WHITE
BALANCE METHOD TWO
1.
Press and hold the WB button.
2. Rotate the rear command-dial until PRE shows in the lower
right of the rear LCD.
3. Release the WB Button.
4. Press and hold the WB button until the PRE starts flashing.
5. Point the camera at a white or neutral gray card in the
light source in which you will be taking pictures. It does
not have to focus on the card, just be pointed at it so that
it fills the frame.
6. Press the shutter release fully as if you were photographing
the white card. It will fire the shutter, but nothing will
appear on the main image viewing LCD.
7. Check the small rear LCD and see that GOOD is flashing.
Remember,
if you see “noGd” flashing, instead of “GOOD”
then the operation was NOT successful.
Method
number two is very sensitive, since it is actually using the
light coming through the lens to set the white balance, so
it will virtually always be successful. Method number one
uses the small white sensor on the prism housing of the D2x,
and it will only work in medium to high brightness light sources.
USING
THE WHITE BALANCE TO EXPERIMENT WITH COLOR CASTS
Many of
us previously used daylight balanced film and an 81A filter
to warm up our subjects. Or we might add a filter to put some
blue in on a foggy day to make the image feel cold and foreboding.
We can
achieve the same effects with the hard coded white balance
settings built-in to the D2x. Please see page 54 of your D2x
user’s manual to see what each of the symbols mean.
To achieve
the same effect as daylight film and an 81A filter, simply
select the “Cloudy” white balance setting while
shooting in normal daylight. This sets the D2x to balance
at about 6000K which is warmish, and makes nice warm-looking
images. If you want to really warm the image up, set the controls
to “Shade” which sets the camera to 8000K.
On the
other hand, if you want to make the image appear cool, try
using the Fluorescent (4200K) or Incandescent (3000K) settings
in normal daylight.
Examine
Figure 2 below to see how shifting the color temperature can
cool down or warm up an image.
Remember,
the color temperature shifts from “cool” values
to “warm” values. The D2x can record your images
with any color temperature from 2500K (very cool) to 10000K
(very warm), and any value in between. There’s no need
to carry different film emulsions, just to deal with differing
light types. The D2x has them all!
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