Introduction:
I have been writing several posts that are preliminary work to learning how to shoot photos. It might be a good time to review these posts and today's post. Tomorrow we dive in to shooting with your on camera flash- Part 1.
Understanding how to use the professional aspects of your camera make us all better photographers, but at time we might be a bit scared to use advanced techniques or perhaps a little lazy. One of the interesting things about photography and in particular when we look at our pictures, is how they might look a bit different than we remembered. One of the culprits is called "Color Cast". The driving light color of the scene might push on of our RGB channels a little too much. For example, we shoot a wedding outside in the forest in August. We look at the pictures and everyone looks a bit green. The ambient light reflected off of the leaves pushing the green channel a bit. We can go in and reduce the green channel and restore the natural RGB balance. Outside on a sunny day, the blue channel might try to get us.
Today we are going to look at how to prevent color casts in our photos.
Other important posts for creating great looking photos are:
1. White Balance
2. Depth of Field
3. Understanding Your Histogram
4. How to use your Custom White Balance
5. How to use your on Camera Flash - Part 1 (Tomorrows post)
6. How to compose your photographs (Future post)
Review and know these. The is the preliminary stuff you must know before moving on.
Note: You find the custom White Balance setting in your Camera's Menu section under White Balance.
Masters-Tip: Get it right in the camera - use a Custom White Balance
How to Use the custom White Balance on a Canon Camera
A. Select custom white balance in your camera's menu. You can use short cuts on the top window or dive into the camera menu's system.
B. With the flash pointed in the general direction that you want to use, take a closeup of the brides white dress. No white dress, use a white panel, a white cloth, a grey object, ect. They sell panels for this purpose. You can use your white reflector panel instead. We carry two of these. Fill the frame. This is the reference image that the camera will use.
C. You take the shot now with this custom white balance and normally will find that it is Bluish. Now go to your WB Shift. Normally found under the White Balance in the camera's menu section.
- WB Shift
D. Setup the WB Shift to a setting of 74 is good. Try to remember this number like grandma is 74. Take the picture again and the skin tones should be perfect. Adjust if not.
E. Take your shot and check the skin tones. Adjust as required.
F. If you don't have the WB Shift- Adjust in post production in Lightroom, Photoshop, DXO, or others.
Masters-Tip: Custom White balances and WB shifts are ONLY GOOD for this position.
REMEMBER to delete these immediately before moving to your next location or you will have a lot of Photoshop work to do. Shooting a grey object is also a good idea.
Kirk is a Professional Wedding Photographer in Windsor Ontario Canada. In appreciation if you would be so kind as to give a G+ and a Facebook Like KW Masters Photography on his Facebook page. You only have to do this once and add your likes and G+ per post.
No comments:
Post a Comment