Magic Filters question

I just returned from my first dive trip with my new Camera, housing, and magic filter setup. I have created a short web page with some pictures and my question.

I tried the White Balance method, and I also simply did the Auto-adjust on some jpg images, and I can't see any difference.

Am I missing something?

Please follow the link below to see the page in question:

http://www.gordalder.com/Magic%20Filter/filter.htm

Thanks Gord

I probably don't know as mjuch as some. But I can say what I think.

The idea of grey card white balancing is to be done whilst on the dive.

You get to the depth you will be gtaking photos, you set the white balance as per your grey card, sand whatever. Then the camera knows what is white and sets the other colours accordingly. I have never tried doing it to a photo using a image of a grey card.

If you change depths by 5ft or so, reset the white balance.

In post priocessing, if you have a RAW file you can fine tune the white balance before converting, JPG won't allow this.

I'm not sure if I am right in how it seems you did it.

But In mhy mind. If you set the white balance, and then in JPG try to auto correct there should not be much difference.

iI'm a little lost mostly to what you are asking, or the problem.

Photos seem to have nice colours to me. So looks like something mjust have gone right !!

Maybe I should clarify:

1) I know that the manufacturer recommends that you custom white balance each shot, if you change depth by more than a few feet, or your lighting changes.

2) The use of the Grey card allows you to accomplish the same. You simply take a shot of the white card every time your depth changes, or the lighting changes.

3) You can then use this reference shot to accomplish the same as the custom white balance, but you do it post processing, before you convert to JPG.

On the page I posted I followed the above process on the first two shots. Close to manufacturer recommended approach.

For the next two shots I took the jpg images of the same shots directly from the camera, and simply "Auto Adjusted" in Photoshop Elements.

The point I am making is that it does not appear to me to be necessary to perform the custom white balance each time you shoot.

For the rest of my trip I simply shot Auto White balance, jpg format, and I "auto adjusted" the images. They looked good to me. http://www.gordalder.com/Vacations/Florida...2006/index.html

The only complaint I have was some images were not quite in focus, and I over cropped some. All shots on the above page were shot JPG and autoadjusted in Photoshop Elements.

Gord

Gord, yes, you can get simlar colours from a levels adjustment as what you get from a white ballence adjustment.

The reason to shoot RAW is not because you can not edit a JPG to make it look similar in a Web sized version.

The reason is that because making these adjustments to a JPG you will degrade the image quality while making the adjustment in RAW does not. If you look at the full sized versions at 100% you should be able to see that the RAW version shows less noise and smoother gradations when the colour is changng.

You can see it to some extent even in the small web versions, on the Left picture, the area around the grunt. Do you notice how the colour jumps strait from green to white in the JPG but not in the RAW.

But if you are willing to accept this degradation then the benefits of JPG (smaller file size) make it a better choice.

Maybe I should clarify:

 

1) I know that the manufacturer recommends that you custom white balance each shot, if you change depth by more than a few feet, or your lighting changes.

2) The use of the Grey card allows you to accomplish the same. You simply take a shot of the white card every time your depth changes, or the lighting changes.

3) You can then use this reference shot to accomplish the same as the custom white balance, but you do it post processing, before you convert to JPG.

 

On the page I posted I followed the above process on the first two shots. Close to manufacturer recommended approach.

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So far it makes sense and these look good.

For the next two shots I took the jpg images of the same shots directly from the camera, and simply "Auto Adjusted" in Photoshop Elements.

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If these jpegs were the same as the raw shots then the camera will already have applied the gray-card correction so they should indeed look the same as the RAW images. The difference is that in the RAW image the colour balance information is stored in the header with the image data still reflecting the raw numbers captured by the CCD. In jpeg the raw data has been manipulated by applying white balance, contrast, sharpness etc, and the original data lost. You can still mess around with jpegs but it's not as clean as using RAW.

The point of doing the white balance of a gray card underwater is that you avoid the post-processing but if taking the gray-card shots interfere with your diving/shooting you can indeed do it afterwards using a know white/gray area on your image or a gray-card shot taken at same depth and light situation.

Bart

In the end if you are happy with the results it doesn't really matter how you achieved them.

Alex

So for best results, even shooting RAW, you still need to manual white balance?

Jack

Setting the WB underwater and set it in the RAW converter will produce the same end result. but setting the WB underwater is VERY VERY easy. Certainly on a Nikon. It is hardly any more challenging than taking an extra photo of the subject.

Have a look at this link for more:

http://www.magic-filters.com/wb.html

Alex

To further beat a dead horse.....

If you shoot RAW (which I highly recommend with filters) then you don't really need to manual white balance at all. You can just shoot and adjust the color later in raw processing it does exactly the same thing. I wouldn't always depend on the Auto adjust though. In my experience it can do some funky things with images without a lot of color (shark photographs for example). Its fine for a starting point, but I would adjust it manually.

I highly recommend setting the white balance underwater though. It will put all your colors very close to correct and you will have a lot less work later. I always tweak it anyway a little in post but its much closer with the manual refrence. It will also help you to judge colors on the LCD screen which will be very red and hard to interpret exposure otherwise. I just manual WB on the sand for this. I'm not fanatical about re-setting every 5 feet. I know I can tweak it later. If the action is happening I just shoot and fix it later.

I would never waste shots on shooting the grey card. This is as much work UW as manual WB plus all the post processing work of auto WB.

Thanks all for the feedback. Looks like I will start to shoot in RAW--always. I still like the idea of taking the shot of the grey card, and white balancing in post processing.

I do love the filter.

Gord