White Balance Settings

[Jake007]

I just got a Canon T1i.... woo hooo.....

I can't seem to get the white balance correct for reef photos.

Q. What settings does everyone use to get good results?

Here are some of my camera options:
ISO..... any setting auto, 100-3200

White balance....auto, daylight (5200K), shade (7000K), cloudy (6000K), tungsten (3200K),white fluorescent (4000K), flash /no flash, custom?

Image size... large, medium, small, raw

 

[Misled]

Read through these

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=333197

 

[Machupicchu]

as for ISO it depends on your lighting. Whatever enables you to use a fast shutter speed, but tripods are helpful too.

I use in-between 8000k-10000k white balance. If you shut daylights off its around 4000k-6000k. I dont know if that camera allows you to choose a specific value, but anyway this is my experience.

 

[Reef Bass]

You'll notice none of your camera's available white balance presets offer any selections over 7000K. Some will go up to 10,000K. None go to 12,000K, 14,000K or 20,000K which are very popular MH color temperatures.

Basically, camera manufacturers regard reef photography under high color temperature lighting as a "specialty" or something the average camera owner won't be doing.

Shooting in RAW mode allows one to bypass incamera white balancing and to do the white balancing during post processing, which results in accurate colors versus the "too blue" pics one usually sees from reefers' tanks.

 

[Jake007]

Thanks for the responses. I will try the white balance measure/set trick with the coffee filter and also shoot in RAW.

 

[Reef Bass]

Just to be clear, if you shoot in RAW, you don't need to bother with coffee filters.