Setting custom white balance with 80D and white card

[alainb]

First i want to say hello to all of you there. This is my first post on the forum

I recently bought a 80D for making video.

I just got myself a portfolio colors checker tool for setting my custom white balance.

On the internet they talk about a square dot zone to make the white sample from the card. I do not see that zone on my 80D.
Can someone tell me how the camera find the white zone or how to turn that dot zone on, on the 80D?

Thank you

[kvbarkley]

It is just showing that the white balance card must completely fill the area shown. Roughly everything but the last left and right focus points.

If you are shooting RAW, don't bother setting a custom white balance. Just take a shot of the card (the size and location of the card in the image does not matter.) and use the eydropper tool in your RAW software to set the white balance.

[alainb]

@kvbarkley: It make sense. I am not shooting photo, it is for video 😉 
Setting the white balance manually with a card (here it is the colorpassport portfolio) allows me to capture the right white balance each time depending of any color temp.

[lurechunker]

I am brand new to this forum and probably doing everything wrong. I know very little about photography and need your help. I have a granddaughter that plays basketball and I would like to photograph her. I kayak and would like to photograph birds. Is the EOS 760D the camera for me? What lens or do I need more than one? How can I protect my equipment from damage by saltwater. Thanks in advance.

[alainb]

@lurechunker: wrong place, you are in my post

[lurechunker]

I am brand new to this forum and probably doing everything wrong. I know very little about photography and need your help. I have a granddaughter who plays basketball and I would like to photograph her. I kayak and would like to photograph birds. Is the EOS 760D the camera for me? What lens or do I need more than one? How can I protect my equipment from damage by saltwater. Thanks in advance.

[TCampbell · Accepted solution]

You're probably over-thinking things a bit.

When you use a custom white balance, you take a photograph of something that should be "white" if the light source is also white.  Most light isn't pure "white" and has a bit of a color-cast to it... possibly causing things to look slightly yellow or orange... or blue ... or even green.  Anyway, if the camera knows that the object being photographed is supposed to be pure white. then it can look at the pixel values and notice that... there's a touch too much 'blue' in them... and it can adjust to compensate for the color cast.  Having done this using a target sample, and knowing that everything else you shoot is in the same light, it realizes it would need to subtract the same amount of 'blue' from every pixel in every shot you take.  That's the point of white custom white balance (and as soon as you changing lighting conditions to some other light source, you have to re-shoot the custom white balance frame.)

The easy solution is to just get close enough to the white balance target so that it fills the entire frame (corner to corner). 

But the point in showing that example (showing a region with a giant rectangle made with those dotted lines) is to show that the white balance target doesn't really have to fill the entire frame... but it does need to dominate that area in the center.

The pattern of small boxes you see is simply an indication of where all the auto-focus points are in your 80D camera (when shooting through the viewfinder... not live-view mode).  Those focus points are there whether the boxes are drawn or not.

To change focus modes, you normally press the AF pint selection button (that's the upper-right coner on the back of the camera) and that lets you change AF points within your current AF area.  But while in that mode, you can press the tiny button in front -- near the shutter button -- and that lets you change AF areas (that's how you toggle between modes such as single AF point, surround, full auto-select mode, etc. etc.)   This is covered starting on page 114 of your manual.

Make sure you read your manual on how to do set AF areas and AF points.  You can find all the manuals here:

https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/support/camera-user-manual

[alainb]

Thank you for that great answer Tcampbell

You are right about what the camera will consider white after the custom white settings. It is more important when shooting in video because you want each take to look the same. In post production that represent less work of correction. Thanks for all the informations folks. I think i am on the good track