AboutDavid Barry Expertise I have a lot of experience in most traditional forms of photography, so I`m quite knowledgeable about things like camera types and formats, techniques, exposure, film types, colour, filters, lighting, standard colour and black and white developing and printing.
I do not make recommendations about brands or models, and I am not a camera technician so I may not be able to tell you what is wrong with your equipment if it`s not working .
I also know a little about digital photography and imaging with scanners and digital cameras, so ask me and I will answer if I can.
Experience Experience in the area
I have been seriously involved in photography for over 25 years, including about 4 years as a professional, as well as 2 years providing administrative service to government photographers, requiring interpreting photographers' requirements and trade technicalities for those unfamiliar with such.
I have successfully trained several beginners in photography, helping them to become competent in basic techniques.
Organizations belong to:
None at present, but have been in about 4 camera clubs, having won or had placings in 2 club competitions.
Publications:
A lot of my photos have been in educational / training manuals, books and some photography magazines, as well as 2-3 dozen images been on the Web so far.
Education/Credentials:
Completed 4-year diploma in professional photography technique at Sydney's Technical College
Awards and Honors:
3 placings and / or merits in camera club competitions.
Expert: David Barry Date: 4/28/2007 Subject: white balance
Question Hi - I have a DSLR: Canon Rebel XT. My question regards white balance. I have a number of insect eggs and plan on getting photos of them while they are hatching. Their egg cases were laid on a fence post right outside my window. The fence post is brown, the egg cases are brown and so are the insects when they first come out. I am taking a hot pink poster board and putting it in back of the fence post where they hatch so that I can easily use photo shop to erase all the pink and then paste in a more attractive backround. The problem is that nothing in the photo is white at all or gray. I have a plan and would like to know if it would work to achieve an effective white balance - I plan to put an %18 grey card on the poster board in the backround - could I do that and just set the camera's white balance to automatic and acheive a good white balance since the grey card will be in there? OR Do I have to custom set the whole thing with a grey card each time I take a photo (since the eggs hatch at differnt times and in different lightings). Thankyou for your advice - any way you could help me would be appreciated...........Pete
Answer My question : why a hot pink colour board in particular ?
If it's not too late and you haven't already committed to it, if the fence and eggs are brown, it would be my suggestion to use green or blue board, so the brown eggs stand out better and [should] make the Photoshop erasing even easier.
You will probably find the grey card idea useful if the grey card takes up a large portion of, if not the entire frame - not just a small area. I'm not sure if the camera's white balance sensor measures the whole image area or just the centre portion of the image.
Not sure if the Rebel XT has 'White Balance bracketing' but you could try that, and for each hatching session do a set of bracketed shots at different WB settings ranging from say +3 B to +3 A (check your instruction manual how to set WB bracketing if it's available).
Otherwise, if the grey card takes up a major part of the frame behind the eggs, I think you should be able to get a reasonably accurate result with auto WB.
As for my opinion on "www.rawworkflow.com/products/whibal" thing, seems like a good idea in principle, but not having actually used it, can't really say if it's any good or just a gimmicky gadget.
