Daytime imaging with a modded DSLR

[MartinB]

What is the best way of using a modded DSLR - some sort of filter, using a customised white balance (would I need to have several for different lighting situations?), or just doing a colour correction for each photo?

Will the results be a match for a non modded camera?

Any advice much appreciated

[jgs001]

I've not tried this Martin, so what I say here has to be taken with a pinch of salt. I believe if you have the filter replacement, then you can just get away with a custom white balance... whether that means you need to shoot a custom one each time the lighting conditions change (daylight, shade, tungsten etc), or just have them stored on the card permanently I don't know. Shooting in RAW may well allow you to do this more easily, as you can just setup custom presets for the white balance needed in your raw processing software. I believe Steve (steppenwolf) has done something like that in a custom workflow for daylight with a modded SLR.

[MartinB]

Thanks John. RAW mode would be a bit of a pain since my day time astro is mainly happy snapping. IThe other alternative will be to set up an auto colour adjust action in PS and run a batch process but not sure how well that would work. I guess it should be as good as the camera's internal adjustment. I guess I could do my more carefully considered pics in RAW mode.

[msinclairinork]

Hi Martin,

I have a 300D filter removed; which I tried using for daytime; but even with the custom white balance there was an obvious red tint. But with a tweak in PS I could get it more 'normal'. Bit of a pain for me really..never thought of a batch process..makes sense!

Can't tell you any different with a 'filter replaced' mod.

Of course there is the Astronomic (OWB) Original White Balance clip filter at an expense? Astronomik filters @ Modern Astronomy

Not sure if that helps you any..

Michael

[Photosbykev]

personally i use a grey card to shoot a white balance and use that in the camera. It helps to remove all the slight tints that can be a pain to get rid of.

[Psychobilly]

Remember the clip in OWB filter isnt compatible with EF-S lenses...

I tend to leave the camera set to RAW+L jpeg and custom white balance so that the jpegs are there or there abouts.. If there's anyhting decent I have the RAW to work from...

Peter...

[Andrew*]

If you don't want to use RAWs, I would strongly suggest the Astronomik OWB clip filter as this is hassle free - no custom white balances, which anyway have to be changed in different lighting environments and no PS processing for every photo you take.

For non-RAW jpegs you will probably lose quality shifting the colour balance and gives you less room for further processing.

[RikM]

Did I hear somewhere that a green filter on the front-end brings the colour balance back to normal? I could be mistaken.

[MartinB]

Some great advice, thank you very much. I have a CLS clip filter which is fine with 3rd party lenses so that may be a good way to go.

[Andrew*]

Wow - just checked my CLS filter and it gives pretty much perfect white balance! I think I must have checked an older version before that gave awful white balance.

Learn something new every day

Andrew