MicrostockGroup

Lately, I have been getting rejections due to incorrect White Balance- someone mention to me about setting my camera to Auto on the White Balance- Currently, I have it set to Neutral. Any ideas on how I can get better White Balance folks?

Thanks.

Tom

Well I presume youre shooting in RAW and as already said it depends on camera and sadly no camera has really got a good WB, not even the HD systems.

White paper, yes. Best method, although expensive is to use Auto and then tweak the colors in the raw converter.

Honestly, until you really know what you are doing you are far better off simply sticking with your camera's default settings. To do otherwise is very much like buying a dog and barking yourself. Not only is it much harder work but you won't do as good a job as the dog.

Forget WB, graycards and all that stuff unless you are shooting commercial product/fashion images in which absolutely accurate representation of the exact colours is essential.

The only reason I shoot in 'P' mode rather than full Auto is that in Auto the camera also decides the ISO which I don't want. The main problem with that is the camera can choose some weird numbers like ISO 320 which seems to cause excessive noise/artifacts for stock purposes.

So many photographers seem to try so hard to make life difficult for themselves. They pay huge amounts of money for some very sophisticated electronics and the expertise of a major manufacturer ... and then override it all thinking they can do the job better themselves.

But he's not a 'pro'. He hasn't got the gear of a pro or the experience of how to use it and he's not being paid like one either. Therefore Mr Canon's default settings will do a far better job for him than his own guesswork for a good few years yet.

What do you mean you "can't see anything working in P or fully Auto modes" anyway? JPEG and P Mode have worked just fine for me and, as far as I'm aware, none of the 250K+ licenses I've sold have had reason to complain. This is microstock. It's about the efficient production, both in time and money, of stock images to the required specification. The required specification being the succesful acceptance of said images by the agencies. Anything more than that is a waste of your time and your money. I'd rather spend more time on the golf course than hours messing about in RAW for no noticeable gain in either quality or value.

Oh dear!  no, no, it wasnt meant as critics you know. All in all, sure as he says below, if you shoot in Raw, forget it, you can use any old settings and just change it in the converter.

Me personlly?  I dont even use any WB in-camera I use a Binuscan and Zeiss spectro/color, for really critical work but for those who doesnt depend on photography for a living, its a too expensive piece of hardware.

If the following article is right, then ISO 160 is actually ISO 200 pulled down by a third of a stop, which reduces noise (good) and costs dynamic range (bad), so there are two sides to it. Maybe the cameras default to these figures to reduce noise, which people are more likely to notice than loss of DR.

"So, if the 160-multiple ISOs are not the native ones, why are they cleaner, and how are they derived? Well, it is correct that the 125-multiple ISOs are the noisiest because they are derived by a digital exposure push. ISO 125 is actually ISO 100 with a 1/3 stop digital exposure push, ISO 250 is ISO 200 with a 1/3 stop digital exposure push, etc. However, the 160-multiple ISOs are actually the cleanest not because they are "native", but because they are a result of a digital exposure pull. This pull brings down the exposure of the entire image, and hides much of the noise that would be visible at the next higher ISO. ISO 160 is the cleanest because it is the native ISO 200 with a 1/3 stop digital exposure pull, yielding even less noise. ISO 320 is actually ISO 400, with a 1/3 stop exposure pull, etc.

So now that we know this, which ISO settings are best? Just because 160, 320, 640, etc, are not "native" does that mean you shouldn't use them? Well, no, not necessarily. They are less noisy, after all. It's just important to understand that there is a price to pay for this lack of noise. That price is decreased dynamic range.

Because ISO 320 is actually ISO 400 pulled 1/3 of a stop, that means that the highlights are going to clip at exactly the same point as they would at ISO 400. The 1/3 stop pull is just making that point 1/3 stop darker than pure white. The entire image at ISO 320 is 1/3 stop darker (and may be less noisy) than the image at ISO 400, so the blacks lose detail 1/3 stop sooner, but you don't get that 1/3 stop back at the highlight end of the range -- it's still gone. Therefore, at ISO 320 you're losing a net 1/3 stop from the total usable dynamic range that you would have if you were shooting at ISO 400."

The article is here: http://shootintheshot.joshsilfen.com/2010/05/13/canon-hd-dslr-native-iso/