get complicated.
Obviously Nikon, Pentax users will need to adapt, but there are free raw converters out there which do similar tricks.
I should have specified that I was talking about JPEG capture, a subject being returned to in the talk I'm doing in a couple of weeks. I've just tried out a camera where JPEG quality is dismal, what a contrast to our Pentaxes where the Premium JPEG is pretty much indistinguishable from RAW. Still, that's a subject for another day!
paulinefisher wrote:I was told that the grey inside of a Cornflake carton was pretty much ok for this (18% grey?) Is this about right or just a load of rubbish?
I've seen the cornflakes carton mentioned a few times on various forums, though I've never tried it. Why not give it a go and check the results?
Over the past 10 years or so I've tried lots of different white balance techniques. Have you heard that a Pringles Lid acts like an ExpoDisc?
Jessops sell a Grey Card for about £5. I bought one years ago and still have it in my camera bag and have used it loads of times.
I like the Digital Grey Kard as mentioned above. It's a handy size to carry around and does a decent job.
