A Complaint and A Question

[willpresley]

I took today as a vacation day and the wife is at work but the weather is lousy so I can't get out and get more practice with my Rebel.

Has anyone shot on overcast dreary days and adjusted the white balance and gotten good results. I know it is digital and I could try it for myself. But thought if someone had that experience they would share it.

[e-mailsucks]

Will, I was out yesterday shooting in the snow. Since snow usually turns blue in the photo, I shot in RAW. As it turned out it was blue until I tweaked it. Got to love shooting in RAW.

Brian :)

[willpresley]

Thanks Brian -- I didn't think about using RAW, but still with the light as it is, there are no shadows to give depth to the pictures -- a bummer as I could have spent the afternoon shooting.

[Jodi Frye]

Will, try manually setting the white balance out there under the clouds...I think you have a 'custom' mode for that ? ..Measuring a white or grey piece of paper ? I tend to just keep my setting in the 'sunlight' mode and use levels to pop color and light back out...but that's cheating ;)

[e-mailsucks]

One of the advantages of RAW is that you don't ever have to worry about white balance. I don't know if the Rebel has a Kelvin setting, but if it does I was set at 5350 and tweaked it to 6150 to get what my eye saw. Does that all make sense?

Brian :)

[Jodi Frye]

...I don't think the 300D has the Kelvin WB. ..But he can still try the Raw with what he has.

[willpresley]

Yes Brian I understand what you are saying. Kelvin is not an option on the Rebel but if I use RAW then I could do that with DPP (Canons Raw Program). I might have to give it a try. Thanks.

[e-mailsucks]

Will, you do realize once you've done it in RAW, you'll never go back :D . It's great. Elements probably has the RAW format for you loaded, so it'll work perfect for you. Have fun.
Just for fun Will, have your Rebel shoot in RAW/JPG and compare the pictures. You'll see that it's much easier to manipulate a RAW image over a JPG. Since you may live where there's snow, that could be where you could set your custom white balance. There is snow in Indiana isn't there?

Brian :)

[crljean]

I think Will is in IOWA! Nobody every knows about Iowa. Most people think it's where they grow potatoes (Idaho). We're in Iowa where we grow CORN!

Will - where is North Liberty from Des Moines?

[willpresley]

We're just north of Iowa City -- exit 240 on I-80, which is about 120 miles east of Des Moines.

Yes Brian we get snow here but I didn't do much photography when we had snow because of the cold temperatures.

In fact Snow Showers are predicted for this evening but probably won't stick as it isn't cold enough to allow the snow to remain on the ground for long.

[tfry]

My kids and grandkids live in North English, Ia and my daughter called today yelling about 5 inches of snow predicted....I'm like "Gee honey, I'm sorry... its 85 here..." good thing she couldn't hit me thru the phone:) I lived in Sigourney for about 10 years, I'm very familiar with Iowa Corn and Cows and Pigs:p

[e-mailsucks]

Thanks Carol, sorry Will. Didn't mean to put you in another state. So did you go and take some shots anyway?

Brian :)

[willpresley]

Well I did two shots in RAW and was able to fix the middle grey of the white building -- it is located in the Challenge forum under photo theme #22. Made alot of difference when I could change the exposure value as well with the software built into Zoom Browser (by canon). Didn't use elements except to resize for web.

Tami we're predicted to get as much as an Inch of Snow tonight but it hasn't started yet.

[Markay]

I think Will is in IOWA! Nobody every knows about Iowa. Most people think it's where they grow potatoes (Idaho). We're in Iowa where we grow CORN!

Will - where is North Liberty from Des Moines?

Carol, I know what you mean. I grew up in Iowa City and people always think I'm either from Idaho or Ohio. A number of years ago I bought a sweatshirt that said "University of Iowa, Idaho City, Ohio" and I've gotten a lot of good laughs out of it.

[TonyW]

Will, try manually setting the white balance out there under the clouds...I think you have a 'custom' mode for that ? ..Measuring a white or grey piece of paper ? I tend to just keep my setting in the 'sunlight' mode and use levels to pop color and light back out...but that's cheating ;)

That's not cheating that's just taking advantage of being digital. I find I can often get better images to work with on dull overcast days since you don't have the wide tonal range to try and handle. Portraits, flowers, trees etc all are best taken when it's overcast. Easier to get the right exposure, no harsh shadows to have to deal with and it's a lot easier to spread a narrow histogram out rather that narrow it down.

I rarely shoot RAW, rarely have to adjust the white balance but almost always use levels or curves to increase the tonal range when shooting on dull days.

Tony

[Jodi Frye]

That's not cheating that's just taking advantage of being digital

Oh, alrighty then :)

[bwolford]

Will,

PSE raw processing allows you to adjust the temp of a picture. Did you try that? I'm curious how PSE's temp adjustments would compare to the Canon tool, which I never use, but may have to if you report it was better...

Brice

[virgo1]

Will,
I shot this from the front window using RAW last week. We had an all day flurry just in time for the high school BB playoffs. I also used the zoom lens as this simac is in a neighbors front yard.

http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1XveUOm3odjiDlwI03TtU2RjvljmE5

Eva;)

[Wendy]

Eva ...

Oh that is good ... it makes a great photgraph :)

Wendy

[willpresley]

I have the latest RAW converter from Adobe and it seems to only want to save in DNG, even loading the DNG file it only offers DNG. This is difficult when attempting to save to jpeg or tiff.

[willpresley]

Eva that is a good picture. I have adjusted one that I took inside with flash to bring out the bloom better it is in my gallery.

http://www.photoshopelementsuser.com/gallery/gallery.php

[e-mailsucks]

Will, when you are done doing your RAW tweaks in PSE, it takes you into the PSE Editor and you can rename the file anything you like. We had a plant just like yours, but our kitties liked it better than we did. We gave it to our neighbor. It flowers in yellow & white flowers, just like your pink ones. This was one big plant. About the size of a bread box :D .

Brian :)

[willpresley]

OK so I was using SAVE not OPEN -- that is the difference in being able to make the file useful aside from RAW. I chose OPEN and it converted the file where I could then use Editor to save it.

[virgo1]

Will,
That is a really a nice shot of the Christmas cactus. I haven't seen one that color before.
Eva;)

[virgo1]

Wendy,
Thank you. I was trying out RAW and the zoom lens for the first time last Thursday. That wasn't enough of a challenge, there's snow and a window. I didn't want to go out and the window has a wide view of the front gardens.
Eva;)

[willpresley]

Thank you Eva. I bought it for my wife before Christmas and it had blooms and buds but they all fell off after we got it home (well over a few days). Then my wife potted it with another specimen and that did the trick now it has loads of bud and 5 blossoms right now. Where did they ever get the idea of Christmas or Easter Cactus?