M9 white balance

[surfmanjoe]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Today I tried my cheap grey card (bought at $12.99, no name, was claimed  with 18% grey).  It was in indoor, no additional light, outdoor was fully sunny, time was around 3:00pm. 

The camera is M9P + Zeiss Planar 50mm.

First picture is auto WB, raw converted to jpg. it looks a bit greenish. 

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

 

Secondly, it is custom WB, raw converted to jpg. 

 

But I felt the picture was a bit reddish, so I made a tweak in PS on white balance setting only, ended up with the following one that is better but still a bit off to my eyes. 

 

If I did not do the comparison,  I would not know the M9 AWB is greenish. 

Then, my question is, is that normal to tweak white balance after using a grey card on setting custom WB? I want a card that can provide accurate WB. in my opinion, that's the card purpose.

Am I unrealistic? Thank you. 

 

Edited January 4, 2022 by surfmanjoe

[david strachan]

One can get Grey Cards and White Balance (Colour Balance Cards).  The are different things.  The former measures exposure and the latter aims for correcting colour balance.

I think best to stick to industry standards...try X-Rite Passport system.  It's easy and reliable and includes exposure sttings cards as well.

[Advertisement]

The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[Al Brown]

You would need a grey card that fills the frame, and even then the angle of the light reflection would put it off slightly.
You are using auto white balance, do not do it when you test. Put the WB to 5600K and see for the "camera reference" image without grey card. Also, any WB can be corrected in post with the pipette tool hitting the white or 18% grey area when developing your DNG raw. It is really super easy. WB is not just blue to yellow (2000K - 10000K), it is also green/magenta tweaking.

[surfmanjoe]

Thanks, David. Those cards are usually sold in a set of three, one grey, one white, and one black. Is that the white one for WB? I forgot where I placed them since I thought I might need only the grey one. 🙄

[surfmanjoe]

16 minutes ago, Al Brown said:

You would need a grey card that fills the frame, and even then the angle of the light reflection would put it off slightly....

Thanks. AI. I pointed my camera at the grey card until it fills up the 75mm frame line that is bigger than the RF patch and already ensured no block of the light on the grey card. Do I need to put the grey card to fill the WHOLE frame? I tried that but got "Bad Exposure", I guess it is too close and blocks the light as the light comes from my back, I am in the middle of the card and light source..

I will try your suggestion next time to see any difference. Thank you. 

Edited January 4, 2022 by surfmanjoe

[david strachan]

58 minutes ago, surfmanjoe said:

Thanks, David. Those cards are usually sold in a set of three, one grey, one white, and one black. Is that the white one for WB? I forgot where I placed them since I thought I might need only the grey one. 🙄

Hi Joe

This is the colorchecker x-Rite system I'm talking about.

https://www.xrite.com/categories/calibration-profiling/colorchecker-targets/colorchecker-passport-photo-2

 

Are you using the DNG files with the M9?  I know the JPG files on M8 and M9 are often tainted green and rather poor colour balance, difficult to correct.

cheers...

Edited January 4, 2022 by david strachan

[surfmanjoe]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

37 minutes ago, david strachan said:

Hi Joe

...Are you using the DNG files with the M9?  I know the JPG files on M8 and M9 are often tainted green and rather poor colour balance, difficult to correct.

cheers...

Hi, Dave, thank you for the info. I will check it out later on. 

Yes, I shot DNG and converted it to JPG.  

[adan]

I hope everyone here remembers that when shooting raw (i.e. Leica .DNG) - the white balance set on the camera makes no difference whatsoever. Zip. Zero. Nada. Niente.

The raw data captured (x-many red photons, y-many blue photons, z-many green photons) will be identical whether the WB is carefully measured, or is made on Auto by pointing the camera at random things, or presetting some other setting (daylight, cloudy, tungsten, 3200°K, etc. etc.).

The only thing that will change is the low-rez preview .jpg part of the raw file (the "cover of the book"). For which Auto even without the gray card is adequate (since it will have no effect on the final picture).

It's as valueless as trying to measure the sound of ice cream.

There is a use for a gray card - sometimes - but that part is simple. Just photograph it in whatever your light is. Then - IN POST-PROCESSING - use the WB eyedropper to click on the gray card to normalize the card image to equal parts red/green/blue. And apply ("Previous Conversion") that WB to all the pictures made in the same light.

I use a gray card (or more often, a full-color test chart + gray scales) by putting it in the edge of the frame when photographing artwork, where I need to nail the artist's delicate subtle color shades perfectly. Then click on the middle gray ("M") in post to normalize the colors.

https://www.kodak.com/en/motion/page/color-separation-guides-and-gray-scales

[evikne]

And when using the WB card this way, it doesn't need to "fill the frame". I use this tiny one from WhiBal. All you need is something to click your WB pipette on in LR.

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

[surfmanjoe]

4 hours ago, adan said:

I hope everyone here remembers that when shooting raw (i.e. Leica .DNG) - the white balance set on the camera makes no difference whatsoever. Zip. Zero. Nada. Niente.

The raw data captured (x-many red photons, y-many blue photons, z-many green photons) will be identical whether the WB is carefully measured, or is made on Auto by pointing the camera at random things, or presetting some other setting (daylight, cloudy, tungsten, 3200°K, etc. etc.).

The only thing that will change is the low-rez preview .jpg part of the raw file (the "cover of the book"). For which Auto even without the gray card is adequate (since it will have no effect on the final picture).

It's as valueless as trying to measure the sound of ice cream.

...

@adan It is interesting to know that the WB setting does not matter when shooting DNG. That's a surprise to me. 

[Ko.Fe.]

I don't have M9, but M-E 220. It has odd WB, colours after corrosion was fixed.

Colourchecker - checked. Monitor calibrator - checked.

But I'm just too lazy. I have cameras with normal WB, colours, if I feel like need it.

[Jean-Michel]

If you wish, you can set your white balance manually: Set, White balance, Manual — aim the camera at a white surface, or perhaps a WhiBalance card, press the shutter and your white balance is set for the environment you are in. Caveat: remember to either return to Auto, or set a new manual balance when you change the environment. Easier to just keep to Auto!

Including a standard white balance card, or a ColorChecker in your reference image makes it easy to set the white balance in Lightroom or other raw developer.

Do remember that there is no such thing as "accurate colour" in photography, be it digital or film. Today, with the software we use, it is that much easier to tweak the colours (or b&w tones)to our liking.

[david strachan]

Always remember you  are reading the light colour reflected from your subject.  So for example, a picture of stage actors will have weird colours because the spotlights might be red, or green, or... Nightime images are often a problem due to weird street lighting colours.   Moonlight images may be a little cool, but essentially this is similar to reflected daylight.

I always carry a white handkerchief.  If the light is tricky I take a reading off the cloth, in the light I want to compensate, with my camera white balance selector.  Works very well.

But generally I just leave my M-P typ240 on Auto White Balance and only shoot in DNG.  Generally it records skin and other colours very well.  I've always found some colours a bit "hot" in digital, particularly reds...so in that case I may reduce the red saturation of the image in Lightroom.

 

All best Dave S

Edited January 10, 2022 by david strachan

[Adam Bonn]

It’s not strictly true that in-camera WB has no effect on RAW

It’s true that RAW data is un-white balanced (and has no colour space), but the white balance values noted by the camera at the time of capture denotes the starting point of your RAW edits

In LR/ACR have you ever swapped between adobe standard and the ‘embedded’ profile on the same image?

If you do you will find that the as shot white balance value changes.

If you set your camera to use a ‘unibal histogram’ (probably not something that M shooters will get benefit from in classic off the shutter metering!!) then always the RAW file will have terrible white balance when imported into the editor

So white balance is adjustable and not set in stone, but the ‘stone’ (so to speak) must always exist in one form

What’s happening here is this - I’ll massively and hideously simplify (4) the maths

When the DNG is created the camera creates a WB tag (in Leica DNG this is called AsShotNeutral)

Let’s pretend that value is 3.(1) This value can only be set by the camera (the user can change it using a WB preset, sunny/cloudy/kelvin/greycard/etc or the math behind it can be changed via firmware updates from the OEM)

The DCP profile in the camera has a colormatrix (2) this maps from XYZ to un-white-balanced RAW data, let’s pretend that value is 1500 

Not let’s butcher the maths 😂 

3 x 1500 = WB4500

But the DCP file (adobe standard) works the same but has a different colormatrix let’s call that value 1400

so now,

3 x 1400 = WB4200

This is why the as shot WB values seldom agree between adobe standard and Leica embedded 

In my third example… you use a colorchecker chart to create a profile. This produces a third colormatrix, let’s call this value 1200

You can guess the next part right?

3 x 1200 = WB3600

This is why people create profiles (3) using a colorchecker, to get more accurate colours, what they’re actually doing is creating a profile that works better with their particular camera’s white balancing abilities, by creating a colormatrix that plays nicer with their camera’s WB tag.

In the next example!

We use a white balance card (not an exposure card) that’s a decent one, to set the in-camera WB correctly for the scene.

So in this usage we’re changed the WB tag in the DNG, so the same maths and the same colormatrices will be in play, but the WB should be more accurate. (So instead of “3” our fictitious wb tag can be say 2.8. I wont repeat the maths from above, you get the gist)

(RAW editors not using DCP files will have their own ways of dealing with the as shot WB tag)

Coloured RAW data is un-white balanced, but in order to do anything with that data (like see it, edit it, print it) you’ll need it in a colour space and with a white balance. Getting it right in camera &/or having a DCP profile that matches your camera is (IMHO) a very worthwhile thing.

=====================

re the OP

auto white balance is a guessing game, and guesses are subject to errors

The human eye tends to ignore slight colour casts (reflected colours in white etc) - the camera does not

There’s more than one shade of white in the world!

Just because you nailed the WB on the white balance card, then (depending on the scene) it doesn’t mean it’s the same wb value a meter away

=====================

(1) In Leica DNG ASN is actually a triple digit tag

(2) There are two colormatrices in the Leica and adobe DCP profiles, they’re 3x3 matrices for different light sources

(3) A robust, accurate DCP profile should have a lot more in it than a colormatrix or two, but it’s all Leica give us and also all you’ll get using x-rite calibrater, you don’t get HSV data or even forward matrices

(4) the actual maths for the ‘as shot wb’ is dependent on the whether the perceived colour temperature fits into either colormatrice (CM 1 and 2) individually (eg 2800/6500) or needs to be interpolated between both CM1 and CM2

[Ko.Fe.]

On 1/8/2022 at 11:58 AM, Jean-Michel said:

Today, with the software we use, it is that much easier to tweak the colours (or b&w tones)to our liking.

If colors are screwed, you can't tweak something which doesn't exist.  

[Jean-Michel]

4 hours ago, Ko.Fe. said:

If colors are screwed, you can't tweak something which doesn't exist.  

Hi,

Well, the colours we see on our screens and later in print, are generated by the only three 'colours' recorded by the camera sensor. The sensor actually does not record any colour; each pixel records only the amount of light that strikes it. To assemble a colour image the sensors uses, almost universally, the Bayer grid, 2 pixels are filters with a green filter, 1 with a red filter, and 1 with a blue filter. The recorded amounts of light is stil just about the amount of light, not colour. It takes an alchemy of statistics to use that data to assemble a viewable colour image. I imagine that the purity of the R,G,B filters varies from manufacture to manufacturer and that this adds some  complication when converting data to image.

The colour balance set in the camera (auto or otherwise) does not have any effects on the recording of light. It does however add data for the image processor (in camera, or in computer) to use as it converts the data to an image.

The camera profiles from the camera maker, Adobe, or one that you create is simply another set of data that the processor uses to assemble the image. And as we all can see, profiles differ! 

For my own use, I simply use the Adobe Standard profiles Lightroom. I have however moved the Calibration palette to just above the HSL/Color palette. For some types of images I adjust the RGB primaries to fit my style. I first learned of using this Calibration tool when figuring out a way to correct skin tones from my M9 files — I don't remember how I came about learning that technique. Anyway, I now have some calibration presets for particular types of images. Note that adjusting the primaries is global, it affects every single pixel.

And when we print, it is only tiny dots of specific ink colours.

Magic, we see an image!

 

[matted]

I don't have much to add to the good WB info posted already above, but  did want to mention that (anecdotally) my M9 seems to struggle the most of any digital camera I've had in mixed light when set to "auto WB". The smallest shifts in framing or position can change what light is hitting the WB sensor and shot to shot consistency can be quite low.

 

I have not lost any sleep over it, these are just my observations and experiences with the M9 in general. Easily dealt with when shooting DNGs and applying WB settings from one shot to another/all in the same light, or getting a "reference" WB off a colour checker passport (or similar) if critical.