Day Thirteen: It Worked!!!

This lesson from 31 Days To A Better Photo talks about the custom white balance feature. While using a preset white balance will usually be fine when taking pictures at the zoo and on the go, if we are doing family photos or portraits, we will really want the colors to be right.

How did I set it?

I ordered a gray card. What's that, you may ask? Well, it's a card that is 18% gray. You can make one, but I thought the cost of the ink would be kind of expensive, so I ordered one from Amazon. The card with shipping was all of $8, and it came in the mail yesterday.

http://www.amazon.com/CPM-Delta-inch-Gray-Card/dp/B00290Y9K6/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1327184960&sr=8-10

You guys are probably asking, so was it worth the money??? The answer is yes. Last night while watching Scream, I decided to try it out. There are a ton of steps to get custom white balance on the ol' T2i, and once I got it done I took some sample pictures.

auto white balance.

tungsten white balance

custom white balance

All of those pictures were taken in the same room with very low light. The auto white balance picture has more yellow in it than the tungsten, but the custom white balance really shows that the manual is white. I was pretty impressed with the results.

Sorry, no photos of the boys tonight. We had a minor catastrophe, and let me just say, I am so thankful that I live in a day and age that we have washing machines. Wringing out a load of cold wet laundry is awesome. <Enter sarcasm font here>

Day 13: Err...I Mean 12. Wait, What Day Is This??

I have always heard that there is something called Mommy ADD. I never believed it until I actually became a mommy. Mommy ADD can be described as knowing thing one needs to be done, and starting it. But, finding that something else, that is WAY more important, needs to get done before thing one. Which, of course, leaves thing one halfway done. Sprinkle in a few, "Mom, I need a ..........!" or a "Uh oh!!!" along the way, and that, in a nutshell, is Mommy ADD. And also what happened to my blog post from yesterday.

Hey, trying to document learning your camera and showing photographs daily is tough!

I am also thinking about documenting my life on here. And showing pictures to the grandparents...Brennen is out of town. I am chatty.

SEE!! It's happening again! This Mommy ADD!!!

So, Day 11 was just a link up day. On Day 12 of 31 Days To A Better Photo talks about white balance. I am going to quote Darcy with her definition of what white balance is. "White balance is the process of letting your camera know what is neutral so white things look white." What that means is, if we are taking pictures our boys in Colorado in a very bushy area where it's really dark and shady with little areas of light colors, it might be difficult for the camera to judge the neutral colors.

To fix that problem, you can use a white balance preset. On my Canon, they are:
Auto, Daylight, Shade, Cloudy, Tungsten, White flourescent light, Flash, and Custom.

I have been shooting all of my pictures in auto, and it's done very well in most instances. But, when I take the pictures of my boys at night in their rooms, the pictures always look yellow. If I were to take the pictures with a Tungsten white balance, it would put more blue into the photo to reduce the yellow-ish tint. YAY! This is exciting!

So here is me playing with my camera, and adjusting the white balance as needed.

1/1250s f/5.6 ISO 100

White balance set at Sunny or Approx. 5200K (kelvins)

1/1250s f/5.6 ISO 100

White Balance Approx. 5200K

While the auto white balance pictures look very much the same, I did notice a little bit of difference. The pictures weren't so bright, if that makes sense.

I have tried to get pictures of the boys, but I have failed over the last days. Let's see what I can get this afternoon.