Posted: 1/9/2025 4:44:24 PM EDT
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Been looking into this and think I've got it figured out with my D780 and D500 and the guy was using a white piece of paper. Right now h.s. b-ball is in full swing and like most small school h.s. gyms, ours is poorly lit. Besides a piece of paper metering off from, what else can I use? The wall of the gym? Or, I think it's called a grey card? Suggestions? Thank you. |
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indoor sports auditoriums are horrrrrrrible, tots & pears! Also I recommend a pocket sized color checker placard or passport sized card thingy, just because those conditions are abysmal. Take photo of card in the lighting conditions you'll be shooting in Do you photoshoot in RAW When you process your photos you can use the colorcard to create a color profile with whatever software it came with |
"Dum spiro spero"
| I’ve read that in a pinch, use the palm of your hand because it’s brighter than the mid gray scale. Or you can carry a napkin in your pocket. |
The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.
Edmund Burke 1729-1797
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants” Thomas Jefferson
Edmund Burke 1729-1797
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants” Thomas Jefferson
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Originally Posted By TheAmaazingCarl: indoor sports auditoriums are horrrrrrrible, tots & pears! Also I recommend a pocket sized color checker placard or passport sized card thingy, just because those conditions are abysmal. Take photo of card in the lighting conditions you'll be shooting in Do you photoshoot in RAW When you process your photos you can use the colorcard to create a color profile with whatever software it came with Shooting RAW is my next hurdle to try and clear. I mess around with the camera with the choices it gives me and try and get it close. Using the D780 and Tamron 70-200mm f/2.8 G2 most of the time. I love the D500, since the autofocus is excellent, but the D780 does better at high ISO. Typical local gym settings are: 1/800 f/2.8 auto ISO, and it generally runs around 8000 And -.3 exp compensation, which may or may not be correct.  |
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I've shot a TON in gyms. Few ways to skin the cat. Generally, camera white balance in auto is pretty close. White balance depends on if you are shooting with flash or natural lighting. Is there sun coming in through windows, or completely artificial lighting? Is the lighting newer LED or typical metal halide? You could shoot a picture of the bulb once it is fully warmed up, and use histogram to find the sweet spot. In the film and early sensor days, I used a slightly off-white towel to find white. RAW is the closest to a film process you can get. If you aren't ready to figure out how to tweak all of that, or you're just shooting for media, jpeg medium (not even high) is plenty enough. On the other hand, if you're being serious, it starts with investing in a tool to color correct your monitor. I use (used) an older spyder. |
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Originally Posted By high_order1: I've shot a TON in gyms. Few ways to skin the cat. Generally, camera white balance in auto is pretty close. White balance depends on if you are shooting with flash or natural lighting. Is there sun coming in through windows, or completely artificial lighting? Is the lighting newer LED or typical metal halide? You could shoot a picture of the bulb once it is fully warmed up, and use histogram to find the sweet spot. In the film and early sensor days, I used a slightly off-white towel to find white. RAW is the closest to a film process you can get. If you aren't ready to figure out how to tweak all of that, or you're just shooting for media, jpeg medium (not even high) is plenty enough. On the other hand, if you're being serious, it starts with investing in a tool to color correct your monitor. I use (used) an older spyder. I don't know what kind of lights they are, but they are not led's and they have been there forever. It's just a fun hobby for me and try to get better. I volunteer and shoot for our local school. Fun way for me to be part of the school system and the kids are great. Pretty small town so we all kinda know each other. Edit: no natural light. just old flourscent type fixtures. |
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I might be in the minority, but I shoot auto WB. And I shoot raw. To my way of thinking, if it looks off, I just fiddle with it in LR. Am I missing something? Is there really a good reason to mess with WB if you’re shooting raw? |
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Rogers. FREDMAN Rogers
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Rogers. FREDMAN Rogers
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Originally Posted By FredMan: I might be in the minority, but I shoot auto WB. And I shoot raw. To my way of thinking, if it looks off, I just fiddle with it in LR. Am I missing something? Is there really a good reason to mess with WB if you're shooting raw? white balance will affect your preview / thumbnail in most of the older nikons, and potentially skew exposure settings. Doesn't touch the raw output in my opinion, but pixel peepers... I don't know |
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Originally Posted By FredMan: I might be in the minority, but I shoot auto WB. And I shoot raw. To my way of thinking, if it looks off, I just fiddle with it in LR. Am I missing something? Is there really a good reason to mess with WB if you’re shooting raw? This is how retarded I am: I shoot jpeg but am looking into RAW soon. I do understand the triangle thingy and shoot manual mode most of the time, although my settings don't really vary that much. Whether it's b-ball or Friday nite lights, the lighting ALWAYS sucks, so I'm usually f/2.8,. 1/800, and auto ISO, with the camera picking 6400-8000 to balance things out. I generally set my shutter speed as slow as I can, since the ISO is always sky high. Looking at a D5 right now, but that's a long shot. I use Irfanview to resize, sharpen, and make very minor color/brightness, exposure adjustments to my Jpegs. lol |
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Originally Posted By vmax84: This is how retarded I am: I shoot jpeg but am looking into RAW soon. I do understand the triangle thingy and shoot manual mode most of the time, although my settings don't really vary that much. Whether it's b-ball or Friday nite lights, the lighting ALWAYS sucks, so I'm usually f/2.8,. 1/800, and auto ISO, with the camera picking 6400-8000 to balance things out. I generally set my shutter speed as slow as I can, since the ISO is always sky high. Looking at a D5 right now, but that's a long shot. I use Irfanview to resize, sharpen, and make very minor color/brightness, exposure adjustments to my Jpegs. lol I realize that 500 is supposed to be an amazing sports shooter, so I'm kinda confused. Wouldn't chimp the ISO end of things. Will they not let you shoot strobe, I know the sports association way back when didn't like it but we really didn't have a lot of choice. (now, you can put four strobes in the corners and barely tell when they fire). Irfanview is ok. nikon had a free product, and adobe used to also. |
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Originally Posted By FredMan: I might be in the minority, but I shoot auto WB. And I shoot raw. To my way of thinking, if it looks off, I just fiddle with it in LR. Am I missing something? Is there really a good reason to mess with WB if you're shooting raw? I last shot pretty much everything auto. Maybe some slight adjustments, but it's gotten so good that I can't out think it. (also, I got away from natural lighting and mastered flashes, modifiers and reflectors. Whole nother world, especially with post-processing.) The upside is that I can focus on composition and less on button jamming. Downside is that I don't have anything to show the client, because it's not attractive yet. Kind of hard to explain to them, I told them beforehand to ease into it. ... When I shoot on the phone, I flip it around, and ask, is this what you want? lol |
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Originally Posted By vmax84: Been looking into this and think I've got it figured out with my D780 and D500 and the guy was using a white piece of paper. Right now h.s. b-ball is in full swing and like most small school h.s. gyms, ours is poorly lit. Besides a piece of paper metering off from, what else can I use? The wall of the gym? Or, I think it's called a grey card? Suggestions? Thank you. A grey card is calibrated for reflectance, not for white balance, unless you buy one that's specifically made for white balance as well. IME, shooting a white piece of paper gets you REALLY close without special equipment. In a pinch, a nice white shirt can do as well. Turn off autofocus, focus to infinity, and shoot your white source close so that it's very blurry, that will make it easier for the camera to pick up an average white and not get stuck in the weeds with variations in color or luminance. School gymnasiums can be really, really bad for color balance because you get really strong reflections of an orange floor, etc.. 10 seconds of setting an auto WB can save you more time fiddling in post. |
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I set the white balance to 5400 kv and leave it there. I've found that I get better results with the range of 5300-5800 kv as that is the range of sunlight. I can tweak it in post if necessary but that has been the golden number for me for a while now. |
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| Shoot in RAW, for so many reasons. Auto WB is good enough, and with a RAW file you can change the white balance in post. Once you figure out what white balance setting looks right for a set of images you can apply it to the rest without having to mess with each image individually. |
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Originally Posted By vmax84: Thanks for all the good advice. Gave me a lot of good ideas and things to try. YW! And, truly, the starting point for all this is shooting raw. If you don’t want to leap straight into that you can always have the camera write both jpg and raw. |
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Rogers. FREDMAN Rogers
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Rogers. FREDMAN Rogers
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Originally Posted By FredMan: YW! And, truly, the starting point for all this is shooting raw. If you don’t want to leap straight into that you can always have the camera write both jpg and raw. Originally Posted By FredMan: Originally Posted By vmax84: Thanks for all the good advice. Gave me a lot of good ideas and things to try. YW! And, truly, the starting point for all this is shooting raw. If you don’t want to leap straight into that you can always have the camera write both jpg and raw. I actually do that!!! lol Save the RAW files for "someday"........ 😅😅 |
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Originally Posted By vmax84: What about one of these gizmos? Take the reading off it and plug that number into the camera. https://i.postimg.cc/RZHb7w7P/20250113-184604.jpg Do these work better than the camera does for picking WB? I have never used one, and only use a small pocket sized color chart thing when I needed WB to spot on and super accurate. |
"Dum spiro spero"