D40 White Balance Problem

[Adz The Rat]

I have tried to manually set the white balance on my nikon d40 a few times in the usual way but each time it says it cant take a sample.
Am I doing something wrong?
Going to an indoor car show next Sunday so need it set up correctly to stand a chance of some half decent pics

[kman]

interesting problem. ive manually set the white balance once when I first got the camera (just to make sure i know how to do it and it was fine). after seeing this thread and trying again i get the same error message!

in any case, i shoot raw and set to auto white balance (can then make post-processing adjustment if needs be).

I would have thought auto or florescent setting should be fine for what your doing though?

[andy-xr]

Possible that your shutter speed, ISO and/or aperture combinations are going to give too dark a photo when it's taken. I've just tried mine, on a white sheet of paper under a 60W shaded bulb with lots of shadow it was too dark to recognise the white. Point it at the monitor and it was fine.

Try manual focus, ISO 400, F5 with a shutter speed somewhere around half a second on white paper. This will only be the WB for conditions as they are now though at the combination above, you're going to have to do it again when you're at the show and account for increased shutter speeds/higher ISO

Other options are to take a photo when you're in there, then set the WB from that photo or use the Auto setting and increase the gain if it's too dark