My 5D mkIII AWB is Warm - Help

[Cgdillan]

I'll start with I have been loving my mkIII. I started on the t2i, then got the 60d as main cam now 5d mkIII i recently shot a band performance that had lots of mixed lighting. I was shooting mkIII with canon 70-200 2.8 non-is and t2i with tokina 11-16 2.8. My partner was shooting my 60D with sigma 70-200 2.8 os. All 3 where on awe and the t2i and 60d nailed the white balance while the mkiii was all too warm. i took the RAWs into Adobe CR7 and set the WB to tungsten and is was perfect. i don't have a problem with shooting different wb presets. but it would be nice to have it perform better on auto. the wb shift was 0:0 so thats not the problem. I've just noticed it's warmth in many places and am not sure what to do about. I would like to be able to shoot awb. especially when moving from place to place.

Is this an issue other people are having? If so do you think it could be fixed in firmware? Should i send it in? Could it be due to light leak (mine is pre-light leak fix and haven't sent it in yet)?

 

[Viggo]

If it's to warm and your wb-shif is at 0:0, maybe just move it to a cooler setting, no?

And since you shoot raw it's a pretty easy fix in Lightroom.

Have you shot under even light and not all types at the same time? Is it the same?

I shoot raw and shoot with the Color Checker passport which is fantastic for color calibration, but under concert type lightning it won't be of much use as it's vary too much.

 

[Loswr]

Canon's implementation should be abbreviated AWUB - auto white UNbalanced. It usually does fine in sunlight, but throw tungsten or mixed lighting at it, well, orange had better be your favorite color. I shoot RAW and correct in post, and for session shoots I include a reference (ColorChecker Passport or SpyderCube) in one of the shots for one-click correction.

 

[melbournite]

Having used the 5DIII now for a couple of months, I find that the AWB is more accurate (or more naturally pleasing to me) than any of it's predecessors including the 7D. I have always tweaked a percentage of images in post and that's not different, but I find myself tweaking less with the 5DIII. Not sure if 'mixed lighting' is a good indication of good AWB though either?

 

[Viggo]

Having used the 5DIII now for a couple of months, I find that the AWB is more accurate (or more naturally pleasing to me) than any of it's predecessors including the 7D. I have always tweaked a percentage of images in post and that's not different, but I find myself tweaking less with the 5DIII. Not sure if 'mixed lighting' is a good indication of good AWB though either?

+1

 

[marekjoz]

Since light source and it's temperature changes it's always a challange to fix it even after having all in RAWs. It's even a bigger challenge when you have lights of different temperature at the same time. Having a WB reference in a scene always helps in postprocessing when you have RAWs.

I fought againts that for some time and finally gave up. As someone has noticed it here - make it your own artistic vision as nobody except you would ever know how it really looked like, when you pressed a button.

What is interesting - when you set some WB in a camera using a gray reference and shoot a video, you are not trying to change WB in each frame to make it objectively correct under current light source found in this frame. When you look at the sequence of frames and see a movie, you are not so disgusted with different hues you observe because your brain translates it correctly anyway. If you make a photo coverage having all photos (from a concert) with the same WB setting, then most probably it won't look ugly because viewers would interpret it more properly. The problem occurs when you have a single photo to present. After dusk when outside (street, concert) and not using flash or strong artificial consistent light (football game) but when light sources change I get best results when I simply set WB to 2900K-3400K without using AWB.

 

[Dylan777]

Having used the 5DIII now for a couple of months, I find that the AWB is more accurate (or more naturally pleasing to me) than any of it's predecessors including the 7D. I have always tweaked a percentage of images in post and that's not different, but I find myself tweaking less with the 5DIII. Not sure if 'mixed lighting' is a good indication of good AWB though either?

+1

+2

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Your eyes have a auto color correction filter in your brain, but a camera just reports the color it sees.
I prefer to have raw unadjusted in the camera, so I can view it as the camera saw it without interference from in camera processing. I do a lot of low light stage photography, and do not want the camera to try and balance colors that do not exist, just report what it sees
Then, I can make changes if I need to.

 

[Drizzt321]

Canon's implementation should be abbreviated AWUB - auto white UNbalanced. It usually does fine in sunlight, but throw tungsten or mixed lighting at it, well, orange had better be your favorite color. I shoot RAW and correct in post, and for session shoots I include a reference (ColorChecker Passport or SpyderCube) in one of the shots for one-click correction.

Not sure I completely agree (all the time) with the AWUB statement, but mixed lighting can and does throw the AWB for a loop quite often. Especially on the 5d3 where the AE/Metering doesn't follow the focus point and if you're primary subject/focus is off centered. If you're shooting a band, especially with super mixed lighting, you just have to shoot RAW and correct/tweak in post. It's what I've always had to do for bands, even if the lighting isn't constantly changing but is mixed.

 

[RLPhoto]

I heard that dousing your MK3 with water will cool the photos right off. 8)

 

[Cgdillan]

The issue wasn't only in the mixed light situation. Every shot from the 60D was very well balanced and every shot from the 5d mkiii very warm. it's been always. I've just felt that it was too warm. Yes it is very easy to fix in lightroom and i do. but for the few times i like to shoot jpg it would be nice to not be so warm. i would just leave the wb shift on blue/green tones but the problem is that the camera isn't always too warm. just more often then not. this isn't a problem i've had with my 60D T2i or 40D which is why i am a bit confused. there are definitely times the 60D is off. but it doesn't have the general and very often too warm of my mkiii. if nobody else has this issue then i will just send the camera in for light leak and have them check too see if anything is wrong with anything that could be causing warm colors.

 

[Bennymiata]

I only got my 5D3 a couple of weeks ago, but I am also finding that the images are a little warm even with shots taken outside in the shade.
No problem with shots taken in sunlight or using flash though.
Not a big deal to correct in RAW for a few shots here and there, but it will be when I take it for jobs where I have to work on 500+ photos!

 

[Cgdillan]

I only got my 5D3 a couple of weeks ago, but I am also finding that the images are a little warm even with shots taken outside in the shade.
No problem with shots taken in sunlight or using flash though.
Not a big deal to correct in RAW for a few shots here and there, but it will be when I take it for jobs where I have to work on 500+ photos!

+1 exactly. So I'm not the only one then

 

[kevl]

I only got my 5D3 a couple of weeks ago, but I am also finding that the images are a little warm even with shots taken outside in the shade.
No problem with shots taken in sunlight or using flash though.
Not a big deal to correct in RAW for a few shots here and there, but it will be when I take it for jobs where I have to work on 500+ photos!

+1 exactly. So I'm not the only one then

Previous to the latest firmware (1.1.13 I think...) my 5D3 was way too cool on AWB. I shoot RAW so it was no issue to fix. However, since updating to the latest firmware I find the AWB to be very accurate.

Try the latest firmware if you haven't already.

Kev

 

[pd2002]

The issue wasn't only in the mixed light situation. Every shot from the 60D was very well balanced and every shot from the 5d mkiii very warm. it's been always. I've just felt that it was too warm. Yes it is very easy to fix in lightroom and i do. but for the few times i like to shoot jpg it would be nice to not be so warm. i would just leave the wb shift on blue/green tones but the problem is that the camera isn't always too warm. just more often then not. this isn't a problem i've had with my 60D T2i or 40D which is why i am a bit confused. there are definitely times the 60D is off. but it doesn't have the general and very often too warm of my mkiii. if nobody else has this issue then i will just send the camera in for light leak and have them check too see if anything is wrong with anything that could be causing warm colors.

I'm using 5D MK III and taking around 10,000 shots. Every AWB was too WARM So I always shift to B3, M3 (or set to Kelvin)
My friend has an issue too. No fix YET all you can do is shift your B/M (Blue/Magenta)

That's really bad AWB compare to 60D, 7D, 5D MK II