Problems with E-PLR Custom White Balance.

[Ryan B.]

I don't know if anyone else has this problem. My FOCs messed up on my last dive trip and I tried to get around it--somewhat--by using the E-PL5's One Touch White Balance. I'd get to the appropriate screen and "Point the camera at a sheet of white" plastic, press the shutter button and inevitably get ".X WB NG Retry", which one apparently gets when "the subject is too bright or too dark or visibly tinted, the message [WB NG Retry] will be displayed and no value will be recorded."
The sheet of plastic--a place mat--was unmarred, and some of the attempts were around 20' depth, but still no joy.
In the end I found a partial solution by upping the Kelvin numbers, but still I'm disappointed that the Custom White Balance didn't function as I thought it should.
Anyone else have this problem, and, if so, any clever solutions or methods of taking available light shots underwater?

 

[smoore]

Not sure what FOC stands for. The title of your question refers to E-PLR rather than E-PL5 which threw me for a minute. I don't think the EPL-5 has underwater white balance modes so that would not be a solution. I haven't used your camera but I have had no problems with one touch white balance on the EPL2 or the OMD-EM5 Mk II. If you don't want to have Olympus look at the camera, then the solution you picked is best or you could shoot in RAW and adjust the white balance when processing your photos. Have you tried using the one touch white balance above water? Did you try this on more than one occasion? You might be able to get the camera to work again by turning the camera off and pulling the battery for 30 seconds. You might also want to consider doing a factory reset and seeing if that corrects the problem. If those don't work, then it may have to go back to Olympus for repairs.

 

[Ryan B.]

Thanks for the response, smoore. Boy, I sure did write "E-PLR". Lazy index finger; R is right below 5 on the keyboard.
I recently re-tried the one touch white balance above water, and it seemed to work okay if it wasn't really challenged. For instance, I used the red heat lamp in my bathroom on white paper and it, again, threw up its hands and went,".X WB NG Retry". Gradually moving away into natural light it eventually worked, but with so little red tint I see why it didn't work underwater; the parameters built in are just not wide enough to handle anything too many 'whatsoever' units away from natural light. Guess I'll have to resign myself to using the kelvin scale.
Oh, FOC is fiber optic cables.
Thanks again!

 

[chris196]

I've used an epl2 and now an epl7 and I haven't had much luck with custom white balance.
Olympus m4/3 cameras are known to not be too good with this.

There is an underwater white balance mode on both my epl2 & epl7. I would suspect the epl5 has this also.
I'll use it when taking natural light videos. It helps some.

 

[Ryan B.]

Hi, Chris.
"There is an underwater white balance mode on both my epl2 & epl7. I would suspect the epl5 has this also."
Where would you find this? It's not listed in "Scene Mode".

 

[timz]

Hi, Chris.
"There is an underwater white balance mode on both my epl2 & epl7. I would suspect the epl5 has this also."
Where would you find this? It's not listed in "Scene Mode".

I am actually having the same issue even on land. Sometime it works, and most of the time not. Especially in the manual mode.

It works fine in Shutter priority.

 

[chris196]

Hi, Chris.
"There is an underwater white balance mode on both my epl2 & epl7. I would suspect the epl5 has this also."
Where would you find this? It's not listed in "Scene Mode".

It's a white balance option. Not in the scenes mode menu. It's similar to cloudy, sunny, incandescent, etc in the white balance menu that's available in P,S,A,M modes.

http://cs.olympus-imaging.jp/en/support/imsg/digicamera/download/manual/pen/man_epl5_e.pdf
page 80

ok, I see that is the wide/macro for underwater.
I don't see an underwater option for white balance. However, it might be included in the wide/macro underwater option.

On the epl7, there is a specific setting for underwater white balance in just the white balance menu.

Someone with more knowledge of the epl5 will have to chime in on this one.

 

[timz]

Ok. I found something. When doing the custom white balance on a white card, the shot needs to be properly exposed. Underexposed and overexposed will cause NG.

That explains why it's more difficult to set the WB on M mode. Cause the light meters will not be stable.

 

[smoore]

I don't think the EPL-5 has underwater modes. I looked at the manual and I could not find them listed and they are clearly listed under the white balance modes for other Olympus cameras. Hopefully, using one of the automatic exposure modes to set manual white balance, as suggested by timz, will overcome the problem.

 

[chris196]

Actually if you look on page 80 of the pdf I linked it says that once in the macro or wide angle underwater mode you can set underwater white balance. So, it seems possible.

but it also seems convoluted. Would have been much easier if they had just put underwater WB under the normal WB menu like the other PENs have.