{"id":166238,"date":"2025-01-12T06:19:30","date_gmt":"2025-01-12T13:19:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=166238"},"modified":"2025-01-12T08:30:36","modified_gmt":"2025-01-12T15:30:36","slug":"northern-harriers-in-flight-and-a-cruel-lesson-in-white-balance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2025\/01\/12\/northern-harriers-in-flight-and-a-cruel-lesson-in-white-balance\/","title":{"rendered":"Northern Harriers In Flight And A Cruel Lesson In White Balance"},"content":{"rendered":"

As if it has a mind of its own, my Canon R5 has a nasty habit of randomly changing some of the settings I’ve chosen. For example, I’ll be shooting away at aperture f\/5.6 and all of a sudden I’m shooting at f\/7.1, with no input from me. Since I shoot in aperture priority, that should never happen. It doesn’t happen often but even one time is far too often and in the last few months it’s happened about a dozen times.<\/p>\n

Then three days ago, while I was photographing Northern Harriers hunting near water, my R5 learned a new dirty trick. I always<\/span> have my white balance set at “auto white balance” but while I was photographing the harriers it had mindlessly switched over to “tungsten”. I should have noticed it, but I didn’t – not in the field, or before I posted three of those harrier photos<\/a><\/span><\/span> to my blog.<\/p>\n

The results were atrocious. And mortifying, because I didn’t notice it before posting (until friend Steve Creek brought it to my attention). So today, I fess up.<\/p>\n

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1\/6400, f\/7.1, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Readers will recognize this photo that I posted two days ago. I just assumed that the massive color shift was due to natural conditions, when in reality it happened because my white balance was set to “tungsten”.<\/p>\n

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Thankfully, Photoshop allows me to correct the color balance during processing. This is at least close to how the photo should have appeared. I like it much, much better, for reasons that should be painfully obvious.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/5000, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Here’s another harrier photo I took that morning, as it came out of the camera because of the tungsten white balance setting.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

This is much closer to what it should have looked like. There’s still a blue cast to the wing but I suppose that could be partially due to reflection from the water below. I doubt it though, because the whites on the flank of the bird lack that blue cast.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/6400, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

A third and last example. I rarely catch a harrier with its body turned 90\u00b0 in flight like this, so I’m delighted that I could…<\/p>\n

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correct the colors in Photoshop. This may not be exactly what the photo would have looked like if I’d had my camera set on auto white balance, but it’s much closer than the original abomination.<\/p>\n

I can see what my color balance is set at in my viewfinder while I’m shooting. I just have to pay attention to it. And learn to recognize obvious color shifts in my photos. My only excuse, a poor one, is that it’s never happened before so apparently something inside me assumed it never would.<\/p>\n

Lesson learned.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On an unrelated note: It snowed last night and this time it stuck. Just now (8:17 AM) the city plowed my street for the very first time this winter, at least that I’m aware of. It’s a start…<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lesson learned. (6 photos)<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166240,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,334,341],"tags":[6214,86,7717,7718,7716,7719,311],"class_list":["post-166238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bird-photography-methods","category-birds","category-northern-harriers","tag-canon-r5","tag-circus-cyaneus","tag-correcting-color-balance-in-photoshop","tag-correcting-white-balance-set-at-tungsten","tag-northern-harriers-in-flight","tag-shooting-in-aperture-priority","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/northern-harrier-0092white-balance-corrected-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-Hfg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166238"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":166282,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166238\/revisions\/166282"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}