Anyone have the canon T3i? Help with white balance issues

[akitareefer]

So I just got the T3i a few days ago. Previously I had an olympus e410. I am absolutely not able to shoot actinic shots or led. The blues come out purple magenta..... what the heck do I need to do? Lol frustration

I'm currently using the stock lens(waiting for a macro) I switched the settings to RAW. I tried custom white balance by taking a photo of white PVC in the blue lighting. I use that photo to set the white balance and viola I have a picture of coral with a gray background (actually white with blue lighting) and the colors on the corals are blown out vivid reds and completely unnatural. OK... so what's the next step? All I'm seeing after changing other settings is crazy purple from actinic lighting. I must be missing something. Lastly i use lightroom for photo editing, I can take out the purple by spending 10 min manually taking the purple out.

 

[Michigan Mike]

Where is the setting at? I have mine on faithful but you can tweak the colors more in the settings.etc. I'm not a pro...
I think its is common with any camera but some may be better than others.
At least you have LR & shoot RAW.

 

[akitareefer]

Which settings? I haven't messed with many other settings. I don't know what to change.

I don't have access to my comp right now to show some of the actinic pictures.

This is one of the shots I took under 20k mh with actinic vho. You can see the purple glare in the upper left of the photo which is a reflection of the blue vho. I believe the wb was set to auto for this shot. The camera sensor can't tell its blue not purple?

 

[Reef Bass]

Cameras are not built to white balance accurately under 20,000K lighting. They simply can't do it. The hardware is not designed to. So forget about auto white balance in that case.

What you can do is shoot in RAW mode, and then set the white balance yourself. The RAW image is not white balanced out of the camera. That's where you come in. It just takes moving a slider in software until the colors look right. It's that easy.

 

[akitareefer]

So what's the best way to handle a large amount of pictures? Shoot an entire round and batch edit them? I'm not sure if lightroom has the same batch system as photoshop, still learning. Its just weird how the canon detects the colors, my old Olympus made it easier for me to white balance.

 

[IslandCrow]

Cameras are not built to white balance accurately under 20,000K lighting. They simply can't do it. The hardware is not designed to. So forget about auto white balance in that case.

What you can do is shoot in RAW mode, and then set the white balance yourself. The RAW image is not white balanced out of the camera. That's where you come in. It just takes moving a slider in software until the colors look right. It's that easy.

I agree with this, except for shooting in auto white balance. AWB sets an arbitrary baseline based on the conditions of the photo, whereas your other white balance modes (sunlight, shade, manual, etc.) use a standard baseline. What this means is if you shoot a series of pictures using any of the non-AWB modes, you can adjust the white balance in post production for any one of those photos and copy those settings across the rest of the photos. On the other hand, if you use AWB, there's a chance that the same color temp and tint values could produce different results between photos.

Now, as far as how you do it in Lightroom, it's very simple. You can either highlight all of the photos, make sure auto-sync is on and make your edits. The other way, which I prefer, is just edit the first photo, and then use the copy function, and paste the white balance (and any other settings you want) onto any or all of the other photos. Lastly, you can just take note of the color temp and tint you used after adjusting one photo and manually set those values to the other photos, but that's a bit time intensive if you're doing a lot of photos.

 

[goldfin]

I also shoot raw and adjust with lightroom , but I get pretty good color by setting the custom balance with the room dark, aquarium lights on, and taking a photo of a thin sheet of copy paper taped to the tank (which lets a blue cast through). You have to fill the viewfinder completely with the paper.

 

[LowezAkar24]

Bro, you have to take a picture of a white sheet of paper. You will have to select manual focus on the lens or the camera will not take the picture. You then have to select that picture as your custom white balance. Problem Solved!!!!

 

[akitareefer]

using the white object to white balance wasn't as easy as it sounds. I did a bunch of fiddling, saved specific pictures for white balancing and now I've got the pictures without much editing.

Here's where I'm at. Just coral pictures. Waiting for macro lens. No more purple blowout

 

[akitareefer]

And my led shots


Before



After
Had to do a longer exposure and white balance. F number 4, exposure 1/40, iso 400, no tripod

 

[pandimus]

looks good, can you explain the white paper technique?

 

[Anim8me2]

Actually middle grey will render more accurately. Camera sensors and WB calculations are based on an assumption that a "middle" or 18% grey is the accurate baseline.
You can get a ready made target from a number of different sources or make one yourself. Then you put it in a ziploc and take reference images at different depths/;locations in your tank to sample and set your WB.

Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/DGK-Color-Too...2911839&sr=8-13&keywords=white+balance+target

http://www.amazon.com/Opteka-Pocket...72911839&sr=8-7&keywords=white+balance+target

DIY:
Here's the Kodak 18% Grey formula for HD Behr Premium Plus Interior Flat Latex (1 Gallon). I got this from another forum member who had the Kodak color card (almost) perfectly matched at his Home Depot.

Accent Base (1600)
4 columns on label:
------------------------------------------
COLORANT OZ 48 96
------------------------------------------
D Thalo Green 0 36 0
E Thalo Blue 3 14 0
F Red Oxide 1 11 0

 

[akitareefer]

What I did for white balance was took a piece of white foam and held it in the tank in different areas and angels. This worked really well under actinics (vho, t5, led). For the 20k MH it was more difficult. When white balancing with the foam the pictures came out green. I actually took pictures of different coral and was able to white balance from those pictures. Obviously this isn't the professional way but its what has worked for me so far. Would like to try making one of those white balance cards

 

[IslandCrow]

Actually middle grey will render more accurately. Camera sensors and WB calculations are based on an assumption that a "middle" or 18% grey is the accurate baseline.
You can get a ready made target from a number of different sources or make one yourself. Then you put it in a ziploc and take reference images at different depths/;locations in your tank to sample and set your WB.

Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/DGK-Color-Too...2911839&sr=8-13&keywords=white+balance+target

http://www.amazon.com/Opteka-Pocket...72911839&sr=8-7&keywords=white+balance+target

DIY:
Here's the Kodak 18% Grey formula for HD Behr Premium Plus Interior Flat Latex (1 Gallon). I got this from another forum member who had the Kodak color card (almost) perfectly matched at his Home Depot.

Accent Base (1600)
4 columns on label:
------------------------------------------
COLORANT OZ 48 96
------------------------------------------
D Thalo Green 0 36 0
E Thalo Blue 3 14 0
F Red Oxide 1 11 0

What's most important here is that your white balance target is not only neutral in color, but properly exposed. This is something that's often forgotten, and it can throw off your white balance. This is easier to do with an 18% grey card, since the camera's meter is going to have a tendency to underexpose a white card.

I do like the idea of getting a white balance at different depths, especially for someone with an especially deep tank. Not a big deal for macro shots where you should get a setting near your subject, but I can certainly see it for a full tank shot. Have you noticed significant differences at different depths?

 

[akitareefer]

The maximum depth in my tanks is 11in....In my glass frag tank I just switched from 20k 400w to 14k 250w MH and 454 VHO. Haven't had a chance to take pictures yet but I'm excited. Will be interesting to see how my photos compare in terms of coloring. Perhaps next week on my days off I'll try making the white balance card. Wonder if I could laminate it so its always ready to be submerged.