Newbie WB question

[smsmd]

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Hi and thanks to everyone for teaching me so much thru this forum.

 

I have noticed what others have already: the auto M8 WB settings are inconsistent.

 

Is there a reference that you carry/memorize to set the WB temperature for say, low/available light indoors, night shot outdoors, etc, and other situations where the preset choices poorly apply?

 

Maybe I always need to carry a card, but this seems inconvienient in many settings where things change quickly.

 

Thanks, steve

[Bill W]

I leave it on auto and shoot raw so I can adjust it in post processing. Hopefully Leica will make some more adjustments to WB in the next firmware upgrade. Some people do use cards to fine tune WB based on the lighting conditions. I am not sure if these are expo disc or what though since I have not used them. I used a grey card back when I shot film but not very often.

[smsmd]

Hi Bill,

 

Thanks for the advice. Sounds like the best bet is shoot RAW, adjust later until the upgrades are done to auto WB for JPEGs.

 

Will do it this way,

 

steve

[wparsonsgisnet]

What Bill said. I use auto wb, shoot dng + hi-res jpg, and carry a WhiBal card with me. Often, I can shoot the wb card merely holding it in front of the camera; depends on the lighting near and far.

 

I haven't had any problems correcting wb in C1 LE.

[wlaidlaw]

Hi Bill,

 

Thanks for the advice. Sounds like the best bet is shoot RAW, adjust later until the upgrades are done to auto WB for JPEGs.

 

Will do it this way,

 

steve

 

Now that I finally bothered to watch the movie and read the manual for C1LE, I am amazed how much easier it is to use it than the various other RAW conversion programs I have been struggling with (ACR and Lightzone). I am a bit ashamed how long it has taken me to get round to this. I shot about 200 images yesterday and my Intel iMac converted them all as a batch in about 15 minutes, using one of the free M8 profiles I got off rangefinder forum (see - it is useful sometimes). I now really wish I had shot all my Barcelona pics on DNG and not JPEG, as the results of my DNG ones from yesterday are so much better and much quicker than going from JPEG to JPEG correcting WB. I was using a manual WB set with my Elmarit-M 90 defocussed on a white sheet in sunlight. I think this is a better idea than AWB as the RAW conversion will be more consistent.

 

Wilson

 

Wilson

[Artichoke]

auto white balance is best avoided with just about any digital camera if one is serious about color

any camera will adjust color temperature based on what it thinks is right & I never feel a silicon based computer does as well with this as the one you have in your head

set a manual WB using a white card (I sometimes use an old white tennis cap in a pinch, but beware of white shirts as bluing is often added) ...if you cannot do this set the preset most appropriate to the shooting situation & while this is not as good as using a manual setting, the WB will not jump all over the place ...the problem with AWB is that it shifts from image to image ...WB can shift based on changing light, so shooting a few with a white card included (Weibel shots) is always a good idea ...correction post hoc is much simpler if the camera's AWB is NOT used as a WB correction from a photograph with a good neutral in it can be used for another photograph without a good neutral taken under similar light circumstances and WB settings...this is not a good idea if using AWB where the color temperature may shift from one capture to another

the idea is to get it close in the camera & correct in post using either the RAW processor or PS (I am obsessive about color & do both using the outstanding PS plugin ICorrectEditPro)

I always correct against a known neutral grey in post ...these are plentiful and simple work to adjust in C1 or other RAW processors and not that much more difficult to correct even if shooting jpgs, though in general I think the M8 does much better as a RAW shooter

[smsmd]

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Hi and thanks to everyone,

 

I have a white hiking hat with a sun-shade built in-maybe a portable "card-equivalent" per Arthur's advice.

 

steve

[sps]

There are many more learned opinions than my own, but I leave mine set on daylight. I find that this most often produces results similar to what I am seeing despite changing light. It isn't near perfect, but it is much more "automatic" than AWB.

[lars_bergquist]

AWB is of course the same kind of quick and dirty solution as auto exposure (or a straight reflected-light reading, for that matter). And I find that I am using my M8 more and more on manual, and with an incident meter too!

 

AWB is certainly unreliable for now. I too tend to follow 'the Kodachrome way' and keep the thing set to daylight, and indoors to 3200 K. My Minolta Auto Meter II does however insist that mid-day colour temperatures range around 4400–5000 K, but I do of course live at approximately the same latitude as Juneau, Alaska, with the sun never close to zenith.

 

I do think that AWB is one of the things that is being worked on in a serious way. It will always remain 'dirty' but it could at least be made useable.

 

One note: The pre-set 'flash' balance is for direct flash with a pretty bluish temperature. Even so, it is rather too warm with my Metz flashes, and outright yellow with bounce flash. I use 'daylight' when I am in a hurry, otherwise manual to 4500.

 

The old man from the Age of Flash Powder and Kodachrome 25

[wattsy]

You can count me in as one of the "daylight" crowd. I set my M8 WB to the daylight setting last year and have left it on that permanently. If the WB needs any kind of adjustment I do it during the RAW conversion.