White Balance Meter?

[acroreef]

Dear Folks,

I am a real estate photographer and sometimes experience problems getting white balance correct. I shoot with a Sony A7R and start out in AWB. I have tried using an Expodisk and also a Spyder Cube. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don't.

I often shoot in very mixed light situations, (ambient light from large windows, mixed lighting, etc). Oftentimes I add some fill flash into the mix.

Any such thing as a white balance meter that can read the light in the room so that I can set my camera for the most accurate color temperature?

Thanks in advance to all who respond.

Dave

[Shadowman]

Have you tried using custom white balance setting on camera?

[IzzieK]

Use a grey card...it is simpler and easier.

[PhotomanJohn]

I often shoot in very mixed light situations, (ambient light from large windows, mixed lighting, etc). Oftentimes I add some fill flash into the mix.

I assume you know you are never going to get a white balance setting that will make all of the lights look the same. One just needs to select a value that provides a pleasing appearance of the subject with the different colors of illumination.

John

[russellsnr]

ColorChecker Passport
http://xritephoto.com/ph_product_overview.aspx?id=1257

[Manfred M]

Sekonic and Gossen both make colour temperature meters, but as John has already pointed out, that will only give you an colour temperature reading, which can (and will) result in a bit of a mess colour temperature wise. Nicely said, a colour temperature meter lets you identify the problem, but that doesn't mean it will fix it. Each light source will have its own colour temperature and unless you can control that, the problem will still be there, you'll just understand it better with a colour temperature meter.

The only way of ensuring that all of your colours like right is to adjust the colour temperature of your light sources to be the same, which can be done, but will take a lot of effort on your part. The CTO (Colour Temperature Orange - tungsten), CTB (Colour Temperature Blue - daylight) and CTG (Colour Temperature Green - fluorescent) gels are made to do this sort of thing, but wrapping every single light source with the appropriate colour balance is best left to the Hollywood types with the big budgets. Somehow, I can't see you getting out there with a roll of CTO gel and applying it to all the windows in order to tungsten balance the room. In the "old days" where the majority of the artificial lighting was tungsten bulbs, the fix was a bit easier, but with the varied light sources; tungsten, halogen, fluorescent (with a whole range of colour temperatures and frequency spikes), compact fluorescent and LED light sources, the puzzle has gotten more complex.

If you try to stick with daylight and flash for your work and leave all the other light sources off, you probably area as close as you can get to getting a consistent colour temperature in your work. If you are shooting jpeg, then using a custom white balance (CWB) set by shooting a white target can help, but every time you change rooms and light sources, you are going to do another CWB.

I wish there was a simple solution, but unfortunately, there isn't.

[acroreef]

Thanks to all for the great suggestions and explanations. Much appreciated!

[myrah fernandes]

For all the things your camera can manage effectively without any human input - focusing and metering, for instance - there's still a lot it can't do. This is never clearer than when a set of pictures you felt great about at the time turn up on your computer looking indisputably wrong.

White balance is one such area - it's something photographers have grappled with since the days of film. At its most basic, white balance is when your camera decides what light temperature it's working with (which varies depending on your light source) and attempts to compensate for it.

Even apparently consistent environments, like outdoor locations, can vary depending on factors like cloud cover and whether you're using a flash. If your camera gets white balance right, you won't notice it at all. If it goes wrong, you could get anything from a very slightly wrong photo to an image that bears no resemblance whatsoever to what you saw when you pressed the shutter button.

Incorrect colours, strange looking skin tones - even if the rest of your photograph is technically perfect, with the wrong white balance it will never look quite right.

Luckily, although the concept of white balance may be difficult to grasp, the ability to spot when it's wrong is a knack you'll pick up quickly, and you can correct it in seconds. Keep reading to find out how. Here's A quick tip on how to set custom white balance on a Canon DSLR.

Also read on White balance Photography in order to manage the colour in your images

Understanding Your Digital SLR III: White Balance & Composition with Michael Downey: https://youtu.be/tc07Re5LNHQ

[Manfred M]

For all the things your camera can manage effectively without any human input - focusing and metering, for instance - there's still a lot it can't do. This is never clearer than when a set of pictures you felt great about at the time turn up on your computer looking indisputably wrong.

White balance is one such area - it's something photographers have grappled with since the days of film. At its most basic, white balance is when your camera decides what light temperature it's working with (which varies depending on your light source) and attempts to compensate for it.

Even apparently consistent environments, like outdoor locations, can vary depending on factors like cloud cover and whether you're using a flash. If your camera gets white balance right, you won't notice it at all. If it goes wrong, you could get anything from a very slightly wrong photo to an image that bears no resemblance whatsoever to what you saw when you pressed the shutter button.

Incorrect colours, strange looking skin tones - even if the rest of your photograph is technically perfect, with the wrong white balance it will never look quite right.

Luckily, although the concept of white balance may be difficult to grasp, the ability to spot when it's wrong is a knack you'll pick up quickly, and you can correct it in seconds. Keep reading to find out how. Here's A quick tip on how to set custom white balance on a Canon DSLR.

Also read on White balance Photography in order to manage the colour in your images

Understanding Your Digital SLR III: White Balance & Composition with Michael Downey: https://youtu.be/tc07Re5LNHQ

Unfortunately, this question is not a white balance issue, but rather a shooting under mixed light conditions issue. The two are related, but totally separate topics.

The white balance correction only works if the light sources are fairly close to each other from a colour temperature standpoint, and that is easily corrected. Multiple colour temperature light sources are much, much more difficult to deal with.

[KingsHockeyFan]

I am often subjected to mixed temperature lights that I cannot control. In post I adjust WB to cover the majority of the shot (main point of focus) and then create adjustment layers and mask problem areas with a separate temperature adjustment to try and match the entire shot.. (use low opacity and a soft brush) to gradually change the temp of problem areas. It can be tedious.

[ok2bill]

Unfortunately, this question is not a white balance issue, but rather a shooting under mixed light conditions issue. The two are related, but totally separate topics.

The white balance correction only works if the light sources are fairly close to each other from a colour temperature standpoint, and that is easily corrected. Multiple colour temperature light sources are much, much more difficult to deal with.

Good point.
We will see more and more complicated light sources such as mix of LED lighting.

You may want to use a spectrometer to measure the actual spectrum of mixed light sources.
Variety of different light sources with different spectrum result in the same(similar) color temperature.
But the color of a subject under such different spectrum ( with same color temperature) would look different.
And human eye is sensitive enough to pick up such differences, but the RGB color filter of digital camera is different from human eye's RGB response.

If the spectrometer(not colorimeter, not color temperature meter) provides such detail spectrum of the lighting, there is a chance to adjust ( or minimize errors of) the wrong color from digital camera.

We are working on this problem using compact spectrometer.
Any inputs are welcome.
Thanks.

[Rob Ekins]

Dave,
Can you post an image as an example of what you are up against?

I often shoot in very mixed light situations, (ambient light from large windows, mixed lighting, etc). Oftentimes I add some fill flash into the mix.

Your flash is your friend here, in mixed lighting situations I will take a frame with flash and put that on a layer then change the blend mode to colour.

Or you could take multiple images open in ACR and white balance them individually export as layers and brush in/out parts to your liking, the colour blend mode is the easiest though.

I don't use any form of colour checker these days as I have left to many of them in the shot and had to edit them out

There is usually something in a frame to white balance to, things like skirting boards, crown moulding, and power outlets are usually "white enough" to get an accurate reading.

[Manfred M]

Good point.
We will see more and more complicated light sources such as mix of LED lighting.

You may want to use a spectrometer to measure the actual spectrum of mixed light sources.
Variety of different light sources with different spectrum result in the same(similar) color temperature.
But the color of a subject under such different spectrum ( with same color temperature) would look different.
And human eye is sensitive enough to pick up such differences, but the RGB color filter of digital camera is different from human eye's RGB response.

If the spectrometer(not colorimeter, not color temperature meter) provides such detail spectrum of the lighting, there is a chance to adjust ( or minimize errors of) the wrong color from digital camera.

We are working on this problem using compact spectrometer.
Any inputs are welcome.
Thanks.

I quite agree with some of what you have written, but on the other hand overpowering the ambient, as Rob suggests, is probably the only real practical solution. That way at least the shot will be more or less in synch with any daylight coming in through the windows.

Each light source will have it's unique colour signature in the shot if we shoot without flash and the effects will generally be localized based on the output and range of each of the light sources. Getting a total spectrum reading is not really going to do much, as it is not a total spectrum issue.

Unless I am missing something, I suspect your solution isn't going to do anything to fix this issue.

[William W]

Hello ok2bill,

. . . You may want to use a spectrometer to measure the actual spectrum of mixed light sources. . .

If the spectrometer(not colorimeter, not color temperature meter) provides such detail spectrum of the lighting, there is a chance to adjust ( or minimize errors of) the wrong color from digital camera.

Assuming that the image capture is in raw format: and considering that we would agree to this supposition: "but the color of a subject under such different spectrum ( with same color temperature) would look different."

1. What adjustment would be made and how would that adjustment be made to "minimize the wrong color from digital camera"?

2. What would be the general procedure to follow?

*

We are working on this problem using compact spectrometer.

3. Who is "we"?

WW

[William W]

I agree 100% with Robbie’s two points in post #12 :

> Flash is your friend
> For interior Real Estate you can almost always find close enough a Standard Photographic White in the shot.

Moreover, any time which is wasted really converts to dollars lost on so many Real Estate shoots nowadays because it seems to me that the Clients who will spend money for the time taken (as one big example)to balance and gel the lighting sources are becoming fewer and fewer, each year. So for White Balance which is "suitable", the elegant solution is often in experienced use of Flash and efficient Post Production.

WW

BTW - The Opening Post is quite old. Russel hasn’t made a comment at CiC since May 2015.

[loosecanon]

In the days of photographic film one had to use blue tinted film inside lightshades and so on to convert incdacent to daylight, I have a big roll of it I picked up at an auction for £3. Now one can get daylight balanced bulbs - use these and it will balance the lights - perhaps too much as often the warmth adds to the image.
Now one can adjust with lightroom or photoshop to resolve the problem. The lightroom adjustment brush allows selective adjustment of the colour temperature, photoshop one has to use layers

[Manfred M]

In the days of photographic film one had to use blue tinted film inside lightshades and so on to convert incdacent to daylight, I have a big roll of it I picked up at an auction for £3. Now one can get daylight balanced bulbs - use these and it will balance the lights - perhaps too much as often the warmth adds to the image.
Now one can adjust with lightroom or photoshop to resolve the problem. The lightroom adjustment brush allows selective adjustment of the colour temperature, photoshop one has to use layers

In the days of photographic film, we generally had tungsten lights in home environments and (cool white) fluorescent lights in work settings. Now we have proliferation of different types of light types. tungsten, fluorescent, halogen, etc. all with their individual spectral characteristics.

Life was so much easier back them, in some ways, in spite of the limitations of the photographic processes.

[SuffolkGal]

Don't waste your money on the colour checker passport.

[Manfred M]

Don't waste your money on the colour checker passport.

A decent gray card is even more portable and less expensive. Yes, I do use the ColorChecker Passports; but it is overkill for most users.

[SuffolkGal]

A decent gray card is even more portable and less expensive. Yes, I do use the ColorChecker Passports; but it is overkill for most users.

I have the passport and used it for about a week. Not as accurate as often claimed and a complete pain in the proverbial A £6 grey card works just fine.