Learning White Balance on Whiteouts

I've been inspired to try to improve my camera skills. I think I've learned how to do a custom white balance so that my white background doesn't look pink or yellow or gray or blue on one or two photos (out of many many attempts). Here is a photo of a citrus pastel whiteout yellowbelly female I got from Amir.

http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/j...i/IMG_1815.jpg

And, this is how she looked the night I got her, after a good soak, using a point and shoot camera.

http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/j...i/IMG_1735.jpg

Maybe I'll stick with the point and shoot! :)

Great looking snake! :gj:

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Originally Posted by DZ Reptiles

Great looking snake! :gj:

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Thanks! Once she is out of quarantine, it will be interesting to take a pic of her next to my other pastel yellowbellies. She is definitely brighter.

It sounds retarded, I know, but I'm actually so psyched that I got a white background that looks white. I can't wait to learn more about my camera.

gorgeous snake !

Love anything pastel yellow belly, they are just so visually stunning !!

That is very hot no matter what camera you use.. Very nice animal and pics... I also have a citrus whiteout from amir's line and cant wait to see what jems she produces.... :gj:

Very nice photos Maki for a very beautiful snake. I can see what you're saying about getting a good shot on a white background. Here's a bad example I just took:

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5294/...658f3f4f23.jpg

Notice how the background is brown on top and bluish on the bottom... yes that is a white background. I wonder if I play around with my camera if I can get better results.

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Originally Posted by MarkieJ

Very nice photos Maki for a very beautiful snake. I can see what you're saying about getting a good shot on a white background. Here's a bad example I just took:

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5294/...658f3f4f23.jpg

Notice how the background is brown on top and bluish on the bottom... yes that is a white background. I wonder if I play around with my camera if I can get better results.

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Yeah, it is a problem that has been driving me crazy. I've tried all sorts of lights, light boxes, and every "basic" setting on my camera with inconsistent results. Finally, I watched a you tube video on white balance and learned how to do a custom white balance setting. I still need more practice with that, and then I need to work on adjusting exposure. No more "full auto" setting for me.

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Originally Posted by Action Reptiles

That is very hot no matter what camera you use.. Very nice animal and pics... I also have a citrus whiteout from amir's line and cant wait to see what jems she produces.... :gj:

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Thanks! Good luck with your citrus whiteout project!

here is a good expination on white balance. http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tut...te-balance.htm

my camera allows me to custom set it. makes pictures like this a no brainer.

Very nice pastel yb:gj:

I think it looks fine! Very nice looking snake! :gj:

nice snake!

The WB issue custom works great as long as you have ONE light source. Colour temperature is actually simple to understand. Simplified picture a chunk of metal being heated, it first glows dark red then bright orange, light yellow orange, blue white, blue, then bright blue. This is loosely the system, candles at 1000ºK and regular light bulbs at 3000ºK photo tungsten and some halogen 3200ºK and flash 5000-5500ºK and bright clear blue sky 11000ºK.

The issue with white balance is a if you have 2 or more colour temperatures in the shot (daylight and tungsten) Shoot at night or in a darkened room if you have lights and in daylight with no other lights on. Daylight florescent light are odd balls and are generally 5000 to 6300º but they have a green cast as well so a strict daylight setting produces a touch of green in the file that makes things look sickly. There generally is a FLD setting and in many cases this daylight fluorescent setting will do better than a true custom white balance as the white balance system in most cameras is not able to deal well (or at all) with green/magenta axis only yellow/blue. A neutral reference card in the edge of the frame can correct this in post processing if you have a mid grey correction sample tool like found in Adobe Photoshop levels.

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Originally Posted by MarkieJ

Very nice photos Maki for a very beautiful snake. I can see what you're saying about getting a good shot on a white background. Here's a bad example I just took:



Notice how the background is brown on top and bluish on the bottom... yes that is a white background. I wonder if I play around with my camera if I can get better results.

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for me personally - i shoot in RAW and take it into lightroom and work on the colors/whitebalance there. saves me a lot of time and doesnt require you to do quite as much work before the shoot.

nice snake. looks like you nailed the WB there.

I'm still not that great with my camera, but adjusting the shutter speed helps keep the background white too:)

Thanks for all the great info on white balance. I think one of my problems has been that I have more than one type of light source. In the future I think I'll do better with simplified lighting and custom WB, which I've learned how to do.

I only recently moved off of the full auto "green rectangle" mode of my camera so I have no idea how to go about shooting RAW. That sounds like something I'll aspire to once I learn my way around.

I plan to learn how to adjust shutter speed next...