Manual White Balance: Obtaining the Resulting Color Temperature

[sanyasi]

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I have been setting the white balance on the M9 manually using a Lally cap. However, I'd like to know the resulting color temperature prior to processing the photos.

 

I don't see any indication in the menus or information that provides a read out of the current color temperature. Nothing in the user manual points me to such information.

 

Is it available?

 

Thanks

[vanhulsenbeek]

It is available once you open a picture in LightRoom (or any other RAW-developer)and look under the tab Develop. This is prior to processing the photo's, unless you use, while uploading, a preset that already includes some development steps.

 

AFIK the color temperature is not listed in the EXIFdata, which could be the reason the camera does not show it, nor can do so.

[sanyasi]

It is available once you open a picture in LightRoom (or any other RAW-developer)and look under the tab Develop. This is prior to processing the photo's, unless you use, while uploading, a preset that already includes some development steps.

 

AFIK the color temperature is not listed in the EXIFdata, which could be the reason the camera does not show it, nor can do so.

 

Thanks, but that is not what I am looking for. I want know whether there is a way to display the color temperature on the camera's LCD screen when I am in the field. I don't think is presently possible, but want to know if I am missing something.

 

Thanks

[gravastar]

There is no way to display the color temperature on the camera's LCD. In fact the situation isn't as simple as it may seem.

 

Color temperature refers to the temperature (in degrees Kelvin) of a black body radiator whose spectrum matches that of the source illuminating the scene you are photographing. The relative intensities of a black body red green and blue components are defined according to physical laws.

 

Many light sources such as fluorescent, architectural interiors with colored walls, illumination filtered by curtains or mixtures of daylight and tungsten etc. have no equivalent color temperature. They are light sources which do not have the spectral distribution of light emitted by a black body. There is usually a color temperature, which with corrections, would approximate to the scene illumination. That's why most RAW converters have a color temperature slider and a magenta/green slider with which to supply the correction. Even then a completely accurate rendering may not be possible unless a custom camera profile made with the illumination is used.

 

When the camera white balances it doesn't necessarily choose a color temperature. It tries to determine the gain and offset of the RGB channels to render gray objects with equal RGB values. The values chosen may not have an equivalent color temperature as previously explained.

 

Bob.

[adan]

No, the M9 won't measure the color temp and tell you what it is, in the field. It will allow you to set a specific color temp (measured by external meter), using the Kelvin manual setting option.

 

I guess you could shoot a gray card with several different Kelvin manual settings, and then pick the one that looks closest to the images shot according to your Lally cap manual setting, as a rough approximation.

 

I gather this is just for "informational purposes" - since using the cap to set manual CT, and then just developing using the "as shot" CT setting in your raw developer will reveal the values used.

[vanhulsenbeek]

No, the M9 won't measure the color temp and tell you what it is, in the field.......the "as shot" CT setting in your raw developer will reveal the values used

 

 

Quite! There is your answer!

[sanyasi]

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Thanks all. End of discussion from my standpoint.