What's the best way to set manual white balance for UW photos

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DazedAndConfuzed

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Hi,

I have been using an Olympus C5050 for a while now and was wondering what is the best way to set as white background for manual WB.

I actually have 2 custom mode,
One: with zoom in, moderate ISO, high shutter speed, flash on. This is for flash shots.
Two: zoom out, high ISO, WB to one of the preset WB I have saved.

The issue is what do I set for WB. What I usually do is on the first dive of the trip, on my descent, at around 30ft from the sandy bottom (probably 50-60ft down), aim at area with only sand and set that as white balance. If it is direct wall dive, at around 60ft down, aim up to the sky toward the sun (the whitest part of they sky) and use that for white balance.

This works relatively well for subjects in the 20-30 ft range that are in the 80-100ft depth but when I do shallower dives, color becomes too warm, or if I try to take a picture of subject far away (drop of a wall, etc), subject is a little more blue.

Is there a fix all white balance? I could reset the WB at different depth by aiming at the sky constantly (the deeper, the more blue it will be)(can't do it with aiming at sand since distance to sand would be not be the same every time), but it would be troublesome and every shot would take a minute.

Maybe they should make a set of white balance cards (all in different shades of blue) that has depth, distance and sky condition marked on them, so if I at 100 ft and subject is around 40 ft away and it is sunny, I could flip to one of the blue card that says 100ft/40ft/sunny and get my WB from that.
 
If you shoot in raw, you will be able to white balance in post using LR or Aperture or Photoshop. Otherwise, I use the palm of my hand for WB at any depth.

Bill
 
White balance for stills is truly not necessary, especially if shooting in RAW mode because you can make post production adjustments that will work every bit as well as if you did pre-shot white balance.
 
I could probably save 50 pix in RAW on my card. I use to do WB adjustment in photoshop by converting the image to CMYK, manipulate the existing colorspace until picture looks decent, convert back, then save. But that takes extremely long and no 2 pictures ever end up the same.

Performing raw RGB does not work when the pictures are taken deep where there is absolutely zero amount of red to work with.

I used this technique:

http://wetpixel.com/i.php/full/getting-rid-of-the-underwater-blues/
 
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I could probably save 50 pix in RAW on my card. I use to do WB adjustment in photoshop by converting the image to YCbCr, manipulate the existing colorspace until picture looks decent, convert back, then save. But that takes extremely long and no 2 pictures ever end up the same.

Performing raw RGB does not work when the pictures are taken deep where there is absolutely zero amount of red to work with.

I imagine you may want to invest in a larger memory card to start with.

With regards to your concern about deeper shots where the reds are filtered out you should know that white balance will not add those reds back. That issue is addressed by adding light, i.e., a strobe.
 
I imagine you may want to invest in a larger memory card to start with.

With regards to your concern about deeper shots where the reds are filtered out you should know that white balance will not add those reds back. That issue is addressed by adding light, i.e., a strobe.

LOL, my C5050 takes only 512MB CF card.

Color issue only comes up when I take expansive picture like the depth of the wall or attempts at whole wrecks. Macro shots, I can live with the internal flash of the camera, as long as there was no silt.

White balance, even if it doesn't add the red back, will make the red part of the sensor, alot more sensitive, this way, the boosted red image can be saved into JPEG format w/o the need to save it in RAW mode.

Plus, as indicated above, I use a complicated process of converting the JPEG's RGB colorspace to CYMK, where red is not one of its colorspace, thus every one of its color in its colorspace is still there to manipulate.
 
White balance, even if it doesn't add the red back, will make the red part of the sensor, alot more sensitive, this way, the boosted red image can be saved into JPEG format w/o the need to save it in RAW mode.

I'm not sure that is how it works. When i set white balance on my camera (Canon T2i) it does not affect the sensor's sensitivity in any way, it merely affects how the processor treats certain colors relative to the white point that I determine.

I have experimented with this concept and can tell you first hand that setting white balance will not bring back any degree of reds that have been filtered out by the water. The only way to bring back the reds is with artificial light.
 
I'm not sure that is how it works. When i set white balance on my camera (Canon T2i) it does not affect the sensor's sensitivity in any way, it merely affects how the processor treats certain colors relative to the white point that I determine.

I have experimented with this concept and can tell you first hand that setting white balance will not bring back any degree of reds that have been filtered out by the water. The only way to bring back the reds is with artificial light.

sensitive in the terms that the overall picture that is saved with alot more red than it captured. I don't think any sensors boost the ISO for different colors individually.
 
sensitive in the terms that the overall picture that is saved with alot more red than it captured. I don't think any sensors boost the ISO for different colors individually.

As I said, my experience is that white balance will not add any missing reds. White balance will make the whites look white as opposed to bluish, but the reds still look gray.
 
As I said, my experience is that white balance will not add any missing reds. White balance will make the whites look white as opposed to bluish, but the reds still look gray.
If you can do it with photoshop, shouldn't it also be true that the camera can do it, itself? Camera white balance is just a firmware photoshopping isn't it? Maybe the cam can't be as discriminating about it.

Possibly related question - if you take a picture of a grey card underwater in RAW, can you do a quick white balance in PS by just adjusting to the card?
 

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