Manual white balance in Galapagos

I usually use my silver full foot fins or the white Caribbean sand as my reference for manual white balance. It may not be perfect, but I'm happy with the results.

For my Galapagos trip, I won't have my silver full foot fins and I know the sand is not white. Has anyone done MWB on the darker sand/rocks in Galapagos ? With the currents, I'd rather not carry a slate or color chart. I guess I could try using my hand/glove, but normally setting MWB for me requires 2 hands on the housing.

I usually use my silver full foot fins or the white Caribbean sand as my reference for manual white balance. It may not be perfect, but I'm happy with the results.

 

For my Galapagos trip, I won't have my silver full foot fins and I know the sand is not white. Has anyone done MWB on the darker sand/rocks in Galapagos ? With the currents, I'd rather not carry a slate or color chart. I guess I could try using my hand/glove, but normally setting MWB for me requires 2 hands on the housing.

It is a bit tricky because you often need to balance before getting anywhere near the bottom. I usually balance on divers - they usually have at least a bit of white on their gear and it usually works pretty well. The bottom does work when you get there though, the broken barnacles on all the rocks provide enough white to get a good setting.

Good luck.

How about the scuba tank of another diver ? Kinda looks like a similar color to my silver/grey fins.

Simple, get a pair of light grey gloves. The best WB tool you can wear.

You can also put white duct tape on your fins. But it tends not to stick well to most fins which are polypropylene. It sticks better after a few applications when the gum starts to stay put on the fins, but then it gets messy. Worse still you get people thinking you're dumb enough to try and repair your fins using duct tape. I got better results by scribbling red permanent pen on the tape as I found the result a bit too red, especially at depth. I used to smudge the red pen with solvent so the tape ended up pale pink. I've actually seen pale pink duct tape for sale somewhere too.

Regular silver duct tape might work well. Never tried it.

You can also make 4 little pairs of holes in one of your fins and cable-tie a white/grey/pink slate on. I did this myself for a while using a thin, flexible slate I made by laminating white paper cutting it to size. I saw another guy cable tie a regular dive slate onto one of his fins.

I tried all kinds of paint including rubberised roofing paint but no paint I found will stick to the flexible polypropylene that fins are made of.

You can also white balance on the sun or try an Expodisc or a piece of translucent white material (poor man's Expodisc) but if you can't white balance one-handed then you'll need to invent a way to hold it in front of your lens while you white balance.

Some white balance results for the Sony Z1 using different techniques are here.

I usually use my silver full foot fins or the white Caribbean sand as my reference for manual white balance. It may not be perfect, but I'm happy with the results.

 

For my Galapagos trip, I won't have my silver full foot fins and I know the sand is not white. Has anyone done MWB on the darker sand/rocks in Galapagos ? With the currents, I'd rather not carry a slate or color chart. I guess I could try using my hand/glove, but normally setting MWB for me requires 2 hands on the housing.

Pay for my trip and I'll gladly hold your slate for you..

What's the inside external diameter of your port housing? I bought one of the bigger Expodiscs and with a cutdown part of a small adhesive clip stuck to the inside edge of my port it snapped into place. My thought was to shoot the sun through the Expodisc. You'll need to seal the outside edge of the Expodisc or water will get in. I also looked at the plastic used for fluorescent light fixtures, it's similar in opaqueness so maybe I overspent on the Expodisc. I'd send it to you to try but I sold it last year.

Steve

Ruh Roh... Expodisc fever is baaccckkkk.

i work as a mate on a charter boat, one time we had to repair a through hull sensor for the depth recorder.

anyways i had to get into the water to hold the cable above me still against the hull while the boss sealed it in place with marinetex.

needless to say that stuff got all over my wet suit bc fins etc. stuck real well. it is very white and two years later hasnt faded.

maybe you want to look in that direction instead of paint.

Marv

Fidelis Ad Mortem

www.diveboatkaren.com

PS ron i enjoyed your talk at the bar on tuesday,your films looked much better than online.

The surface in general (and not always pointing at the sun) seems to work for me when there is no sand around, although admittedly you need to WB every 5m or so on the way down and after 20-25m it doesn't seem to work nearly as often or as well.

Cheers, Simon

i work as a mate on a charter boat, one time we had to repair a through hull sensor for the depth recorder.

 

anyways i had to get into the water to hold the cable above me still against the hull while the boss sealed it in place with marinetex.

 

needless to say that stuff got all over my wet suit bc fins etc. stuck real well. it is very white and two years later hasnt faded.

 

maybe you want to look in that direction instead of paint.

 

 

Marv

 

Fidelis Ad Mortem

 

www.diveboatkaren.com

 

PS ron i enjoyed your talk at the bar on tuesday,your films looked much better than online.

Glad you enjoyed it Marv. Hopefully I was able to show basic UW video editing is not that difficult.

I'm bad with names. Did I speak with you after the meeting or did you ask any questions ?