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primesuspect
16 Jul 2009, 7:36am
So having experience with several Canon dSLRs now, I have to ask:

Is it just me, or does the automatic white balance setting frequently get it very wrong?

I feel like I have to adjust white balance on almost every photo I take. Is there something I can do differently to improve WB?
shwaip
16 Jul 2009, 8:01am
Well, you can use the user-defined white balance. Basically, it'll take a picture of a 'white' piece of paper and define that as 'white'.

If you're in a situation where you know you'll be shooting a lot of pictures under the same lighting conditions, this is probably the what to go.
drasnor
16 Jul 2009, 2:44pm
So having experience with several Canon dSLRs now, I have to ask:

Is it just me, or does the automatic white balance setting frequently get it very wrong?

I feel like I have to adjust white balance on almost every photo I take. Is there something I can do differently to improve WB?It gets it wrong pretty much of the time. If you're shooting in RAW though it doesn't matter because white balance doesn't get saved.

-drasnor :fold:
Snarkasm
17 Jul 2009, 3:26am
Yeah, I don't bother with white balance. It can always be tweaked.

That said, I have done the manual WB several times; it's pretty cool.
Black Hawk
17 Jul 2009, 3:31am
I was gonna ask what would be the result of using an off white piece of paper for manual WB but I figured the answer would be to go and try it.
Snarkasm
17 Jul 2009, 3:42am
... your white balance will be slightly off.
CB
17 Jul 2009, 5:55pm
Can anyone tell me if my Cannon PowerShot has a user-defined white balance option? I've been looking for it the last few days, but I can't find the option (and I can't find the manual)
shwaip
17 Jul 2009, 5:57pm
What model?

Also, you can probably get a pdf of the manual at canon's website.
CB
17 Jul 2009, 6:00pm
A610

/me goes to cannon.com
Snarkasm
17 Jul 2009, 6:10pm
Doesn't look like it's listed on usa.canon.com anymore. CB, will this (http://www.starbatteries.com/caa6a6dicaow.html) work?
CB
17 Jul 2009, 6:12pm
I found the manual PDF on www.usa.cannon.com (http://www.usa.cannon.com) in the downloads section. It does have a section on custom white balancing. I have to go the the White balance menu, select AWB, then the option for custom white balancing appears. I feel like I've looked there before, but it wasn't there... They must have updated my camera software by satelite or something.

* CB puts a plain index card in his camera bag.
shwaip
17 Jul 2009, 7:36pm
My cannon doesn't need white balance, the cannon balls fly straight in any light.
Snarkasm
17 Jul 2009, 7:47pm
/me hearts the irony in mocking cannon whilst exchanging "fly" for "flight."
shwaip
17 Jul 2009, 7:55pm
hehe. i think it was having 'light' in the same sentence that effed me up.
GHoosdum
18 Jul 2009, 4:14am
The white balance settings are only accessible from the manual setting modes on our cameras, CB.
"Auto" and all the scene modes are AWB. If you looked from one of those modes, you wouldn't have seen the option.
chrisWhite
21 Jul 2009, 3:16am
Hold up here, white balance? Excluding camera-phone photos I haven't shot anything that wasn't RAW in two years and last time I did I deeply regretted it later.
Snarkasm
21 Jul 2009, 3:29am
Congratulations. Not everybody shoots with DSLRs and has access to RAWs.

...
CB
21 Jul 2009, 4:58am
...
shwaip
21 Jul 2009, 5:21am
dotdotdot
ardichoke
23 Jul 2009, 1:58am
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ffffs, I fail.