Setting white balance using studio flash with istD

I recieved some sound advice below in the forum about setting white balance.

I'm shooting a dinner/dance on Saturday night (9hrs GMT) using an istD and a pair of portable studio flashes.

I've read the instructions with the istD on setting white balance and it says on P142 step 3:

fill the viewfinder completely with white or gray paper under the desired lighting of setting the white balance.

step 4:

Hold down the manual white balance button and press the shutter release button.

Added as a memo is the note; No image is recorded when the shutter release button is pressed to record white balance.

My questions are:

Will depressing the shutter release button fire the set of studio flashes, lighting the whitepaper with the desired lighting?

If the shutter release doesn't fire the flashes will using the modelling lights do?

I don't have access to the studio lights I will be using until Saturday night .

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Cheers

Colin

Hello Colin.

Setting the white balance as you have described is not intended to be used for flash photography and I do not think it will not fire the flash.

If your predominant light source will be from studio flash then you do not have a problem, just set your cameras manual white balance to the flash setting. I think you will find that you would also get an acceptable colour with the camera set in the auto white balance position. If you take shots in the room not illuminated by the flash then you will have to make changes to the white balance setting and the grey card method you described would be the best way to get good results.

I am sure others will add to this.

Dave.

Hi Colin,

First of all, the flash does fires for manual white balance selection. I have done it with the internal pop-up flash, but can double check with an attached flash just in case (though I don't see why it shouldn't work).

It is going to be difficult to do with a grey card - mostly because to fill the frame with the card and light it directly with the flashes is going to be near impossible.

You have two options:

1. Shoot RAW. This enables you to manually adjust the white balance on the PC, after the event. You can either guess the colour temperature, or sample off a piece of white that happens to be in the shot.

2. Use an Expodisc. These are not cheap, mind you. I have just bought a 67mm version to fit my SMC-FA 24-90 and SMC-DA 16-45. The results have been superb though and have saved a lot of post-processing time.

My suggestion is to do both If you don't have time, or can't afford, an Expodisc - that's fine. Just shoot RAW, take one test shot with a black/grey/white card (like the QPcard available from http://www.robertwhite.co.uk/colour%20management.htm - £10+vat) - just get a friend to hold the card while you take the shot (i.e. don't stick the card right close up to the lens - you want it lit like the people). Then, when processing the RAW data, you can sample off that test shot, obtain a white balance reading from the card and apply those settings to all the other shots taken in the same lighting conditions.

Hope that makes sense!
Matt

Just another thing:

Shoot RAW because it will cope with about 1 stop overexposure, and 2 stops underexposure.

This is particularly helpful as you can claw back detail from shadows that would otherwise have been lost.
If you haven't used RAW, I would say there are two good choices:

1. Pixmantec Rawshooter Essentials. www.pixmantec.com This is free, and does an admirable job.

2. Capture One LE. www.phaseone.com Well priced, and my convertor of choice (over all the rest, and I've tried them). I've documented my reasons on other threads here.

In both cases you will need to read the manual and tutorials. Expect a few hours of playing around before you get the best... and it's still a learning process. Another advantage of RAW is you can start on one convertor, then move to another (I used Adobe Camera RAW in Photoshop CS before C1LE for instance, and reprocessed many of my older RAW files.)

Hope that helps
Matt

If you're using a constant light source, place either a gray card or a Macbeth Color Checker in one frame, as a test shot. Shoot from your normal shooting position, and shoot RAW.

Use the gray card to set the color balance with the first test shot, then set all your other shots to that same color temperatire. I bet it's around 5500-6000 Kelvin.

Thanks for your advice.

The shoot went well. manually set the white balance as pre the instructions and the studio flashes fired. OK came up in the LCD.

I was mightly relieved went the shots came back from the lab without a problem.

Cheers

Colin.