Problems getting consistent white-balance?

[Englander]

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Since a lot of people are having trouble with white balance on the M8 and DMR, I thought I might throw out these comments and hope they help.

 

I have not noticed any shifting of white balance with any of the setting selections other than Auto, (which I have heard is a contraction of some obscure engineering language for "ought-to-not use"). By using a predefined setting, the color temperature remains consistent and no more of a bother than choosing either a daylight or tungsten film. As an aside, even with cameras that do have effective and consistent Auto-Balancing, you will frequently neutralize the quality of light that attracted you in the first place. For example, daylight film is not "correctly" balanced for sunsets; a correctly balanced sunset film would not show very many colors at all, certainly all the warm colors would be diluted; and to some extent that explains some of the more pitiful "golden light" shots I have seen done with digital.

 

But what about situations that require more closely defined temperatures? The WhiBal card is a popular and useful method of achieving white balance, particularly with post-processing, when it is feasible to put the card in the frame or possibly photograph the card itself. I have found that the ExpoDisc and similar video-graphic white balancing filters can provide fast and consistent results especially in situations where the WhiBal is less useful.

 

By covering the lens with an Expo Disc and using the pre-set white balance achieved by setting the M8 or DMR to manual white balance, you can obtain a consistent and useful temperature setting that does not require post process balancing. The settings are quite fast to make and remain valid as long as you are in that lighting situation. Furthermore, the settings do not shift unpredictably and intermittently the way Auto-Balance does with the Leicas.

 

Sometimes it is possible to use WhitBal similarly for pre-set white balance but I have found it more difficult to get the M8 spot on exactly the correct part of the WhitBal but quite easy to simply cover the lens with an ExpoDisc.

 

Joe

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[lars_bergquist]

How the devil did I get such consistent results with daylight-balanced slide films? This should not have been possible. It sems that the digital thingumajigs are far more sensitive to small variations of colour temperature than even transparency film was. And my Minolta Color Meter II is a very bad fit in any pocket I have …

 

The old man from the Age of Daylight Kodachrome

[glenerrolrd]

I spent a lot of time on this and I agree with your conclusions 100%. There is more than one method to getting your WB .."perfect" but I endorse starting with an ExpoDisc and manual WB. I still try to throw in a WhiBal exposure to have another reference but its usually close to the ExpoDisc .

[Englander]

Lars,

You will get results as consistent as you had with film if you set the WB to a pre-set fixed temperture such as Daylight. You can even add your old light balancing filters so you can rely on all the tricks and habits you learned with KII.

 

Joe

[Julian H]

Hi Joe

 

I have been doing exactly as you suggest with the Expodisc since Christmas when I was given one. Works like a treat! I have the largest size which I hold over all my lenses.

 

Julian

[tom0511]

Lars,

You will get results as consistent as you had with film if you set the WB to a pre-set fixed temperture such as Daylight. You can even add your old light balancing filters so you can rely on all the tricks and habits you learned with KII.

 

Joe

I dont think so, IMO sensors are much less flexible regarding color temperature compared to film.

cheers, tom

[tom0511]

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Lars,

You will get results as consistent as you had with film if you set the WB to a pre-set fixed temperture such as Daylight. You can even add your old light balancing filters so you can rely on all the tricks and habits you learned with KII.

 

Joe

I dont think so, IMO sensors are much less flexible regarding color temperature compared to film.

However personally I dont see a big problem with inconsistent AWB. Additionally to the previous described methods you can allways just adjust the WB to your taste when doing raw-conversion. Often there is something grey in the image as well which will help.

cheers, tom

[jaapv]

Like a handy little grey card?

[Jamie Roberts]

I had an opportunity to try the newest Expodisc "pro" neutral, and it's fabulous for the M8. I can't believe I'm saying this (because I've always used WhiBal cards), but I like the Expodisc even better than the WhiBal, in that it's more neutral and predictable.

[robsteve]

How the devil did I get such consistent results with daylight-balanced slide films? This should not have been possible. It sems that the digital thingumajigs are far more sensitive to small variations of colour temperature than even transparency film was. And my Minolta Color Meter II is a very bad fit in any pocket I have …

 

The old man from the Age of Daylight Kodachrome

 

Your results with film were good because it wasn't always trying to figure out the colour balance of a scene and ocassionally getting it wrong. The AWB problems the camera has is no different than how some lighting can trick an exposure meter. How were your exposures on the slides. I bet you had some that were too light or too dark when shooting on Auto exposure.