Help with white balance on E3

[jan33]

Hi ,
I am on the Foundation in digital photography course and wonder if any Olympus users can help me.
I have to take some images using various white balances - tungsten, flash, etc. When I got to the tungsten setting on the camera, the arrow then sent me to another menu that had A and G and the level of both these were set at half way.

I've no idea what any of that means- I don't think it's
relevant to the course work (?), but I'd be interested to know what A and G mean and why I would swap from one to the other etc. I see it's the same for all the settings in white balance.
Any help appreciated as the camera is a bit too complicated for me at present.
Thanks,
Jan

[El_Sid]

The A and G refer to Amber and Green and the scales (I presume the indicator had some sort of scales) show how much offset you can apply. If you increase the amber setting the the image will get progressively more reddish/yellow and upping the green makes the image a bit greener. Most DSLR's have similar scales - though they may have different options, eg red-green, blue-yellow, magenta-cyan etc. They allow the white balance to be biased in situations where it tends to produce tones that are not neutral. Unless you are very experienced at colour control I suggest leaving them at their default levels...

[RogerMac]

Got to say that's new to me and I have been using Oly for 4 years. When I read your post I looked at my camera and yes it does have the settings you mention and there is an explanation in the manual (page 49 on the E510 manual, I did not check my other manuals), and it seems that you can customise the various WBs that come with the camera

TBH I don't think I will be using it even now that I know it exists - it really is too easy to adjust later in Elements if one of the presets does not quite fit.

It might be worth asking if this is a standard feature on other cameras and if not just inoring it untl you need ths faclity


Roger

[El_Sid]

It might be worth asking if this is a standard feature on other cameras and if not just inoring it untl you need ths faclity

I don't know about other Oly's but all 3 of my Canons (and the Nikon D50 too IIRC) offer WB adjustment. Since I work almost exclusively in RAW I never bother to change them but do it post capture. I suspect it's a feature of more use to a pro who's working to a deadline and possibly even in JPEG leaving little opportunity to mess about post capture. I suspect it's also far too easy to set compensation and then forget you've done it and end up wondering why all your later pictures have a funny cast to them...

Personally I reckon this is an option best left on default.

[Rugby_Nut]

Just for completeness sake:-

A = Amber to Blue
G = Green to Magenta

They are essentially the same as the Temperature and Tint sliders in Lightroom and ACR.

As others have said, best left alone.

[jan33]

Hi all,
Many thanks to all of you for replying. The explanations are really helpful, bit I think I will leave well alone and leave it as set!

Thanks again,
Jan

[RogerMac]

I suspect it's also far too easy to set compensation and then forget you've done it and end up wondering why all your later pictures have a funny cast to them...

I recognise that syndrome especially as I have just been away for the weekend and carefully packed a camera bag that contained a lot of lenses etc. but no cards I had to rush into Boots and buy an expensive XD card to complete the weekend. However it was not completely lost as it jogged me into constructing a panorama of my favourite cliff view


Roger