White balancing for any photo
I have discovered something that is a way of manually setting the white balance of a camera for the lighting of any setting. It seems a bit complicated at first, but try it, you may find it helpful. I made one of these about 8.5 by 11 inches and it fits in my camera bag so I can have it with me wherever I go.
Make a rectangle from four isosceles triangles, one black, one white and two 18% gray. Place the triangles on the sides and ends of the card with the gray ones at the long sides, the black and white at each end and the points meeting at the middle and the sides of each triangle touching the side of the adjacent triangle. The card should look like four triangles all touching and forming a rectangle of just three colors. This card is placed at the subject position, with the lighting as it will be for the photograph. Set your camera to manual white balance and take at least three (3) exposures, filling the viewfinder with the image of the card, and setting the white balance after each exposure. This sets your camera to recognize pure white, pure black and the neutral gray and should result in even exposure for all colors.
To verify that the camera is white balancing properly, check the histogram after each exposure and insure the spikes for the white and black sections (on my camera they are the end ones) are nearly equal in height and distance from the ends of the histogram. This may take a couple exposures to even out. When they are equidistant from the ends and equal height the camera is set. Take your photos and enjoy the balanced colors.
