White Balance issue

You probably checked that option already, but just to be sure: have you disabled the automatic Adjustment presets in the Import panel? This may add an automatic white balance. I cannnot check right now, if that also will be applied to RAW, for I don't have a camera ready right now.

Regards

Léonie

Just checked again with my raw images in the library: (Canon EOS 5D)

When I enable the White Balance adjustment in the Adjustment panel, then the white balance tag in the EXIF tags is set to Auto, but with the white balence in the Adjustment panel disabled I see the White Balance Meta tag displayed as Fluorescent. But that does seem to depend on the camera.

Daniel,

Has this problem just started happening? Do you have some photos from the past in which the problem does not exist? If so, what does the EXIF say on those?

And for a suggestion to help troubleshoot: take some pictures from your camera (not from Aperture) and copy them to someplace on your hard drive. Open them (with Preview) and tell us what Preview shows in the EXIF information concerning white balance.

Then import them into Aperture, and tell us what Aperture shows in the EXIF white balance.

nathan

Dnaiel,

Just out of curiosity, why do you need to control white balance for time-lapse photos? (I am a proficient hobbyist photographer, and I always like learning!)

nathan

nathan,

I don't know why Daniel needs them, but I need to control the settings (white balance, exposure, focus) to be able to stitch panoramic shoots together and to compose parts from a time lapse sequence into a single image, or to animate the sequence without flickering. Also, for robotics applications (automatic motion estimation and tracking) it is necessary to have exactly the same capture parameters for all frames of the sequence.

Cheers

Léonie

and if you disable the White Balance in the Adjustment panel like I did (in the Inspector - not in the Import settings), doesn't it revert from Auto to the camera setting, like with my raw images?

Daniel,

maybe my camera is just weird, but when I import Raw-Jpeg pairs and view the Raw, I find that the White Balance adjustment is applied automatically and the WhiteBalance EXIF tag shows "Auto".

When I disable the setting and set the the button to "off", the "White Balance" EXIF tag changes:

But I do not shoot Raw very often, so you better follow nathan's advice 🙂

Cheers

Léonie

DNG converter.

Actually for what you are doing jpegs are probably better controlled, especially if you are not doing much post processing.

Daniel -- I haven't read through the whole thread -- sorry 😊 -- so if this simple suggestion has been covered or is ill-conceived, just dismiss it and accept my apologies.

If your goal is to have the same WB for many Images taken in similar circumstances, perhaps simply setting the WB for one Image and lifting and stamping it to the entire series will:

- get rid of the flickering

- retain your ability to take advantage of RAW

- take the vagaries of AWB and in-camera settings out of the workflow.

Again, I offer this quarter-heartedly, with apologies for a fillip where a whole hand is due.

lifting and stamping it to the entire series

➕ good thinking, Kirby! 😎

I have done just that for panned panoramic series when I wanted to stitch them together - worked like a charm, I should have thought of that myself

Léonie