White Balance.. What do you do?

Trev Rich

Trev Rich

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Trev
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Do you just select auto? Or set it to daylight / shade etc etc
Or do you shoot a grey card each time and set it to that?

I'm interested in how different photographers go about this :thumbs:
 
I shoot RAW, so leave it on Auto unless I'm in the studio and controlling the light-source myself...
I adjust colour-balance in ACR as part of my P&P workflow...
 
I shoot RAW exclusively so WB is not that important really but I normally set it to AUTO unless I am doing a days shooting with blocks of different WB.

Let me explain..

If you are shooting at a friends Christening for example the day might start with some candid group shots outside of the church without flash then move on to some shots with flash inside the church (if this is allowed) followed by some more group shots outside the church (if might be cloudy now). After finishing at the church you all pop along to the hall for a buffet and lastly it changes to a party.

Right if we had set the WB to auto we might have to tweak every shot but if we set the WB to say DAYLIGHT or a specific temp we can just select all the shots before the church and change the WB in one go, then all the ones in the church then all the ones when it was cloudy outside of the church etc etc.

It just makes for an easier workflow.

If I am just taking shots on a day out I can use the LIVEVIEW setting on my Nikon D700 (the D200 does not have this). What we do here is select liveview then look at the screen and point the camera at something. Then press the WB button and adjust the back control until the colours on the display match those on the actual thing we are looking at - perfect WB !
 
I shoot RAW, so leave it on Auto unless I'm in the studio and controlling the light-source myself...
I adjust colour-balance in ACR as part of my P&P workflow...
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:plusone:
 
Trev Rich said:
Is that a downside to RAW.. must be much harder to get the WB right in PP surely?
Click to expand...

Using DPP - it is much easier to adjust WB in raw - you can use any of the normal presets (Daylight, etc) or dial in a temperature (great for enhancing sunsets - or if the presets don't quite do it).
 
Trev Rich said:
Wow Darren, nice post. Thanks :thumbs:

Is WB less of an issue in RAW? because it records things as they are with no processing?
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WB is irrelevant really as the RAW file contains all the information and the WB is just a level that can be tweaked later. It really doesn't matter. You could shoot it at 3200 degrees and tweak it to 7200 degrees later and it will be no better/worse than getting it right in the first place hence most people just leaving it at AUTO. Unlike ISO and things like that where you do need to get it as close to right as possible.
 
cowasaki said:
WB is irrelevant really as the RAW file contains all the information and the WB is just a level that can be tweaked later. It really doesn't matter. You could shoot it at 3200 degrees and tweak it to 7200 degrees later and it will be no better/worse than getting it right in the first place hence most people just leaving it at AUTO. Unlike ISO and things like that where you do need to get it as close to right as possible.
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That pretty much sums it up :thumbs: Thanks.

Ok... now suppose you choose not to shoot RAW, say you need to shoot an event and card space is needed so RAW just isn't an option.
Still leave it on auto?
 
although RAW is very very flexible in adjusting WB during PP, I am a firm believer that a comfortable and appeasing WB should be attained at the time of shooting, because i dont think the same result can be easily replicated in PP as at the time of shooting. For example if you set Auto WB and take a shot indoors at night with some lights on, you'll get this orange looking image, which is so far from the desired result that some compromise must be made somewhere when the WB is corrected in PP. I take this view as the same as getting the right exposure at the time of shooting, rather than over/under exposing in PP by 1 stop or so. Its not the same for me.

What I do is, use the camera presets depending on the situation I am in, which are generally very good and allow me to have a fixed WB throughout that setting which I can batch tweak in PP and I switch my presets as the situation changes. For more difficult settings like indoors, I dial in manual WB and then take a test shot and adjust the WB K setting north or south as I see fit.

Hope that helps!
 
psenior1 said:
then just buy more cards :lol:
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Lol.. that's so not helpful :cuckoo: :lol:

hsuffyan said:
although RAW is very very flexible in adjusting WB during PP, I am a firm believer that a comfortable and appeasing WB should be attained at the time of shooting, because i dont think the same result can be easily replicated in PP as at the time of shooting. For example if you set Auto WB and take a shot indoors at night with some lights on, you'll get this orange looking image, which is so far from the desired result that some compromise must be made somewhere when the WB is corrected in PP. I take this view as the same as getting the right exposure at the time of shooting, rather than over/under exposing in PP by 1 stop or so. Its not the same for me.

What I do is, use the camera presets depending on the situation I am in, which are generally very good and allow me to have a fixed WB throughout that setting which I can batch tweak in PP and I switch my presets as the situation changes. For more difficult settings like indoors, I dial in manual WB and then take a test shot and adjust the WB K setting north or south as I see fit.

Hope that helps!
Click to expand...

Thanks, that helps a lot. :thumbs:
 
Trev Rich said:
That pretty much sums it up :thumbs: Thanks.

Ok... now suppose you choose not to shoot RAW, say you need to shoot an event and card space is needed so RAW just isn't an option.
Still leave it on auto?
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No, in the case of shooting in JPEG it needs to be as close as possible, so use one of the presets: cloudy, sunny, fluorescent etc. or set WB by Kelvins and do a quick test by looking at the screen, or do a Custom WB (details of how-to vary, so consult your manual) if there's mixed lighting, say in a sports hall, swimming-pool or arena..
 
If you're shooting an event with a view to selling prints, one sale could get you 2-4GB of memory.

Personally, I trust the Auto white balance on my cameras to get it right. If it's way out (I can usually tell when there's likely to be a problem and check on the screen before moving on) I either tweak the setting or include something white in a corner of the shot to use as a basis for correction in PS. I almost always shoot in JPEG so have less flexibility for rescuing in PP, although the Remove Colour Cast tool in PSE works well enough for me.
 
Arkady said:
No, in the case of shooting in JPEG it needs to be as close as possible, so use one of the presets: cloudy, sunny, fluorescent etc. or set WB by Kelvins and do a quick test by looking at the screen, or do a Custom WB (details of how-to vary, so consult your manual) if there's mixed lighting, say in a sports hall, swimming-pool or arena..
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Thanks :thumbs:
I have and old Lowepro bag so I might take one of the inserts, shoot taht, then set the custom wb to that. Tried it on sunday and the WB was spot on,
 
Trev Rich said:
That pretty much sums it up :thumbs: Thanks.

Ok... now suppose you choose not to shoot RAW, say you need to shoot an event and card space is needed so RAW just isn't an option.
Still leave it on auto?
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If you shoot JP, I'd say shoot a greay card and do a custom balance.

If you shgoot Auto, your colour balance will change from shot to shot - maybe not hugely on some but it will change.

Set a custom balance it will be consistent throughout.

Shoot RAW! Doesn't take long to export a properly sized jpg for print.
 
Hi

Shoot RAW and get a larger card to hold the pictures

Shooting RAW does not take into account a number of things including WB it is purely what the sensor records.

I have to admit I always use daylight and adjust later.

The image on the camera display takes into account all the settings to provide you with a viewable picture and show how it might look.

For example, if you were to take a panorama or bracketed shots you would set it to a fixed WB rather than an auto setting.
 
MagicMynx said:
I usually set it to auto.
I shoot raw and jpeg but do all my editing with the raw file. I only shoot jpeg so that I can see what I've shot straight away with windows image viewer!
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Does Windows not allow you to view RAW files? pfft....
 
If I'm shooting for work then I pretty much have to shoot in JPEG so it's always a case of custom WB (although I am slowly compiling myself a mental list of colour temps for each stadium :lol:).. if it's not time important then I'll set it roughly right then fix later in RAW.
 
As others have said previously I leave it on auto and sort the white balance out when i do post editing.
 
I shoot RAW but always spend some time on getting the white balance right in camera.
The presets are usually very good but in tough circs I'll manually dial it in.

There's two occasions I'll go for an auto WB and that's shooting under fluorescent lighting and when there are many colour temperatures present, tungsten, daylight and fluoro's etc. Unless of course, there is a dominant temp that effects skin tones negatively then I'll bias toward the temp that compliments skin tones best :thumbs:
 
Pretty much as Arkady.

I shoot RAW almost exclusively so auto, unless I'm in an urban environment at night, when I'll set a manual balance just so it looks right on the camera display. Sodium lights tend to fool auto WB a bit (high pressure ones - low pressure sodium is just a yellow pain).
 
Tomas Whitehouse said:
I shoot RAW but always spend some time on getting the white balance right in camera.
The presets are usually very good but in tough circs I'll manually dial it in.

There's two occasions I'll go for an auto WB and that's shooting under fluorescent lighting and when there are many colour temperatures present, tungsten, daylight and fluoro's etc. Unless of course, there is a dominant temp that effects skin tones negatively then I'll bias toward the temp that compliments skin tones best :thumbs:
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But if you are shooting Raw..... does it make any difference?
If it does then the same applies to Jpeg and Raw so getting the WB right is a must :)
 
Trev Rich said:
But if you are shooting Raw..... does it make any difference?
If it does then the same applies to Jpeg and Raw so getting the WB right is a must :)
Click to expand...

In some ways the answer to that is no as you can fix it in PP.
Some people like to get it right pre shooting though.

Its just preference at the end of the day!
 
Trev Rich said:
So shooting in Raw... the raw image will look different depending on how you set the wb.. or not? :thinking:
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Yes, depending on the software you are using. In DPP, ACR or Lightroom it will try and apply the White Balance settings you shot with, unless you tell the software to do something different!
 
Depends what I'm shooting. Sometimes I'm on the flash setting, sometimes I'm shooting flash or sunlight but with a cloudy setting, sometimes I'll pre-calibrate using a Lastolite XpoBalance.

Getting it right in camera is definitely important if you're trying to mix flash with ambient. If you can't see your ambient colours correctly, how will you know which gels you'll need to put over your flashes to augment/complement the light?
 
Shooting raw is the most flexible option, as it has been said earlier all the pixel information is captured so any particular WB at the time is only a guide, as it can be adjusted later. When shooting jpg all you are doing is letting the camera do the raw / conversion using the selected WB, picture style etc and the other settings you have, or forgotten to dial in. During the conversion process some information is lost, which makes PP a little less precise later on as you have already discarded some of the information during that convsersion. So it comes down to on-camera processing or on computer processing; and as your eyes are v.good at white balance and the camera is best-guessing, I go for the computer.
(Note to self, you really must get a monitor calibrator).
 
Trev Rich said:
But if you are shooting Raw..... does it make any difference?
If it does then the same applies to Jpeg and Raw so getting the WB right is a must :)
Click to expand...

Sorry mate, i hadn't noticed your post until now.

Primarily, getting WB right in camera saves me a lot of time.

In difficult circumstances, say shooting figure skating under those terrible fluoro's, (the ones that flicker faster than the human eye can see), it can be a right pain to fix in post due to the varying colour casts and tints.

It can be argued that the precise same result can be achieved when shooting raw and tweaking later but with fluorescent lighting, the usual discrepancies are a peachy or turquoise tint.
Say I shoot a 8 frame burst at 1/800th, there may be varying examples of correct WB and these lovely peach and turquoise tints over the sequence, so each file would have to be reviewed and altered individually, or grouped and altered, rather than a batch correction.

This takes far too long considering that thousands of images will be taken during a championship for example.

This practise has just stuck so I do it in all circumstances now. :thumbs:
 
I was wondering about this when I got nice orange looking skin tones!!

The flourescent and tungsten settings... I know they're used for different sort of indoor lighting right? Question is, which light is tungsten and which is flourescent?!

Thanks.
 
a lex said:
I was wondering about this when I got nice orange looking skin tones!!

The flourescent and tungsten settings... I know they're used for different sort of indoor lighting right? Question is, which light is tungsten and which is flourescent?!

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Tungsten lighting is incandescent, i.e very warm in appearance. Very common, domestic stuff, your usual halogen and 150 watt bulbs kinda deal. A colder white balance is used to correct or balance the colour temperature for this type.

Fluorescents are typically long, strip lights that you'll find all over the place, in particular in indoor sports halls etc. This usually offers a green cast, making skin tones a nasty yellow if there is an absence of magenta colour correction.

When correcting white balance for fluoro's, adding more magenta usually makes an improvement.

Just to make things more difficult though, fluorescent lighting comes in many flavours, daylight, cool daylight, warm daylight, the list goes on and it's a tricky b****r to get ontop of times :D
 
Tomas Whitehouse said:
Tungsten lighting is incandescent, i.e very warm in appearance. Very common, domestic stuff, your usual halogen and 150 watt bulbs kinda deal. A colder white balance is used to correct or balance the colour temperature for this type.

Fluorescents are typically long, strip lights that you'll find all over the place, in particular in indoor sports halls etc. This usually offers a green cast, making skin tones a nasty yellow if there is an absence of magenta colour correction.

When correcting white balance for fluoro's, adding more magenta usually makes an improvement.

Just to make things more difficult though, fluorescent lighting comes in many flavours, daylight, cool daylight, warm daylight, the list goes on and it's a tricky b****r to get ontop of times :D
Click to expand...


Ah cheers for clearing that up. So inside with the usual old style bulbs or energy saver types then thats tungsten...

Thanks. :thumbs:
 
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