Innerimager
Established
I'm looking at the camera and the pdf manual...I don't see a way to set a manual WB. Is that really so? (hope not). thanks....Peter
Sailor Ted
Well-known
Yes Peter this is so- that said the camera does an excellent job of picking WB in AUTO mode or when lighting is less then natural in either florescent or incandescent modes.
Cheers,
Ted
Cheers,
Ted
mwooten
light user
Peter,
On the back of the camera, upper right -- under the "film advance" lever, there is a little two way switch. Push it down, and use the "jog" thingy on the other end of the camera to change the white balance as shown in the analogue gage on the top of the camera.
In the printed manual it's on page 5. Now if you mean to set a custom white balance then I haven't find any way to set it in the camera. Like Ted wrote, the camera seems to do well in most situations. If the white is too off, I adjust the images in post-production.
Take care,
Michael
On the back of the camera, upper right -- under the "film advance" lever, there is a little two way switch. Push it down, and use the "jog" thingy on the other end of the camera to change the white balance as shown in the analogue gage on the top of the camera.
In the printed manual it's on page 5. Now if you mean to set a custom white balance then I haven't find any way to set it in the camera. Like Ted wrote, the camera seems to do well in most situations. If the white is too off, I adjust the images in post-production.
Take care,
Michael
furcafe
Veteran
There is no way of setting custom white balance on the R-D1. However, as Michael wrote, you can fix it in post-processing--this is most easily done by taking & saving a shot of a gray or white card if the lighting is predictable.
Innerimager
Established
thanks for confirming the bad news. I still love the camera, but it's inexcusable not to be able to set a manual WB. I agree it does a nice job in auto, but it really helps to set a correct WB as accurately as possible, especially in tricky light. While you can correct Raw files, and do corrections on JJPG's, it still matters. An incorrect WB can saturate an RBG channel in ways that leaves it's presence after correction, and it's just faster to get it right in camera, especially shooting JPGs. I'm surprised, I'll deal with it.....Peter
R
RML
Guest
Better not to worry too much about it, Peter. The R-D1's auto WB is extremely accurate. Probably a better judge than you and I would be in tricky situations.
Innerimager
Established
Well, not worrying is always a good idea. But I use an expodisc to set a manual WB on my other cameras when I think I need it, takes the guess work out, otoh, I have guessed and set a K temp value in my D2Hs doing weddings in tungsten light and gotten much better results than using auto or preset WB on the nikon! PS - just noticed you are in Amsterdam. My wife and I just decided to come there in May, it'll be my first time, long overdo! best...Peter
Didier
"Deed"
Sailor Ted said:
Hmm, not shure about Auto-WB accuracy. That's a weak point of almost all digital cameras, including the fullframe C's. Just edited a picture which hat 3000K with Auto-WB - but there was bright sunshine. But that's why we have a RAW converter, haven't we.
Setting manually is easy. Camera on, pull little lever with right thumb to WB, pull out the "rewind" wheel at the left, turn it to the WB setting you want. When you start at Auto, turn CW. When it's down, CCW.
Didier
Didier
"Deed"
furcafe said:
No way? Of course you can select the WB setting manually. As posted by mwooten and me, you can move the left upper small dial in the analog window, by holding the little lever to WB, and turn the pulled out wheel at the left of the camera. You have 5 additional WB selections. Or do you mean you can not set the exact Kelvin value manually? That would be true - no way to do that.
Didier
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Innerimager
Established
hi- I don't mean setting a preset manually, I mean telling the camera exactly what to call neutral in a scene by having it take an image of say a grey card, or using an expodisc which covers the lens and renders 18% grey. This provides the most accurate WB in camera. Every digital I've used (all the nikon dslrs, kodak, the M8) allow this. best...Peter
LCT
ex-newbie
Auto WB outdoor, tungsten indoor and iCorrect, it's all what i've ever needed in 2+ years use of the R-D1. FWIW. 
jlw
Rangefinder camera pedant
Innerimager said:
Just to avoid confusing newcomers: You CAN set a manual white balance, but only to the preset values shown on the display. (These values are daylight, overcast, shade, tungsten, and fluorescent.)
What you can't do is set a "custom" white balance (one you might set by photographing a gray card or by manually entering a Kelvin temperature value; the latter was not a very common feature at the time the R-D 1 was introduced.)
In practice none of this is relevant if you're shooting raw files. White-balance settings (on any digital camera I know of) don't affect the raw image data -- only JPEG previews and such.
If you've shot a raw file, you can later create a custom white balance by using the gray-value sampler in your raw converter, and many raw-conversion utilities allow you to enter a K value as well.
This doesn't seem like a big issue. I figure that if you're critical enough about your results to want to use a custom white balance, you're also critical enough that you should be shooting raw.
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RFNewbie
Established
The R-D1 is a great camera and I love it but the white balance in my opinion is not that accurate. That is the one of the very few things that I don't like about this camera. In all lighting conditions that I have tested, my 1D mk2 easily beats the R-D1 for color accuracy. But I have to admit that I love shooting with the R-D1 a lot more than my Canon 1D mk2. Even with the increased accuracy of the the 1Dmk2, it is not perfect. In tungsten, fluorescent lighting, and mixed lighting, it is off. For candle light and low wattage tungsten lighting, it's way off no matter what I do...including changing kelvin temperature. It was not until I got the Expodisc white balance filter to create custom white balance that it was dead on. Take a look at their website for some info.
http://expodisc.com/products/produc...poDisc_Digital_White_Balance_Filter_-_Neutral
In almost all the cases, I like the R-D1 more than the M8 (i will probably get flamed for this). But for the lack of the ability to create custom white balance, the R-D1 is lacking. For now, I guess I will do some additional steps to ensure color accuracy.......take a picture using the expodisc as the white card followed by postprocessing on the computer. You never know how much better the color accuacy could be until you actually try it for yourself.
http://expodisc.com/products/produc...poDisc_Digital_White_Balance_Filter_-_Neutral
In almost all the cases, I like the R-D1 more than the M8 (i will probably get flamed for this). But for the lack of the ability to create custom white balance, the R-D1 is lacking. For now, I guess I will do some additional steps to ensure color accuracy.......take a picture using the expodisc as the white card followed by postprocessing on the computer. You never know how much better the color accuacy could be until you actually try it for yourself.
LCT
ex-newbie
Agreed of course but even for jpeg shooters WB is not a problem with softwares like iCorrect.jlw said:
http://www.pictocolor.com/
RFNewbie
Established
LCT said:
I have used Apple aperture to try and color balance some of my jpgs. In some cases, it's succesful. In others, it is impossible to get it correct after the fact. Especially pics with no white, gray, or black in it....such as people. I will have to give iCorrect a try to see if it's any better than Aperture. In both cases, these are things that I hate.....which is additional post processing time. I prefer to get it right the first time so I need to any any additional work. Epson.....please give us custom WB. :angel:
LCT
ex-newbie
If you don't like raw and PP you're going to suffer i'm afraid.RFNewbie said:
pfogle
Well-known
I have to say, as an old film shooter, that I regard jpg mode in a pro-quality digital camera like shooting a polaroid - if you were happy to develop a neg and produce a print (or pay someone else to do it), why not process a RAW and produce a tiff or jpg?LCT said:
Sure there's a place for shooting jpgs - I know press photogs who do that to save time, but really, if you want quality, you just have to put in the effort!
ps I also shoot with a Canon 5D and never use custom WB - IMHO every picture needs tweaking for exposure and WB.
R
RML
Guest
pfogle said:
Quite so. PP isn't much more than DR work with film.
I guess a PJ is going for the "money" shot and leaves the PP to the art director or photo editor. And for most newspaper photos a WB that's slightly off won't do much harm, especially not when it's printed in B&W or on "toilet" paper.
tmessenger
Established
The biggest problem with poor white balance shooting raw is if the WB is too far off the highlights can blowout when you make post corrections. Even shooting raw you should have correct WB as it effects exposure.
tm
tm
pfogle
Well-known
that's an interesting point... I guess that's true if you judge the exposure from the jpg histogram, and it's way out. I never thought of that.tmessenger said:
In practice, I do tend to use the preset WB to get an approximate setting, so my RAW's aren't that far out in general - but yes, I can see how it could happen...