white balancing

[elwoodk]

I am looking for suggestions as to how to get the best custom white balancing results. No problem with studio or available light, but am still having trouble with off camera flash in event / location situations. I would like to know the best way to set a custom white balance using a flash on a bracket or completely off camera.

thanks

 

[Digital Matt]

More than likely, you are running into situations where you have multiple color temps in the room, like daylight flash and tungsten ambient. You need to gel your flash to match the temp of the room, and then you should get much better results. Shooting in raw, and if need be, a shooting a white card, will make life easy in post.

 

[Sw1tchFX]

Shoot RAW, use gels, and adjust for it on the computer.

Once, I was shooting basketball in a flourecent lit gym, so I put a light green gel on my speedlight, so the flash exposure was balanced, and than just adjusted for WB imperfections on the computer.

 

[elwoodk]

O.K. I've tried adding gels, but with minimal results. When I try to gray/white card balance with my flash on a bracket I have problems. Too yellow with the gray card, and with white the custom setting just won't tolerate the "overexposure" produced when the flash hits the card. How do you, personally, white balance with a bracket mounted flash?

thanks

 

[Digital Matt]

Not all grey cards are color neutral. Most are used only for exposure metering, and not white balancing. Adjust your flash power down so you don't overexpose your white card. Have someone hold a white card for you and get a good exposure that you can use.

 

[elwoodk]

Thanks Matt. One last thing: I'm assuming that after I have acheived white balance with a white card, I will need to increase my flash power back to the desired exposure as opposed to leaving it where it was for white balance?

 

[Digital Matt]

Well, yes, you'll want white to be white in your normal exposures.