This is the kind of situation that a wedding and event photographer confronts in his day-to-day working life. We have a florescent light here; we have a blue light, a red light. Then we have studio light, these are yellow, they are not exactly incandescent, but it’s got a dirty yellow cast. It looks nice, but in the images, it creates a dirty yellow cast.
We have our working practical lights, you know, they are incandescent. And of course, we have day-light balanced light which is also helping us to film the situation. I have seen a lot of photographers in this kind of scenario try to guess the white balance, the color temperature of the situation, and heat and using the color temperature. As you walk into a situation like this, your brain has started correcting the color temperature for you already. With that corrected understanding is what you try to key in or try to guess the color temperature of that particular situation, which can be off the mark. We would like to show you four of our favorite ways of achieving white balance in this kind of scenario. My personal favorite in during run-and-gun situations where you don’t have too much time and you are also shooting a few JPEGS and also shooting RAW. My personal favorite is called pre-set manual control.
What it allows you to do is to achieve the white balance in the camera, using, using the scene. It is very similar to let’s say a custom white balance in certain other camera brands. So, go to the menu, white balance, and set select preset manual. Now, this white dress has this blue in it, this red in it, this green in it, that white in it, and all the other colors. I am telling the camera to balance this white. Okay. Now for which I can’t do it myself, so I am going to ask Nikhil to come over. This time, it’s your turn. Long press the white balance button, do a long press again and it will white balance your image. The second effective method to white balance for a run-and-gun photographer is by using third-party products using the ExpoDisc. It’s a color-neutral filter. You cant shoot anything through it, what you will get is a color neutral frame. You are supposed to get a color-neutral frame if you are shooting against a pure white light.
Your RGB values will be the same. This filter has two sides. One side has a crystal-like structure okay. And the other side is like a plain white milky side. You are expected to keep the milky white portion close to the camera. Shift the camera on the aperture-priority auto mode and make sure that your lens is on manual mode. Because if it is on auto mode, it will keep hunting for focus and it will never click, so keep it on manual mode. Now, the most important aspect of this white balancing technique is that you are supposed to shoot your light source, not your subject, which means you have to move away from your subject. Now, in this situation, now my light source is this, this, this light and all the other practical lights in this scene. So, standing here I can’t shoot it, which means I need to walk away. Like I said you make sure that you cover the entire light source in your field, make sure that it is covered, cover your lens completely with ExpoDisc, aim to your light source, take a picture. Okay. Then, you go to your, white balance set-up. For a Nikon user, select the preset manual.
For Canon, Sony, and the other brand users, go to their custom white balance set up. Select the image and select the last shot. Say OK And your camera is ready to shoot the next, grab the next frame with all the necessary corrections done. For a Nikon user, there is another way which is relatively easier. the way which is, white balance, select PRE, preset manual is selected; long-press the white balance button, and you will see the white balance button blinking. At that time, keep the filter in front of the lens, do a long press again and it will white balance your image. So, I have the camera white balance using the ExpoDisc. Now, Nikhil can you take this camera and do a similar shot. This is available in India for about 4000 odd Indian Rupees. I understand America it's about $50 or much cheaper in America. Do check this out, it’s a superb product. Our third recommended technique for doing white balance is by using a grey card.
All you are expected to do is to take a shot like this in the lighting conditions that you are in. I am going to make sure that all the light falls on this card and I take a shot. why don’t you take a shot of this? Now, you can continue shooting, if when you move to the next lighting situation, take another shot. And till the end of the day, you can continue shooting, without worrying about the white balance. Once you have finished the shoot and in your back in the studio, you can take all those raw images on to your computer, open it up in your favorite raw processing software, Lightroom, Capture1 pro whichever you like. Use your white balance picking tool, avoid picking the grey, because the grey is for reading incident light, not correcting white balance. So, click on the white, it will correct your image automatically for that lighting condition and that correction can be applied to all the other images.
It’s an effective way for a pro photographer. Well, this is available in various sizes. You don’t need to carry such a big one. You know there is something called a QP card, which is like a small card. You can buy a bunch of it, keep it in your bag. An effective way to white balance your image on location, in your studio wherever you are. The fourth way is you use not only for white balancing but also for calibrating your camera. We use a tool called the ColorChecker Passport from Xright. So wasn't that simple? Now that you know it, why don't you pick your camera get some of those products, and practice it for yourself and you will actually see the difference that is going to make to your image. While I say this, let me also tell you that you are talking about perfect white balance you are not talking about absolute white balance So, there is nothing absolute in photography, for that matter art, okay.
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