Days 12 & 13 | Setting Custom White Balance

Days 12 & 13 | What's White Balance & Setting Custom White Balance

Darcy explained white balance - once again interns which finally clicked for me. 

"White balance is the process of letting your camera know what is neutral so white things look white. Custom WB also makes your colors as accurate and crisp as possible."

Darcy also explained 2 ways to set custom white balance - using a gray card and using an expo disk. I watched the YouTube clip Darcy linked to, plus a couple of extras. Both methods of setting white balance appeared super easy but I hit one snag - I had neither the expo disk nor the 18% gray card on hand, and I didn't want to spend $100 on the expo disk just yet. So I searched around on YouTube for a DIY alternative to the expo disk and found this tutorial espousing that you could use a piece of toilet paper in place of the expo disk. This I had on hand - so it was the method I used for setting my custom WB.

I am not totally convinced that the toilet paper worked in setting my WB correctly, as I feel my Custom WB photo below still has a "gray film" over it - which is what Darcy described when using Auto WB. Nonetheless, I have learnt a lot with this assignment, and maybe next time I am at a camera store I will see about picking up some 18% grey card stock. If nothing else I managed to be switching between the various WB modes whilst my 16 month old climbed all over my lap, and my 3.5 year old reluctantly climbed all over his lounge chair. All they both wanted was to watch a little Fireman Sam. Maybe I will try again with a vase of flowers?

But here are the relevant specs for the photos below:

Camera: Nikon D80

Lens: AF Zoom-Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6G

ISO: 500

Aperture: f/3.3

Shutter Speed: 1/80sec

Do you have a DIY alternative for setting custom white balance? Have you tried the toilet paper trick to great effect?

Day 11 | Tips for shooting Manually

Day 11 | Tips for Shooting Manual

First of all, a bit of a summary of the last few days of 31 Days to a Better Photo:

Day 8 covered the Exposure Triangle. Darcy shared another great analogy (skin type, sunscreen and sun exposure) to help explain the relationships between the 3 elements discussed in the previous week - Shutter Speed, ISO and Aperture.

Day 9 covered the Scales of the 3 elements discussed and Darcy explained that there is more than one way to get the same amount of light into your camera. The key lesson I took away was: 

The fast you shoot - the brighter the image

The higher the ISO - the brighter and noisier the image

The wider the aperture (small number) - the brighter the image and more shallow the depth of field.

Day 10 was about In-Camera Metering and this was a real eye-opener for me.

"Your camera will tell you when you've got the exposure triangle right. You don't have to guess."

I have noticed the meter in my viewfinder, but never really understood how to manipulate it correctly. Yet it is so easy! If you understand the exposure triangle, but are struggling to take correctly exposed photos  without tons of trial and error (which for me was taking a lot of time whenever I grabbed my camera) I highly recommend reading Day 10! What a difference it was taking photos in manual mode once I had a visual cue to guide me towards the best and correct equation for my shot.

Now to Day 11. The assignment for today:

Shoot manual

And a few of the tips and reminders to get started:

• Turn off your flash
• Set the ISO as low as possible, initially.
• Shooting slowly requires a tripod.
• Kids and pets generally cannot freeze motion below 1/125sec (1/250+ is better).
• If you have subjects on many planes that you want in focus, you need a smaller aperture (larger number). Start by keeping your aperture smaller than the number of subjects in the photo that are in different planes. I prefer to start with # of subjects x 1.5 and go larger if I can pose them well. So if I have 4 people, 4 x 1.5 = 6. I like to shoot at f/6.3 or greater as a starting point.
• Learn the "Sunny 16 Rule": On a sunny day, shoot at f/16 with a shutter speed of 1/ISO#. So ISO 100 at 1/100s or ISO 200 at 1/200s. For overcast days, the rule is "Cloudy 8". Start at f/8 with a shutter speed of 1/ISO# as a guesstimate.
• Focus on your subject when you are metering. If you focus on the sky or shadows, your camera will meter the light for those areas rather than the subject(s).
• Keep the in-camera meter on zero for the proper exposure.

So here are my shots.

The relevant specs for this first series - My sick boy:

Camera: Nikon D80

Lens: AF Zoom-Nikkor 28-80 f/3.3-5.6

Shutter Speed: 1/60sec (I know this is much lower than Darcy recommends for shooting children - but a couple of qualifying statements: these were taken at 4pm on a cloudy rainy day and I didn't want to have a huge ISO with lots of noise; my baby boy was very sick with gastro and so I knew freezing his movements was not going to be too much of a problem - I was thinking he would actually be asleep).

Photo 1: ISO 500, f/3.3 (Top Left)

Photo 2: ISO 400, f/3.3 (Top Right)

Photo 3: ISO 400, f/3.3 (Middle Left)

Photo 4: ISO 500, f/4 (Middle Right)

Photo 5: ISO 400, f/3.8 (Bottom Left)

Photo 6: ISO 400, f/3.3 (Bottom Left)

The specs for this second series - Searching for clover:

Camera: Nikon D80

Lens: AF Zoom-Nikkor 28-80 f/3.3-5.6

ISO: 100

Photo 1: f/9, 1/200s (Top Left)

Photo 2: f/5.6, 1/500s (Centre)

Photo 3: f/5.6, 1/400s (Top Right)

Photo 4: f/5.6, 1/500s (Bottom Left)

Photo 5: f/10, 1/250s (Bottom Right)

The specs for this final series - Lego fun

Camera: Nikon D80

Lens: AF Zoom-Nikkor 28-80 f/3.3-5.6

Photo 1: ISO 400, f/3.3, 1/125s (Top Left)

Photo 2: ISO 500, f/4.2, 1/80s (Top Right)

Photo 3: ISO 400, f/3.3, 1/200s (Bottom Left)

Photo 4: ISO 500, f/5.6, 1/80s (Bottom Centre)

Photo 5: ISO 400, f/3.3, 1/125s (Bottom Right)

I had so much fun with taking all these shots. When I wanted to have Beau of Noah in focus and a blurred foreground or background, I knew how to change my aperture. When I wanted to freeze Noah's movements out in the garden, I knew how to do that. I felt so much more in control of getting the shot I was envisaging in my mind. More art, less point-and-shoot. FINALLY!