accurate white balance - K20D

Having just bought the K20D I'm having another look at my photography "technique" to see if I can't improve a few things. One niggling issue I had with the GX10 was that when processing the RAW files in ACR I was never 100% happy with the White Balance (I always used AWB in-camera).

I find it quite difficult to adjust it accurately in post-processing and would like to improve things by trying to get accurate WB whilst taking shots. How many on here use a white balance card (Kodak/expodisc etc) and find it a noticeable improvement over the "standard" in-camera settings?

thanks

Simon

Simon, I may be mistaken but I suspect you are having some similar challenges to me in finding the 'sweet spot' or right settings to produce the kind of results you want. I also recently ascquired my K20d although i don't have the experience of a previous DSLR and have started a thread in this section asking for assistance with my K20d settings.

Some of the replies there might help you, but once you feel you've cracked it regarding the white balance stuff for the K20d please let me know!

I've used the Expodisc with very good results. On the *ist-D it was in use all the time (the *ist-D has an excellent and very quick way of capturing a custom WB with a dedicated button).
It gives the same results with the K10D & K20D, however, I find that Silkypix provides a very good WB control - you can pick a neutral colour and even skin tones - and that generally produces a very pleasing result.

I've even got to the stage now where I manually tweak the WB in RAW processing - it's not that difficult, especially for landscapes, to know which way to push things

The standard AWB can be a bit off at times.

The other thing, apart from WB, is the colour reproduction of the RAW converter. ACR can be a bit "neurgh" from a colour point of view and can require some tweaking. LR isn't too bad, but nothing beats Silkypix for colour control - the film emulations normally give the "pop" that I was missing even when WB was approximately right.

Perhaps this is what you are both finding - some RAW converters tend to aim for a very neutral & flat colour reproduction (expecting you to shove things around in PP). You can, of course, generally adjust colour settings and save as presets. For example, there are many good free presets available for LR that push it the extra bit

Hope that helps!
Matt

Matt when you say shove things around do you mean levels/curves or the colours? I agree with you about Silky doing a good job but what I tried was getting the result I wanted in Silky and then seeing what I had to do in ACR/PS to get similar results.

I also found that getting a proper grey card wasn't very helpful in ACR/PS while it was in Silky which was frustrating. The Adobe products seem much keener on using whites and blacks than grey and the skin tome adjustment ion Silky is brilliant in difficult situations such as a tent.

Mike

Mike, the other thing you could use is the QP-card. I have a pair of the little colour cards. They are very useful - and I use them when I require accurate colour matching.

Otherwise, I generally don't bother - and rely on Silkypix
There is some leeway in ACR with the colour tuning/calibration parameters, plus the hue/sat/lum for each of the 6 primary colour regions.

But to give a more accurate response I'd have to run up ACR... haven't used it for some years

Matt

Well, I'm gonna rub you all up the wrong way and say that the K-7 does a far better job at AWB, especially under tungsten!

It is actually one of the reasons I can't wait to get my hands back on one!

To a certain extent it's all wasted effort as you have no control over the monitor the images are viewed on. Printing is of course a different kettle of fish and one reason why I like to print my favourites.

Mike

In absolute terms Mike I would agree, since your monitor might not represent 'real' life, but it's all relative. I am viewing the images on the same monitor that I am using to view all images on my website and others so regardless of whether the monitor gives a true rendition (which it does as it is a 24" Samsung and calibrated)the same picture my PC's desktop should look identical when uploaded to my website or Facebook or wherever as the medium is identical.

Have you been given a 'heads up' on a date yet Danny?

'First week in July' is what I'm told, so next week I suppose! Should call Chris and pester him again, as I would love to take it to Goodwood on Sunday!

Stock is out In Japan though, so theoretically, it could be any day soon depending on stock levels etc. Good news is that I won't need any time to adjust and get used to it!