"Houston . . . . . " - Yellow as Greenish!?!

[Graham Bernard]

Okay, I've gotta aproblem.

I was shooting some oil seed rape - beautiful yellows, very very YELLLow . ..

Came out as a rather interesting greeny-blue! In the eyepiece I see nothing but yellow - as per!

Just done a test with a dandelion - yellow flower, very strong yellow. Still have this greenish "tinge" to the yellow. What am I doing wrong???? - I love yellow and want to get it back.

White balance? Sun Auto? - Please, please help . . .

Grazie

[Tustin Larson]

White Balance to a pure white card/paper first... give that a try.

[Graham Bernard]

Okay, do I WHite Balance outside - ie daylight or inside, room lighting?

Tustin I'm confusing myself. Under the W.BALANCE items on the camera:

1 - SELECT - I/we have Sun [little Sun icon], Indoors [electric light icon] and the White Balance Icon [ an icon I can't describe!] AND non of the above

2 - The white balance icon button - I've read the manual and I realise that this is where I do the WB set-up - yeas? - Okay. If I depress this the WB flashes and stays on. I'm presuming this means the WB is set FOR THESE CONDITIONS - yes? Okay.

3 - Going back to select - here's the thing! - Will the now SET WB be all prevailing in all the SELECT settings?

4 - Surely if I SELECT none of the SELECT options - that is no icons in the viewfinder then Notwithstanding that in "2" above ANY WB that has given me this effect should not be relevant? But I'm almost sure it has. See my confusion?

Tustin, please don't give up on me!

Oh yes have taken the plunge and yesterday started to experiment with the manual exp. options to rid myself of Backlight problems. Works nicely.

Now I just need to understand how I can get back my beautiful yellows - instead of sickly green.

Thanks,

Grazie

[Michael A. Davis]

I have seen a great color discrepancy in many many lighting situations with the GL2.
I would suggest always MANUALLY white balancing your camera.
I imagine, though I haven't looked because I imagine, that the different white balance settings are just presets. They should not be effected by you manually setting your white balance. Your manual setting becomes just another preset.
Manually setting your WB also gives you much creative control. For instance, you are not required to balance to just a white space. Mess around with WBing to cooler or warmer colors to change how your camera interprets it's output. The color you WB on generally has to be a light pastel(light red, light blue, etc) in the direction you are wanting. If the color strays too far from white, the camera may not allow it.

Alright,
Michael

[Tustin Larson]

Always white balance in the light that you are going to use. You should do this right before you start shooting. If you are outside, do it outside, if you are inside, do it inside.

Ok Grazie here is what you do.

Press SELECT - When you get the WB icon on the LCD screen(little flower looking icon)

Hold a piece of white paper, or card in front of the lens, make sure that all you see is that bright white, you can zoom in if you need to. see example below.

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lens paper

Press the WB Flower looking button next to SELECT button. The Icon will flash on the screen. When it is done flashing, you have properly, MANUALLY white balanced.

Try this out, let me know how you did.

Don't get frustrated.

Tustin Larson

[Graham Bernard]

Well . . . I think I've got back my yellows, need to do some more tests though.

I did the WB inside and used it outside - yes I know this contrary to what you all suggested - but I wanted to see what was what yeah? - Illl do the outside WB AND use outside next, okay.

Am I right/correct in thinking that going purely Easy Film - little green window icon - will pick up the Auto WB for that particular situation? And when I set the Manual WB it will be used on all the INSIDE [Light Bulb Icon] and the EXTERNAL [Sun Icon] .

Grazie

[Rob Wilson]

Graham,

Also, the manual white balance does not affect the settings in either the "sun" (outside), the "bulb" (inside, incandesent) or the "none of the above" preset balances in the camera.

[Graham Bernard]

Rob - I'm going to need to understand this a bit more. Hmmm...

Grazie

[Rob Wilson]

Graham,

The three non-manual white balance choices are all presets in the camera. They work OK if for some reason you just CAN'T get a manual white balance but should only be used in those cases.

[Bud Kuenzli]

you said,
"Well . . . I think I've got back my yellows, need to do some more tests though.

I did the WB inside and used it outside - yes I know this contrary to what you all suggested - but I wanted to see what was what yeah? - Illl do the outside WB AND use outside next, okay.

Am I right/correct in thinking that going purely Easy Film - little green window icon - will pick up the Auto WB for that particular situation? And when I set the Manual WB it will be used on all the INSIDE [Light Bulb Icon] and the EXTERNAL [Sun Icon] ."

There is no point in doing a manual balance inside then going outside to shoot. You MUST do the manual balance in the same light that you are going to be shooting in. If, for instance, you are in a large gym with mixed lighting and you do a white balance in one corner of the gym that has a greenish mercury vapor light overhead and then you walk over to the other corner with a newer light that is a different color, your color balance will be horrible. Same is true if you do a manual white balance outside and then come indoors. Additionally, if you were in an open field and did a white balance, then walked into a deep green forest and tried to shoot your color balance would be all out of whack.
If you set a manual white balance and then change the white balance to Indoors or to the Sun setting, the manual white balance you did will be completely ignored. Somebody can correct me since I don't have the manual in front of me but I'm confident that is correct. The "sun" and "indoors" setting are simply presets for light that is a particular color temperature. If you had mercury vapor lights indoors the "indoor" setting would not work...it assumes you are using standard household incandescent lights.
Using the "green" auto setting is a crap shoot. I don't know how they have that programmed but it's probably safe to say that it is always better to do a manual white balance for each lighting situation you are filming.

[Graham Bernard]

BUD! Ah HA! Now I've got it! - Thanks a lot.

So WB is that which I use for a specific situation - INDOORS that's one - OUTDOORS that's another. SOooo... I can use the NON WB for outside . . . run indoors and use the INDOORS WB setting I did previously for that - neat!

What does a Wotsit Shoot mean? An American term for no good, a gamble, or what?

Grazie

PS what about auto wb for event shoots - on the run stuff . .

[Tom Voigt]

Shooting craps. A gambling game with dice and money.

You may get lucky. You probably won't. Once you have lost all your money you have "crapped out".

As far as auto white balance, I am still learning the GL-2. But on my little Optura Pi I always use auto white balance and it has never failed to deliver beautiful colors.

-Tom-

[Graham Bernard]

Nasty!