White Balance

Zed

Hi, I'm a newbie. I just purchased the cheat cards and I can't wait to try them but I need serious help with white balance as I'm afraid this would affect the shots. I use AUTO and always seem to take blue-ish photos. I would like to use the manual pre-set. Help please!

bruto

You can modify the Auto white balance if you find it too bluish. Go to the menu, choose "Auto" and then hit the right arrow key. A diagram will appear, in which you can use the arrow keys to adjust the white balance. Moving the arrow a little to the right, and perhaps a little up, will warm it up. Each of the WB presets other than the manual will allow you to make these modifications.

In my experience, Auto works pretty well for most light, but tends to be too cold in outdoor light if it's even a little overcast. I usually leave mine on auto and modify individual photographs in View NX2 as needed. But if you find Auto is always a bit too blue for your taste, I'd try modifying that setting, which should warm up your tone but still will track changes in light.

If you find Auto works well for most settings, another option is simply to choose "cloudy" when you're outdoors and want to warm up your images a little.

Manual preset is a bit tricky, because as far as I have been able to determine you can't modify a photograph on the computer and then re-insert it on the card to use as a reference photo. For this reason, the reference photo option is a little clumsy.

You have two ways to make your own white balance. The first is to shoot a reference photo on the spot. For this you need to be in the light you want, and ideally to use a neutral gray reference card or something that you want to be represented as pure white. Make a photograph of nothing but that card, and it becomes your white balance preset.

The second is to use a photo on the card. It must be on the memory card and readable by the camera. If you take a Raw image, you can modify the white balance using the in-camera Raw processing utility. The JPG image that it then saves will be readable as a reference photo.

To do this, preview a picture and hit [OK]. The Raw processing menu will appear. One of the options here is WB, and you can use the arrow keys to modify white balance. When you get it as you like, arrow up to [exec] to save the modified JPG file. Now it will be available as a reference photo.

Moose

Hey @Zed - I really couldn't have answered it any better than what @bruto wrote. Go with his recommendations. All the best!