Proper White Balance Makes Such A Difference!
The Gray WB Card
OK, I realize that in terms of actual helpful posts that it has been a long time. With advertising for workshops and camera sales, things have been a little stale around here. But all is not lost! I have been out and about for 2 days shooting the GH2 (590nm) and playing with different white balances. Todays post is about setting your WB on the GREEN grass and how it affects the image. In the first review, I detailed the differences in setting WB on the grass vs. a Gray card, so I will not repeat that prices here. With this camera (GH2) the choice of how you WB makes a MAJOR difference. This weekend i simply forgot to bring along the Gray card so all of the work was done on the grass! In my defense, it just seems to go against all of my advice on WB that I have given you in the past. Green grass has always been the main source of WB and generally would produce really nice monochromatic tones in the LCD of your camera when properly done in the leaves and a nice bronze in the blue areas of the sky. I would even Post Proces RAW files to take advantage of this from time to time. But with a Gray card, the sky takes on a sickly greenish cast that just looks terrible on the LCD, but when you get the RAW file on the computer you get such vibrent gold tones! What a difference it made…
The image below is an example of forced processing in Viveza caused by a Green grass WB. It still looks good but it had to be forced in Post Processing….
I simply must remember to bring along the Gray card in the future!
Bellimatrix, 590nm, WB on Green Grass
I have to honestly admit that the Gray card works much better with the GOLDIE (590nm) conversion on the GH2 that it has any right to! NONE of my other IR camera systems seems to be affected like the GH2 in this regard! I just HATE the way the RAW images look straight out of the camera with the Gray card, but in terms of Faux Color IR the difference is stunning! The RAW images take on a greenish cast when done on the Gray card vs. the nice bronze & monochrome elements when balanced on the grass. If you are looking for some interesting bronze tones straight out of the camera then you need to WB on the grass, but if you are shooting primarily for Faux Color then choose the Gray card. By doing so the yellows and golds seem to come naturally during the channel swap rather than being forced in Nik’s Viveza.
For B&W Post Processing, WB had an effect on the overall output, but much less so than when working in Faux Color. You will notice tonality changes between the WB versions in the mid tones!
Bellimatrix, 590nm, B&W Processing
Still, you can achieve both if you desire in photoshop. The choice is yours but to me it just makes sense to get the best results straight out of the camera!
