[Leica] Easy way to set white balance on digital cameras.

[henningw at archiphoto.com (Henning Wulff)]

>Clive,
>I wouldn't say better than digital, but all the four layer Fuji films do
>very well in mixed light.  If you do a custom white balance in mixed
>light you can keep your color balance looking good.
>
>Don
>dorysrus@mindspring.com
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: lug-bounces+dorysrus=mindspring.com@leica-users.org
>[mailto:lug-bounces+dorysrus=mindspring.com@leica-users.org] On Behalf
>Of Clive Moss
>Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2005 12:06 AM
>To: Leica Users Group
>Subject: Re: [Leica] Easy way to set white balance on digital cameras.
>
>Many of my balance problems come from mixed lighting -- daylight near
>windows, tungsten/flourescent in darker areas, purple relection from
>the carpet. I am not making this up -- it was my latest shoot. I could
>have added flash to complicate it further!
>
>Guess that's why B&W is so tempting :-)
>
>Is it my imagination, or does film (Fuji Press 400) cope with mixed
>light better than digital sensors?
>
>
>On Tue, 8 Feb 2005 21:27:55 -0500, Don Dory <dorysrus@mindspring.com>
>wrote:
>>  Brian,
>>  The Expodisc is a sandwich of an array of lens to attract a wide cone
>of
>>  light then a carefully white balanced diffuser (think of a white piece
>>  of lexan) carefully calibrated to be as neutral as possible.  It works
>>  as an incident meter and an absolutely neutral gray card.
>>
>>  Therefore, in strange light, you can set your white balance very
>>  quickly.  You can also take a blank frame to help with batch
>processing.
>>  You have a absolutely neutral capture so you can bring that frame into
>>  balance, all frames shot in the same lighting will respond to the same
>>  adjustment.
>...

If I have an image in digital form with colour casts due to mixed 
lighting, I usually as a quick fix try to select a narrow range of 
the spectrum around that cast and first try desaturating it, and if 
that doesn't work well enough, change the hue of that portion.

When Fuji first came out with their four layer films, I was 
delighted. Years ago mixed lighting of the kind we have everywhere 
now was extremely rare, so you could balance things nicely with a 
colour meter and packs of CC filters. Usually transparencies were 
asked for, and it was possible to produce nice looking ones with the 
CC filters. Then the mixed lighting thing took off in the late 70's 
and things got messy. The look of many interior spaces, particularly 
commercial spaces depended on the various lights being on, and it was 
impossible to balance things with CC filters, or by replacing normal 
bulbs with blue photofloods or whatever. It became impossible to 
produce attractive transparencies in many cases. Fuji to the rescue! 
Reala, and later many other Fuji films made great looking colour 
shots possible again. The only problem was that many clients still 
demanded transparencies. So before I could get four layer 4x5 film, I 
would shoot interiors on 120 Reala and then have the neg printed on 
4x5 transparency print film. Even though the transparency then had 
giveaway clear edges, clients accepted this, and were happier than if 
they got 120 negs. :-)

I don't like using the disc-in-front-of-the-camera for colour 
balancing, as it tends to accept colours reflected from surrounding 
surfaces more readily and in a less predictable fashion than (with a 
digital camera) taking a reference shot off a known neutral surface 
exposed to the light source of interest, or holding a colour meter 
directly up to a light source.

-- 
    *            Henning J. Wulff
   /|\      Wulff Photography & Design
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