White balance slide film scanned

Hi,
I scan my film using a light table, a dslr and a macro lens. The results have been amazing to say the least. So fast and easy!
Anyhow, I took a custom white balance reading with just the light table and no film. That works well but I did notice I need white balance adjustments. Should I take the custom white balance reading with the light table and a clear piece of film strip?

Thanks!

ericdan said:

Hi,
I scan my film using a light table, a dslr and a macro lens. The results have been amazing to say the least. So fast and easy!
Anyhow, I took a custom white balance reading with just the light table and no film. That works well but I did notice I need white balance adjustments. Should I take the custom white balance reading with the light table and a clear piece of film strip?

Thanks!

Click to expand...

If you think you're some kind of-based tent, what I would suggest doing is taking a developed piece of film that was not exposed at all, which would then give you just the base color tone, then you could shoot that on the light table and that would give you the proper white balance I believe?

EDIT: you would of course have to do this with the each type of film that you used, as each one may have a slightly different base tint to it.

Also be sure that you are shooting for proper white balance at the exposure level, because it could simply be that you are, for example, shooting slide film indoors under fluorescent lighting which would of course change the color tint anyway if you didn't use a proper filter on the lens to correct for that fluorescent lighting etc.

Thanks. Indoor lights etc are not the problem. Right now I'm just trying to get it as close to the slide as possible. I think I'll try your suggest ok. And shoot an unexposed area of the film and set the custom white balance based on that. I only shoot 2 slide films so that's only two different presets.

ericdan said:

Thanks. Indoor lights etc are not the problem. Right now I'm just trying to get it as close to the slide as possible. I think I'll try your suggest ok. And shoot an unexposed area of the film and set the custom white balance based on that. I only shoot 2 slide films so that's only two different presets.

Click to expand...

Cool, it shouldn't be too difficult to get a hold of an unexposed area, I'm not sure if you process yourself or send it out, if you process yourself just take the leader and shoot that, if you don't and get back slides in the slide holder, just leave a note in the sendoff and ask them to include the leader when they return your film, and then shoot the leader as that should have at least enough area of unexposed area to be tested.