Here are my 3~~~

This one is with overhead florescent light!

 This one is with natural light-same place, lights off, only window light...I upped my ISO to 200 instead of 100 but it still came out blurry, but you can see the color difference just fine

 this one is outsie shaded by a tree......

 OK- so i used a white piece of paper to set a white balance...In couldnt find my gray card (LAME)  I dont understand why you would want to mess with all those other white balance settings if you can do a custom white balance....ANYONE???

this is with a reflector probably warming up the colors a little........

 This is No reflector just same custom white balance....can you tell he is SOOOOO done with me taking his picture!!!

I think the reason for White Balance pre-sets is for versatility when you are moving from one light source to another on the same shoot.

Especially when the action is ongoing. switching from "daylight" to "tungsten" with a dial is quicker than stopping, digging out a target card, shooting the ref. image, and setting the menu item and then setting the wb choice.

The camera makers know something about how photographers work!

A custom wb will work wonders in mixed lighting. IF the subject is always in the same place in the mixed lights.

then there are techniques that take advantage of the color temp in the room but let you use flash at the same(more or less) color temp.

The most common trick using this is to set the camera for tungsten wb and put a "gold" diffuser on the flash head.

or set for fluorescent and use the "green" diffuser on the flash.

these work best with wide aperture lenses that let background illumination show up in a flash image.

 Sorry drh681...i should have been more specific when I said all those "other white balance settings" I was talking about the "more advanced" section of this tutorial where you can change specific color balance issues.....that seems like a HUGE pain in the Butt, when you could just set a custom white balance easier.....I understand the sunny and shade, and tungston settings......and really those are pretty good settings for MOST pictures. I shoot in Raw so adjusting the white balace seems pretty easy in PS..........

Jen

oh like the "kelvin" white balance and the white balance shift.

I dont think I have used those beyond just to see how the work.

I suppose that in certain more advanced applications or for special effects those might be useful.

Like I said, the camera makers know the business and sometime have room to add a "feature" with a low use rate in general; but it adds attraction to "prestigious" users. Sort of what Fuji did with their UV/IR capable camera. they were going after science and forensic users.

 How come no one else is doing this tutorial, or atleast commenting on the pics posted??? Nerd Hubby, where did you go????  Is this Tutorial over and I jumped in to late?????

Whats up??? 

Jen

I'm still in class..... I think maybe teach is busy.... Ur not too late.   Toni

 U might not want to sit by me though.......I tink i'm failing summer school

Shannon is probably working on editing his take from Saturday.

 Hey guys - sorry I was MIA.

Saturday I usually have weddings, and Sundays are family days, so I'm not on very much.

The lesson is still going strong!

Good images there Jen - I'm glad to see someone used fluorescent lights.

The big question - without a camera, can you see the color of the light? It's subtle, but you can spot it, especially if there's a window in the room.

I'm going to see if I can round up a color chart to use for my sample images, that way you can see how the color of light affects other colors besides whites.

 I think I may have to send all my teachers pay to DRH though - he's been stepping up to the plate quite a bit! LOL

Thanks!

Shan

 Ok, here's a color sample image that I printed out (on a calibrated printer) and photographed in several lighting situations.

As you can see the RGB values differ greatly. Especially notice the blue and red channels (first and last in the set). The cloudy and window light (reflected cloudy) really has a blue tint, and the tungsten has a red tint. The old fluorescent light I used was practically yellow - and there's hardly any value in the blue channel!

Now, as I look at the lights (without the camera), I'm training my eyes to see the color. I can see in my hallway there's a tungsten overhead light, and a window in my son's room. I can see the light starting cool (blue) at the window, and getting warmer as my eyes look closer to the tungsten light.

Can you see that with your eyes? The camera amplifies the contrast, so you have to really look close!

Keep 'em coming!

Oh, if you want a link to this color test sample image: 

http://www.cav-sfo.com/ColorTestFile.jpg

Thanks to The Digital Dog website for this one (www.digitaldog.com).

Shan

Okay...I can see the color difference on the pics you posted and I am starting to see the different colors of light all around me...Now how do I get everything to be the correct color when I take the picture?

~neo

 Ahh...but that takes us into another lesson grasshopper.

This assignment was to help train your eye to see what the camera does. Next we'll be delving more into actual WB modes (including CWB & Kelvin!)

(If you'd like to try the advanced assignment, it should give you an idea!)

Glad to hear you're able to see the color of the light!

Shan

I tried to use two different light sources today.  The ceiling fan has three 40 watt tungstens and I opened the window.  I tried the different presets and noticed the difference they made.  I then tried the kelvin temp.  No flash this time as now  (I Believe) I understand why it affects the wb (is it daylight balanced?).   My ss wasn't twice length of focal and my son was tired of playing.      3900k wb/      iso 400     1/60      f 1.7     50mm

The kelvin only increases/decreases in 100's?  It was very hard to balance the the color with the presets?  Toni

Work in Progress:

The kelvin only increases/decreases in 100's?  It was very hard to balance the the color with the presets?  Toni

yes. that 100 point difference is a very, very subtle change.

you should not have had too much troule "balancing the color" with presets IF you were in only one souce of light.

(the image you posted appears (to me) to have been with the window and the tungsten lamps.

the white balance presets do not balance the light from two different sources.

they are meant to balance a single light source to the equivalent of "daylight"

if you need to balance two different sources, one of the sources will need to be filtered before you shoot at the white balance of the other.

(see my note about the "gold" diffuser for flashes above) 

also; 40 watt incandescent lamps are a much lower kelvin rating than the photofloods that are the 3800K "standard" for the tungsten preset.

So a 2800K or 2900K would be much closer but not exact.

Here is my attempt at part of this lesson.  I know that these are not exposed properly, didn't have enough light for a fast enough shutter speed, and they are OOF, but I can see the color change.  (please correct me if I'm wrong on that!!  I'm very new)

These are with a ceiling fan directly above the object.  I hope that I did this right.  First one was on Auto. 

1.

2.

3.

4. This is with 2 light sources I can't remember if this was Auto WB or Sunny WB, but either way, it doesn't give true colors.  I think #3 is the best.  How did I do?

 Here is my try at the lesson.  I see the different colors for sure!

Ok, I see the differences in the color in the WB settings...but what is right and what it wrong....it looks to me that there could be any number of these settings with a good photo....depending on what the over all look is that you were going for.

And.....what are we going to do with the information we just learned?  hehe

I haven't been as invloved with this assignment but I have read all the posts and replies and I think I get the changes and I definatly see the color changes in different lighting situations.  I just need to know what to do with that information and how to adapt it to what I am going for....make sense?

Thanks again for jumping in and continuing the classes.....I am one that is grateful and learning a LOT from these.  :)

And I promise to be more involoved in the next ones......

(well except next week cuz I am going on VACATION...woo hoo !)

well, it's not really a matter of right or wrong as such.

you could use the "wrong" wb to give a special effect to an image.

maybe use shade or cloudy to "warm up" an image.

I have used tungsten to help separate tones when I used an R72 infrared filter.

but mostly we want our colors to match what we see.

(even though our brains "filter" the color from the various lights)

and we have in photography, selected daylight as the defacto standard to match.

so we need to do the filtering for the camera to get back to that standard.