Auto white balance

[mfs]

Contrary to the excellent Canon 5D auto white balance, the M8 auto white balance seems inaccurate at times. I had an indoor demonstration, and the auto WB was frequently too warm. This was, of course, corrected in Photoshop, but still, I am concerned that the auto WB seems to be in need of improvement.
Perhaps the firmware was not adequately tested before release. The version that I used was 1.07.
Any one else note this problem??

Martin

[MP Guy]

The version on my camera is 1.06

[ustein]

> Any one else note this problem??

Yes, I posted a note here:

http://www.outbackphoto.com/reviews/equipment/leica_m8/Leica_M8_review.html#20061103

Uwe

[paulhart]

I shot inside a gymnasium yesterday where there was tungsten lighting, with WB on auto, and it was way off. Set manually at tungsten it was better. Still needed tweaking later.

[venchka]

I don't use digital. I do frequent a forum where I am A.) about the oldest human there and B.) about the only film user.

Those folks were talking about WB setting recently. Actually, a lot. There is something called an Omni Wheel I think? It goes on the front of your lens and is used to set white balance. The other suggestion was a standard coffee filter over the lens. I'm thinking the flat full size Melita filters would be perfect. Keep a couple in your bag for setting WB.

[ampguy]

that comes with sekonic meters, maybe the same thing. My Pentax *ist has very bad auto white balance detection, it cannot determine tungsten/halogen lighting, and the colors are always off, I always have to manually set them.

Another camera I have, a Lumix FZ3 has much better auto white balance indoors.

I wouldn't trust the AWB setting, unless shooting RAW (DNG) with JPG so you can tweak easily later. If shooting JPG only, be sure you get it right the first time.


I don't use digital. I do frequent a forum where I am A.) about the oldest human there and B.) about the only film user.

Those folks were talking about WB setting recently. Actually, a lot. There is something called an Omni Wheel I think? It goes on the front of your lens and is used to set white balance. The other suggestion was a standard coffee filter over the lens. I'm thinking the flat full size Melita filters would be perfect. Keep a couple in your bag for setting WB.

[rogue_designer]

Has anybody tried using an expodisc to set a custom white balance for a given shooting situation? I've found it a useful tool with almost every digital SLR I've used.

[Mark Norton]

I agree that the AWB is very poor, especially in tungsten light. Even using a white card fails to rescue it.

[Steve L]

And now we know that it is because of the UV sensitivity throwing off the AWB.....