DIY Photography

Your one stop shop for everything photo-video

  • News
  • Inspiration
  • Reviews
  • Tutorials
  • DIY
  • Gear
Search

Submit A Story

How to fix colour casts with neutral density long exposures

Oct 11, 2016 by John Aldred 16 Comments

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

long_exposure_colour_casts

Anybody who’s ever used strong neutral density filters knows about colour casts. Whether it’s the B+W 10 Stop or the Lee Big Stopper, they’re just inevitable. Each filter presents a different colour cast. The same filter can also offer a different colour cast on different camera bodies. The typical way to deal with it is to play around with your white balance to try and correct for it.

Without a good reference, though, shifting the white balance to fix it in post can be a bit of a crap shoot. This video from Mike Browne talks through the problem, and shows a couple of different ways to make adjustments to fix colour cast issues. One is by setting your white balance in the camera, the other is by shooting a neutral reference that will let you do it in post.

It’s a pretty standard and straightforward technique that many photographers do for normal stills. But people often neglect to do this for long exposures, because if you only want one shot, it essentially doubles the time of your exposure. If you’re shooting a 5 minute exposure of a scene, you’ll also need a 5 minute exposure of your neutral grey card.

Personally, for important long exposures, I like to take things even further by photographing either the X-Rite ColorChecker Passport or the DataColor SpyderCHECKR instead of a just standard grey card.

White balancing is great, but in my experience, it only gets you so far. Sometimes, ND not only shifts, but also reduces the effectiveness of particular colours hitting your sensor. Using a solid colour reference like those I mentioned above just gives it that final level of accuracy with the least amount of hassle.

How do you fix colour casts in your long exposures? Do you just do it with basic white balance settings in Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw? Do you go a little further and use color references like the ColorChecker or SpyderCHECKR? Do you use other techniques within Photoshop? Let us know in the comments.

[via ISO1200]

FIND THIS INTERESTING? SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

Related posts:

Fixing colour casts with neutral density filters using the ColorChecker Passsport 16 10-stop neutral density filters go head to head for sharpness, colour and accuracy A beginner’s guide to polarisers and neutral density filters Is it still worth using neutral density over HSS with today’s flash tech? Probably not

Filed Under: Tutorials Tagged With: Color Cast, Neutral Density, white balance

John Aldred: from diyphotography.net

About John Aldred

John Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.

« Prisma begins rolling out video processing feature
How Chase Jarvis lost $1 billion by not “selling Instagram” to Facebook »

Submit A Story

Get our FREE Lighting Book

DIYP lighting book cover

* download requires newsletter signup
DIYPhotography

Recent Comments

Free Resources

Advanced lighting book

Recent Posts

  • Panasonic PanaTrack is a big bendy motorised camera slider
  • Once again, tourists are getting too close to bison for photos
  • Fujifilm announces shipping delays for the new Fuji X-S20
  • International Photography Awards reveals breathtaking 2022 winners (mildly NSFW)
  • 7artisans launches a 24mm f/1.4 lens for only $109

Udi Tirosh: from diyphotography.netUdi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.

Alex Baker: from diyphotography.netAlex Baker is a portrait and lifestyle driven photographer based in Valencia, Spain. She works on a range of projects from commercial to fine art and has had work featured in publications such as The Daily Mail, Conde Nast Traveller and El Mundo, and has exhibited work across Europe

David Williams: from diyphotography.netDave Williams is an accomplished travel photographer, writer, and best-selling author from the UK. He is also a photography educator and published Aurora expert. Dave has traveled extensively in recent years, capturing stunning images from around the world in a modified van. His work has been featured in various publications and he has worked with notable brands such as Skoda, EE, Boeing, Huawei, Microsoft, BMW, Conde Nast, Electronic Arts, Discovery, BBC, The Guardian, ESPN, NBC, and many others.

John Aldred: from diyphotography.netJohn Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.

Dunja Djudjic: from diyphotography.netDunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.

Copyright © DIYPhotography 2006 - 2023 | About | Contact | Advertise | Write for DIYP | Full Disclosure | Privacy Policy