By request: white balancing your M8

[Jamie Roberts]

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OK, so someone asked for this information from another thread, so for what it's worth, here it is. I had sent it in an email, and if you have something that's working for you with white balance, then use it...

 

But for the newcomers to digital cameras, this really is the first thing you need to do to make reasonably coloured files.

 

If you come from film, think of white balancing as using the right film type for the light you're shooting.

 

So here's the introductory skinny on white balance and the M8...a 50,000 foot overview...

 

If you're shooting JPEGs from your camera, you really only have one chance to set the White Balance for the light you're using, if you don't want to always colour correct in Photoshop. The white balance "sets" the gray level of the picture to neutral--so no color casts whatsover.

 

This is like choosing the right film for the right light. So if you shoot daylight balanced film in tungsten (regular indoor lights) then the shots will look overly warm due to the lower temperature of tungsten light.

 

There are really four different ways to set a JPEG white balance--all of them are in the camera from the "SET....White Balance" menu:

• you can set the WB controls to daylight, cloudy, tungsten, flash or fluorescent light directly. This is an approximation of the actual colour temperature
  
• you can set the camera to AUTO and let it decide what the actual WB really is
  
• you can set an actual degrees Kelvin setting if you know how hot or cold your light is (or have a meter that tells you)
  
• you can set a custom white balance by selecting MANUAL in the WB menu

Your choices, from worst to best:

• letting the camera figure it out on AUTO. Most cameras aren't really very good at figuring out what should be white and what shouldn't, though some are way better than others. The Canons, for example, are the best of the bunch in my opinion; even on AUTO they generally get it OK (but never, usually, exactly right)
  
• setting the WB controls to daylight or cloudy, etc... is better than the camera figuring it out, but it's really only ok if you're out there in "average" lighting conditions. But not so good in edge conditions. Oh, and you really know what the light is doing; a lot of people have energy-saving flourescents in their homes today. If you're set for tungsten, that will look GREEN. Nice eh?
  
• If you happen to have a temperature meter handy, or you really have a good sense of light temperature, or you have a completely controlled lighting setup, then setting the degrees Kelvin is very accurate--but who the heck has the meter handy using an M8? Nice in a studio, though!
  
• Finally--and here's the good part--you set a custom white balance by simply setting the menu to MANUAL, then the camera will prompt you to take a picture of something white that fills the frame and reflects the light you want to balance(don't forget to properly expose the shot).
   
  Once you've done this, the camera tells you the white balance is set, and "stores" the memory of the white object and creates images that are neutral with regard to that shot.
   
  You don't need to worry about WB again UNTIL the light changes. Then you need to take another custom shot.
   
  One "old" trick to doing this really effectively is to take a couple of white coffee filters or a Pringles lid (really) and shooting through them right at the light source. That makes a very good white / gray reference for the custom balance.
   
  If you wanted something a bit more high tech., or professional, check these out:
   
  http://www.expodisc.com/
   
  And try the Expodisc for pros (which is very neutral) or, for amateurs, the Expocap (not as accurate but wayyy better than the camera

So--now you don't need to balance light in Photoshop anymore! Once you set this in the camera and your shots will look neutral, though you'll still need an IR filter for synthetic blacks in IR heavy light like tungsten.

 

Of course--if you shoot RAW DNG files instead of JPEG, you can literally change the White Balance *after you've taken the shot* in a program like C1.

 

You can still set a custom WB (less work afterwards, and therefore I do it a lot of the time) but you don't have to (and when I can't, I don't, and don't have to worry about it!).

 

Anyway, in RAW, all you need to do is take a "reference picture" of something neutral ( a little gray card works best--I like the WhiBal cards), then when you work in C1 you just "click" the gray card and the white balance 'snaps" into place!

 

WhiBal Gray Card for Digital Photo White Balance - RAW Workflow

 

Then in C1 (or ACR or Lightroom or whatever) you can actually apply that WB setting to all the pictures that have the same light--in C1 there's an icon in the program that lets you copy any or all of the settings from one shot to all your shots (it's great; when you're proofing a wedding with +1000 shots, this is your long-lost friend!).

 

The only limitation of the WhiBal cards is that you need to reflect the (neutral) light that's actually falling on the subjects; this can be tricky shooting stage work, if you never have access to the stage!

 

But the good thing is (that sometimes isn't obvious) you can actually go back to a location the next day or anytime later and *then* shoot the WhiBal or the Expodisc; in RAW you can then transfer the WB settings post-fact to your shots--as long as the lights haven't changed! This has been a life saver for me in a couple of cases.

 

Anyway, if you can't get to the lights, the Expodisc is then a bit better, because you can shoot "at them" and get a decent WB; techically you should shoot from the subject position at the light as well, though. Of course, RAW is your safeguard here, and not just for white balance

 

Hope this helps some people as they get their feet wet with the M8

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[Guest guy_mancuso]

Geez Jamie you wrote the book. I think this deserves a sticky too. LOL

[Guest guy_mancuso]

Add a little . Okay you get all that than you get to your raw processing programs and you start to process. Many folks forget this . Set your raw processing program to the working profile you want in PS. So if you use Adobe RGB in PS you want C1 , ACR, Raw developer to process in that same working space as PS. So set you raw programs up like that. Than from there your programs see each other the same so a image in C1 will look the same in PS. Some tips in WB balanceing in the Raw programs that white card that you shot find it and WB to it than save that setting or apply that setting to the rest of the images in that light. Another tidbit process in 16 bit get the most out of the raw file to bring into PS than wok your images with dodging, burning whatever else than SAVE that master file and off load it to a master. Than if your going to go to print than you can change it to 8 bit for you Ink Jets and if going to web you convert to srgb. So make sure youhave a master than do save as for different uses. This is a week workshop but just some stuff to think about

[osera]

Jaime-

 

Thanks for putting this all down. I vote for the RAW processing pathway. Are jpegs supposed to be easier???

 

 

Do you or Guy want to add a bit on if or how the color "profiles" affect the color "balance"?

[Guest guy_mancuso]

Jpegs are supposed to be easier in theory but if your off your off and getting back can stretch a file or damage it beyond what that file can do if you screw up in exposure . Raw gives you more latitude to make a mistake but it also gives you infinite control whereas jpegs depends on what leica, Canon, Nikon did inside the processing engimne and there all different and you really don't know what parameters are set up by each company. Some may have a standard setting that actually sharpens a file , one may not. Now WB if your off than you are basically screwed and have to take them back into PS and fix them. So the time saved can be for not. Even huge event work on deadline i shoot Raw, I can set c1 up in minutes and start processing and editing on the fly. Not all jobs are like that but it is not as hard as some think. So that is the color balance or wb issue in camera is concerned. What profiles do in the raw processors is basically fine tuning your images to fit a certain color pallette. Some profiles may have more or less saturation or exposure latitude . Contain huge color depth or smaller like SRGB. Adobe RGB is condsidered a standard in the industry but Colormatch contains a much wider gamut of color and also so does ProPhoto . I will let some of the color guru's getinto this part but hopefully that helped a little

[Jamie Roberts]

What Guy said

 

I also think that many folks get the camera and know how to process JPEGs, so they shoot them. It's "easier" because they've always shot JPEG or because they've used JPEGs in other workflows.

 

I even know some pros who swear than shooting JPEG introduces a kind of discipline they'd lack if they shot RAW. Sort of like saying I'll never slip on the diet if there's not much food around... LOL!!

 

But they do swear that it takes them less time because they need to nail the shot, and, once nailed, they don't need to mess with it. I guess their mistakes never see the light of day

 

Personally, I think RAW is the best choice for a pro, even if they're controlling everything in the studio and they nail their exposure all the time. You're just throwing data away using out-of-camera JPEGs, and while it's true you may never see a difference, or won't need to re-work the file ( because your business model, like shooting events, is time-limited), well, all I can say is you're risking your own property and intellectual collateral.

 

I like the fact that RAW developing technology is always getting better, and quickly too--so I can get more out of a shot say 6 months after I shot it than I can *when* I shot the thing! Not to mention having 16 bit output to play with in PS...

 

Having said that, C1 marries nicely workflow for dealing with a lot of files at once and high quality output.

 

Colour input profiles, as Guy said, can give you different looks--with JPEGs you get the one the camera firmware has, and the output profile you selected--you may be losing colour right there Anyway, input profiles in C1 can be used to do a lot when it comes to colorur, from direct BW conversions from the RAW DNG to balance individual camera's inconsistencies. If you like shooting say, portrait skin tones a certain way with a certain colour bias (plenty of people like them a little warm), in C1 Pro you can even create your own profile variant, so there's even *less* fiddling in PS.

 

As Guy says, this is a week's workshop--or two We're kind of off the novice track now!

[LJL]

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A slightly differnt take....

 

JPEGs are great where absolute speed is really important, such as making a deadline on a story or sending files to an editor for reveiw. Perhaps one of the more demanding folks in that respect are the folks at Sports Illustrated that are reviewing shots within seconds of being taken at games, to pick some for quick upload to the wire. However, they still require all of their photogs to shoot RAW also, because that is the file that will ultimately be used for the magazine, poster, or whatver. JPEGs do demand you nail things a bit more the first time, sort of like shooting slide film, but RAW files are the things that give you the control over your images to really make things shine.

 

Learing good WB techniques AND discipline is important for shooting both. Jamie's and Guy's points here are well worth their words. Thanks for sharing them.

 

LJ

[neila]

Expocap! More secrets are being revealed!! I'll get one.

 

Sadly, I'm one of those people who skim/scan manuals. My M8 experience went....

 

Oooh, there it is. Yup, manual. Look at the M8, yum. Manual - boring, skim, battery goes there, M8 looks lovely, yup, press button, yup, taking photos, yup yada yabba, WB - why would Warner Brothers be mentioned? M8 still there? yup. let's play!

 

You can see, perhaps, how this vital element got missed in the excitement!

 

Sincere thanks again for taking the time out with this young grasshopper.

[dratt]

Thanks a lot for this comprehensive work!

 

One question regarding your experience with the Expodisc (I bought one just two weeks ago) and shooting DNG (I guess the way to apply the Expodisc is the same for shooting DNG or JPG): I found the results using the Expodisc a little bit to neutral - definately missing some warmer tones compared to for example the Autoadjust of ACR/CS3. I now found out that there is apparently an additional product line of Expodiscs available which are supposed to give a warmer white balance. Do you have any experience with the two types of Expodisc and which one would you recommend for the M8?

[Stevez4]

I have yet to figure out how to deal with hundreds of photos shot under varying light conditions and get a consistant workflow situation. The light conditions I face are not all the same. indeed many are dissimilar, but I do not always have the time between shots to do the expodisdc thing. I do not do studio work with the M8.

 

A considerable amount of time is required for individual shots and I wonder what the shortcuts people use most effectively are. For myself I think that the white balance on the Leica is more critical thaty for those with the luxury oftime for setups setups. It is not as good as several other camera I've used. Perhaps I am just not as satisfied with the computer tweaking as getting my hands wet in the film process. Many of the shots I see on the forum are lovely but I do not want to spend extroadinary amounts of computer time which could be better employed in shooting.

 

Jamies alternatives are very clear, and helpful, but somehow don't fully address my concerns. Perhaps no one else is afflicted by computer boredom. There is a cost benifit ratio that Leica should address in its W/B sofware. in my opinion.

[Jamie Roberts]

@Neil--hey, before you buy an Expodisc or Expocap (I haven't ever used the cap) try the Pringles lid. Seriously. There probably isn't a disc or cap that fits the M8 anyway

 

@Steve--Leica needs to fix their auto white balance, which is way off right now. They've said as much, and I'd look to a firmware fix once the major stuff is done.

 

As for WB workflow, I've found this the quickest (though it's abbreviated here--this is another week's workflow)...

• download shots to 2 physical hard drives (one for instant backup)
  
• view and compare in C1; tag the shots I want to keep (called "editing in")
  
• move keeps plus WB reference shots (cards, expodisc whatever) to separate folder
  
• process those in batches in C1, use the "copy settings" commands to copy similar WB, exposure, and contrast and film look
  
• Go back and process inevitable "tweakers" I usually decide to do one or two per hundred to see if I can improve the basics. If I get something really good, it gets copied back.
  
• output small JPEG and large TIFF (C1 Pro lets you do both at once)

That's it, in a nutshell. Of course, there are other steps to take at each point, but it's really pretty quick for hundreds and hundreds of shots, and you're not bouncing back and forth between separate programs.

[Guest guy_mancuso]

Steve it's called cheating and I do it all the time. LOL

 

Seriously find something in neutral tone in a image , a white that maybe present like a white shirt or a good grey. Even a black if all else fails. Than if you feel your still off some adjusting the color temp can help. The image of the horse in the pasture on the other thread there was nothing to WB off of so I just played with the color temp to get it. There always something in a image to WB off of may not be perfect but in many cases close enough. Also use your creative license if you like it warm or cold no one says your wrong

[osera]

I am not quite as good as Guy at finding a good WB point in images. I try to keep one of the whibal cards with me whenever I'm out shooting, and have developed something of a nervous tic - I keep pulling it out and snapping a quick shot of it every so often: with changing light, in the shade, in the sun, in the evening, at night...

 

Since I often take pictures outside during sunrise and sunset, I have to be careful not to correct the WB too much at times. If I "correct" the WB at sunset, for example, I can remove the nice warm glow of the sunset, which is usually not my intention.

[Guest guy_mancuso]

Allen that s good technique for sure. Also we need to remember that it maybe off in some images but not every image coming out of the M8 is in trouble , it does a good job just not every time. So many times you can go with what the camera does and for landscapes some of this won't matter much but skin tones will be the toughest thing to conquer and were you want to be dead on. So a lot depends on subject also, we make this sound hard sometimes and once you get the basic understanding of it all than becomes very easy to work in the digital realm

[woodyspedden]

@Neil--hey, before you buy an Expodisc or Expocap (I haven't ever used the cap) try the Pringles lid. Seriously. There probably isn't a disc or cap that fits the M8 anyway

 

@Steve--Leica needs to fix their auto white balance, which is way off right now. They've said as much, and I'd look to a firmware fix once the major stuff is done.

 

As for WB workflow, I've found this the quickest (though it's abbreviated here--this is another week's workflow)...

• download shots to 2 physical hard drives (one for instant backup)
  
• view and compare in C1; tag the shots I want to keep (called "editing in")
  
• move keeps plus WB reference shots (cards, expodisc whatever) to separate folder
  
• process those in batches in C1, use the "copy settings" commands to copy similar WB, exposure, and contrast and film look
  
• Go back and process inevitable "tweakers" I usually decide to do one or two per hundred to see if I can improve the basics. If I get something really good, it gets copied back.
  
• output small JPEG and large TIFF (C1 Pro lets you do both at once)

That's it, in a nutshell. Of course, there are other steps to take at each point, but it's really pretty quick for hundreds and hundreds of shots, and you're not bouncing back and forth between separate programs.

 

Jamie

 

It is not necessary to have the expodisc "fit' the leica lenses. Just get a large one (62-77mm) and hold it against the lens and shoot. Works perfectly.

 

Woody Spedden

[Guest guy_mancuso]

Another tidbit of info the DMR like the M8 is a Kodak sensor in my experience with both of them they tend to run warm. They invented Kodachrome so that tells you something but generally in outdoor scenes you will notice about 200 kelvin to the warm side even portraits which for me is good . Most folks like the warm side

[elviskennedy]

I'd like to add a bit from the JPEG perspective. I shoot for an international wire service and all they want are JPEGs. The files from the D2X are large and the JPEG's can be opened in photoshop as 16 bit files at about 60 gig (loaded into Aperture, then sent to PS).

 

I shoot sports and on the uniforms of every team that I've ever shot is some white material. In PS or even in Aperture it's easy to set a white balance on that. Works indoors for basketball and soccer and outdoors for football and baseball - regardless of the lighting (which varies considerably with the exception of NBA and NFL which, thanks to HD TV has become somewhat standardized).

 

I think that if you get to know the various setting in-camera (sharpening, hue, etc.) you can get 95% from JPEG of what you get shooting RAW.

 

Does that extra 5% matter? Maybe for fine arts photographers but I think that JPEGs are great and no one should feel like they are any less of a photographer if they shoot JPEG.

[dhoelscher]

I have a question for Jamie and Guy (and anyone else who sees fit to answer ) :

 

I have been manual white balancing on the M8 with an expodisc WITH the 486 filter attached, which I assume is the correct method when you have the 486.

 

I've been surprised to see that I like the "auto" white balancing (in post-processing software such as raw developer, ACR, etc.) for most shots taken with the 486 filter on RATHER that the manual white balance that I get out of the camera, even using manual white balance with the 486 attached.

 

How come, what am I doing, maybe I'm crazy ????

 

DH

[Guest guy_mancuso]

No David certainly not crazy . Let's put it this way if you WB than you know the scene is at the proper level of color balance, no one said you had to like it though. Some folks like there images warmer or cooler. So yes Auto in ACR actually works pretty good. What the program is doing is reading the scene overall and making a attempt to average read the white balance. Now sometimes this will work fine but if you say have a 50 percent red in the scene well it may throw it for a loop and won't be able to average it but a normal outdoor scene it certainly may be able to nail it. This really depends on what the color is in the imageto start with and sometimes it will handle it and sometimes not. A WB card makes that go across the board with all they images you may select and there WB. Like i mentioned earlier a Auto on a portrait maybe really bad and the WB card get's you perfectly color balanced but you can certain adjust that too. So really the auto can go either way depending on the scene but a WB card will nail it every time

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[dhoelscher]

Thanks, Guy!

 

You know, I used to think that the incident WB using the expodisc was the "most infallible" method ... but now I think that you're correct, that having an exposure with a WB card in it, and eyedroppering that with post-processing software is "better" in the sense that it's more reliable.

 

I agree about the subjective "preferences" about WB in general; looks like accurate WB may not always be the most pleasing.

 

That said, I have always "liked" the auto white balancing that my Nikon D2X camera produces - does this mean that my Nikon camera has "brainwashed" (or "whitewashed") me into liking its WB? and that when I see a different scene tone, my brain is saying "whoa, man this isn't a Nikon white-balanced scene, so something's wrong?

 

Maybe I'm Japanese-camera brainwashed and whitewashed, such that I no longer prefer the M8's manual white balancing for scenics .... I haven't experimented as much with skin tones as have you, Guy.

 

DH