White balance

[bourgogneboy]

I am totally new to the M8, having just bought one at the weekend. I have not had a chance to really try out the camera as I have been busy at work. However, I have simply made a few test shots sitting here in my bedroom. What I have found is that with "White Balance" set at "Auto", the camera seems to produce different results for shots made consecutively - some turn out quite yellow (due to the lamp in my room) whilst others turn out quite nice with the yellow reduced (the same result if I set the "White Balance" at "Tungsten". Has any one else experienced this? Can any one please explain why this is happening? I should add that I am using my old M-lenses without the 6 bit code.

Thank you!

 

[Roger Hicks]

The AWB is appalling. I normally use either Kelvin settings or (for really difficult lighting) custom white balance.

Shoot DNG, of course, and you can correct an awful lot in Capture 1.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Benjamin Marks]

No. Although with the camera set to "auto" the direction that you are pointing the camera may have an effect on the color that the camera "sees" when it samples the world.

I use an Expo-Disc for indoor and mixed lighting. Place it over the lens, point at your light source, manually set the white balance and voila. Beautiful color balance every time.

Ben Marks

 

[kbg32]

The M8 is known for its horrible auto white balance. Leitz is aware of this and has marginally upgraded it with the latest firmware. More of a complete fix is forthcoming with later firmware upgrades.

 

[Ben Z]

Wow, can't believe I'm on the same forum with the Roger Hicks! I have all your books. That's exactly what I've found with my M8. I always shoot DNG. I find 99% of the time if it's set on AWB that I disagree with the colors the camera produces, especially as viewed in C1-LE with the 3 possible M8 profiles it offers. I found that the profile for the Fuji S5 was much better, bizarre as it sounds. (Yes, I do have a calibrated monitor). And I found that Camera Raw 3.7 in CS2 is much better than C1-LE. I have a Minolta Color Meter (but it's almost as big as the M8 ) but I hesitate to use it or set a manual WB because I'm sure to forget to re-set it when I go into different light.

However, what I think I may be seeing isn't so much a true color-balance problem, as it is an overabundance of yellow across the board regardless of the light or the chosen WB. I may not need to change the color temp for each shot in raw conversion, just make a simple color adjustment once I get the file open in CS2. The more I get into the post-processing of the M8 the more I realize how much I still need to learn. For three years with my Canon 20D I could shoot RAW or even large-fine JPEG and all I had to do in post was run it through the Miranda sharpening plugin and go to print.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Dear Ben,

Thanks for the boost to the ego!

What I've done is set two user profiles for the most obvious WBs (5600 and 3200) and then use profile 3 for the most useful current custom profile, e.g. sodium vapour + mixed street lighting (don't ask...)

You're braver than I about alternative software but more cowardly about changing WB, which (I suspect) simply reflects our different priorities.

You've got ALL my books? Including the biography of HH Dalai Lama? (Who today was honored with a Congressional Gold Medal)? Wow!

Cheers,

R.

 

[Richard Marks]

For anyone starting out, try and resist the temptation to go down the initially easier route of shooting JPEGS. I agree with Roger,try and make the effort to shoot RAW and get used to RAW conversion software, and you will always be able to rescue things even if the playback image on the M8 looks awful.

Enjoy your M8

Richard

 

[bourgogneboy]

Thank you all for your very helpful advice. I forgot to mention that not only am I new to the M8, I am also totally new to digital photography. There is obviously a great deal I need to learn. Is there any recommended reading for a newbie like me?

 

[Ben Z]

Dear Ben,

Thanks for the boost to the ego!

What I've done is set two user profiles for the most obvious WBs (5600 and 3200) and then use profile 3 for the most useful current custom profile, e.g. sodium vapour + mixed street lighting (don't ask...)

You're braver than I about alternative software but more cowardly about changing WB, which (I suspect) simply reflects our different priorities.

You've got ALL my books? Including the biography of HH Dalai Lama? (Who today was honored with a Congressional Gold Medal)? Wow!

Cheers,

R.

No, just the instructional photo books. I never played with the user profiles because I read that people were having issues with them re-setting themselved to the defaults without warning. Also I sort of thought they were only applicable to JPEG's. I'll have to look further into them.

 

[Ken Tanaka]

I can only add my experience with the M8's AWB and my own white-point practices

Here is Exhibit A for not using the M8's AWB. Each of these images was captured in the same daylight within minutes of each other. The camera definitely has its personal color moods.

So, like others here, I've abandoned AWB in favor of using a fixed white point. I use the daylight setting (app. 5900 K on the M8) for most shooting and the tungsten setting for extremely warm indoor scenes. It's been much simpler to correct and adjust white balance en masse using this technique.

It's just part of the M8's "character" that I've learned to take in my stride.

 

[Roger Hicks]

No, just the instructional photo books.

Dear Ben,

That's what I guessed -- just winding you up!

On the profiles, I've had no problems with unwanted resettings, and besides, if you hit 'set' you can see all/almost all the settings on the profile anyway.

Resetting the numbering from 0 is another matter: I think it's happened 3x now, so I don't know how many pics I've shot with it in the year (roughly) that I've had it. Several thousand, certainly, but I use other cameras too: yesterday, for example, 2 rolls in the MP.

Cheers,

Roger

 

[F456]

Correcting white balance in software (C1 pro and/or Photoshop)

Correcting white balance in software (C1 pro and/or Photoshop)

Going on from Bourgogneboy's post, how do people find the ease of correcting WB in Capture One ( I have the pro version, but presumably LE works much the same)?

I go through the Capture One sequence: WB, exp/contrast, sharpening (I often leave this till last in PS though), crop and output as TIFF etc. But quite often I have to fine tune the WB again in Photoshop.

Is this just my colour sense that's impaired, or have others come across the same?

It leads me to the conclusion that it is illogical not to use Photoshop - and Adobe Camera Raw - right from the start, but I like the Capture One Pro facility for outputting TIFFs, High quality JPEGs, and QuickProof e-mail JPEGs all at the same time on conversion.

Best wishes,
Tom

 

[grduprey]

Going on from Bourgogneboy's post, how do people find the ease of correcting WB in Capture One ( I have the pro version, but presumably LE works much the same)?

I go through the Capture One sequence: WB, exp/contrast, sharpening (I often leave this till last in PS though), crop and output as TIFF etc. But quite often I have to fine tune the WB again in Photoshop.

Is this just my colour sense that's impaired, or have others come across the same?

It leads me to the conclusion that it is illogical not to use Photoshop - and Adobe Camera Raw - right from the start, but I like the Capture One Pro facility for outputting TIFFs, High quality JPEGs, and QuickProof e-mail JPEGs all at the same time on conversion.

Best wishes,
Tom

I find I have to aqdjust WB about 25% of the time, which is not a big deal. I use C1LE and find the WB slider very easy to adjust. It is just about the only thing I adjust with the exception of an occasional exposure adjustment.

Gene

 

[usccharles]

i use AWB 10 percent of the time. usually when the lighting conditions are clear to me, cloudy, sunlight, tungstun, etc. i use the preprogrammed WB settings in the camera. its much better that AWB. AWB i use when there is just too much different light sources and i just cant figure it out..

i would suggest a grey card. when i'm shooting in a specific lighting condition, i always shoot one shot of my grey card before shooting. when i go home i convert all my RAW files under that lighting condition according to the white balance measured off the grey card photo. saves alot of time.

cheers

 

[F456]

All sound points but when doing on the spot photography using a grey card would draw too much attention and slow me down.

I suppose I've made the decision to act fast when shooting (so as not to lose the moment) and that brings its price in terms of slower file development afterwards. I am sometimes tempted to shoot this sort of thing (streets etc) on film to avoid the post processing, but then film brings other disadvantages such as storage and also scanning of negatives - which is even more time consuming!

Best wishes,
Tom

 

[cme4brain]

Thank you all for your very helpful advice. I forgot to mention that not only am I new to the M8, I am also totally new to digital photography. There is obviously a great deal I need to learn. Is there any recommended reading for a newbie like me?

New to digital photography and you bought a $5000 M8? Holy cow! Talk about taking the plunge! I leave my camera on Daylight WB and that has the fewest errors unless I have time to specifically set the WB or use a custom WB.

 

[8877molly]

wb

wb

I find that wb is not much of a problem outside--but inside is another story. With incandescent as my main source of lighting I set the wb manually--this seems to work fine--I also try to add as much outdoor lighting as possible during the day. CS 2 helps as I only shoot in RAW (dng).

Isn't it amazing that we shoot on a $5000 camera and $3590 lens, yet Leica leaves the wb such a problem

Molly

 

[F456]

Molly,
I know what you mean. Caught by some unexpectedly nice coastal views on Sunday and without a camera I suddenly realized my mobile phone could be used for some pictures. Image quality not bad (leaving off the digital zoom) but most of all the WB was spot on. Not bad for a free upgrade phone- 'Zeiss' engraved under the tiny lens.

And almost as fun as using the M8. Shame Nokia doesn't support RAW files!

Tom

 

[jaapv]

Just set the camera to "daylight" and DNG and pretend you have a roll of Kodachrome in there - that is the style that appeals to most Leica M users anyway...
It would have been better if Leica had omitted AWB altogether and told us "this kind of automation is contrary to Leica philosophy"