Creating a Custom White Balance Setting


	This lesson examines the ability to use custom White Balance settings instead of camera White Balance presets. The gain in color accuracy can be a relatively subtle difference from using the custom preset.
If achieveing a finely tuned color rendition of your jewelry is important to you, this lesson will show you how to set a custom White Balance for any lighting situation you may encounter. (Most images can be clicked for an enlarged view.)

Topics Covered:

Creating a custom White Balance setting

Equipment Used:

Camera/Media

Olympus C-5050 Zoom digital camera
Olympus 512MB xD-Picture card
Manfrotto tripod

Lighting Equipment

Photoflex Starlite Basic Digital Kit

The C-5050 Zoom offers a variety of White Balance settings. You can leave it on AUTO and let the camera interpret the correct Color Temperature. You also have several White Balance Preset options from which you can choose that will Color Balance the following conditions: sunny days, cloudy days, shade in daylight, evening sun, various types of fluorescent lighting and tungsten lighting. However, there are times when the Presets do not quite match the color temperature of a given light source. For example, a Starlite Lamp is a photographic light source that is designed to have the color temperature of a true Tungsten light: 3200° Kelvin. Yet the closest Preset in the C-5050 Zoom is a Tungsten Preset of 3000° Kelvin, which is closer to the color temperature of a household Tungsten lamp. While 200° may not seem like a lot, it can noticeably throw off your Color Balance.

In the example below, this group of pencils was lit by a single Starlite Basic Digital Kit and photographed with two different WB settings: the Tungsten preset (3000K) and a Custom setting. Notice how the left-hand result has a slight magenta cast to it, particularly in the shadows, whereas the image on the right has no colorcast whatsoever. This demonstrates the color shift of 200K (figure 1).

Figure 1

Figure 2

Press the Right arrow button to enter this menu (figures 2, 3 & 4).


Figure 3	Figure 4

Then hold up something neutral in front of the camera lens and make sure that it is illuminated by your light source (sunlight, window light, light bulb). You can point the camera at neutral-colored objects (asphalt, a cloudy sky, a white sheet of paper), but the best thing to use is a photographic gray card, which you can pick up at any photographic supply store. They come in sheets of 8x10, but you can cut them up into little squares and store them in your camera bag, wallet, etc. Once the card fills the frame, press the OK button to set the Custom White Balance setting (figures 5 & 6).


Figure 5	Figure 6

Now you are ready to take Color Balanced pictures.

SAVING CUSTOM WHITE BALANCE SETTINGS
You can also save the Custom setting you've created into the Custom folder, which holds up to 4 different Custom settings. To do this, first scroll back to the main WB menu and then scroll down to the Custom WB menu.

Press the Right arrow button to enter this menu, select 1 of 4 Custom settings and press OK (figures 7 & 8).


Figure 7	Figure 8

To lock in the setting, press OK. Remember that you can also save over any of these 4 settings simply by repeating these steps (figure 9).

Figure 9

When you want to quickly access your Custom White Balance settings, simply return to the main WB menu and scroll down to the Custom menu. Press the Right arrow button, select the appropriate Custom setting and press OK. Note that you can only select Custom White Balance settings you've saved to this folder (figures 10 & 11).


Figure 10	Figure 11