How do I get a consistent colour?

WoZZeR

WoZZeR

WoZZeR

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Hi chaps

I am struggling with obtaining a consistant colour balance indoors using a purple background during close up photography.

I am using ambient light (natural daylight) and no artificial lighting at all.

So, the camera is a Canon 5D II, the lenses either 70-200 F4L or 24-105 F4L depending on subject.

I mostly use Aperture priority and have tried using Custom White balance with a photograph of a sheet of paper as the reference.

Somewhere along the line I must be missing something very simple, If I take 4 or 5 consective photographs but of very similar but different subjects I get 4 or 5 different shades of purple as the background.

I am getting a bid fed up trying to correct it all the time on the PC.

Any of you more experienced and knowledgeable chaps able to point to me in the right direction.

Cheers

Warren
 
I have not changed a white balance setting from Auto in my camera since I started shooting RAW 13 years ago.
It sounds to me like the camera is changing the metering and exposure based upon the aperture priority mode. Are you also on Auto ISO?

I'm not 'expert' in this area but studio during shoots I generally use the below, obvs ignore if you are doing most of it already :

1: Auto White Balance - I just correct in the editing suite after with a lightroom preset thats applied upon import. It's faster and generally more reliable to for me personally and means its one settings I just dont worry or care about anymore
2: Full Manual : In Av you are allowing the camera to take over some exposure control, this can affect the output. Include manual ISO in this as well.
3: Single Point AF : Speaks for itself really
4: Spot Metering : This is purely preference of course but use a consistent metering mode depending upon your required output
5: Even lighting : Depending on whether you are using external light sources or not make sure the scene lit across the frame, also if using flash's ensure you aren't going above the sync speed of the camera or going to slow. Darker areas can effect the metering if the sensor is measuring the whole frame.
6: Display Calibration : Make sure you display is consistent for editing, there are various ways of doing this but its actually quite important.
 
Thanks for the replies chaps :)

I shall have a go using Manual, Auto White Balance and RAW in the morning and see what happens.

My usual photography takes place outdoors so this is a whole new area for me. Flash would add another layer of complexity for me to grapple with.

The Colour Checker looks interesting and it just so happens we got Amazon Vouchers from work last week as a thank you for not getting or dying of Covid 19.
 
WoZZeR said:
Thanks for the replies chaps :)

I shall have a go using Manual, Auto White Balance and RAW in the morning and see what happens.

My usual photography takes place outdoors so this is a whole new area for me. Flash would add another layer of complexity for me to grapple with.

The Colour Checker looks interesting and it just so happens we got Amazon Vouchers from work last week as a thank you for not getting or dying of Covid 19.
Click to expand...

Maybe a perfect time to learn flash?
 
As others have said there could be variation in the natural light you're getting. But also if you're shooting RAW then it shouldn't be too much of an issue to edit in post. But could be metering making the small differences.
 
WoZZeR said:
Thanks for the replies chaps :)

I shall have a go using Manual, Auto White Balance and RAW in the morning and see what happens.

My usual photography takes place outdoors so this is a whole new area for me. Flash would add another layer of complexity for me to grapple with.

The Colour Checker looks interesting and it just so happens we got Amazon Vouchers from work last week as a thank you for not getting or dying of Covid 19.
Click to expand...

What type of subject are you lighting?
 
Columbo said:
What type of subject are you lighting?
Click to expand...

Mostly small plants, it's not critical to get the colour absolutely spot on but close would be nice.

My first results using RAW (I haven't used it for ages) and Manual Mode are looking more consistant. I also switched Picture Style to Standard (It was on neutral) and Auto Lighting Optimiser down to Low in the Custom Functions.
 
Canon 5D II and you don't normally shoot RAW?!?!

I just assumed anyone using a decent DSLR shoots RAW by default. So much more data to use.
 
Sam__ said:
Canon 5D II and you don't normally shoot RAW?!?!

I just assumed anyone using a decent DSLR shoots RAW by default. So much more data to use.
Click to expand...

Yup, seriously use RAW. Otherwise you may as well just use an iPhone. JPG is a compressed file format. The camera is making exposure decisions for you, then discarding big chunks of the image to save in a crappy format. If you listen to music, it's much like the difference between MP3 & FLAC.

https://photographylife.com/raw-vs-jpeg
 
WoZZeR said:
Mostly small plants, it's not critical to get the colour absolutely spot on but close would be nice.

My first results using RAW (I haven't used it for ages) and Manual Mode are looking more consistant. I also switched Picture Style to Standard (It was on neutral) and Auto Lighting Optimiser down to Low in the Custom Functions.
Click to expand...

Good to here and on your subjects for lighting ideas a couple of cheap well placed LED lights or even cheapo bedside table lamps with pure white LED bulbs in them may help particularly if you want to get the ISO down. There are also many DIY ways to manipulate the light for a mess around but I've used everything from grease proof paper as a diffuser, an A4 paper lined cardboard box as a light tent and a kitchen foil cover cake tin as a reflector :D.
 
WoZZeR said:
Mostly small plants, it's not critical to get the colour absolutely spot on but close would be nice.

My first results using RAW (I haven't used it for ages) and Manual Mode are looking more consistant. I also switched Picture Style to Standard (It was on neutral) and Auto Lighting Optimiser down to Low in the Custom Functions.
Click to expand...

Picture style has no effect on RAW photos, all images taken will be neutral/faithful, whichever term Canon uses.

https://support.usa.canon.com/kb/index?page=content&id=ART170199&actp=LIST_RECENT

For RAW files the Picture Style affects only how images are rendered on the camera’s LED display. The closer the Picture Style is to your intended rendering, the more accurate your image preview will be. For example, if you intend to convert RAW images to black and white, the Monochrome Picture Style will provide a preview of the image in black and white while retaining all original color information in the RAW file. (Monochrome JPEG or MOV images can not be reconverted back to color.)
Click to expand...
 
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Just to repeat, you should never have WB issues with a DSLR when using RAW because the WB doesn't do anything except write some text in the EXIF table which a RA rpocessor can read and then do whatever it wants with. You can then set whatever WB you want when editing.

That in itslef tells you you should be sing RAW all the time.

Color itslef is incredibly complex but using RAW will resolve the main issue.
 
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