White balance?

Tyler138

Tyler138

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Alex Tyler
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Simple question, but what setting do you recommend for white balance, i have been using the manual but find myself resetting to often when changing angle of moving shots.

Is it better to choose one such as cloudy/shade depending on your situation or just plain auto it?

Thanks

Tyler
 
I tend to shoot RAW so put white balance on auto and then adjust it in PSE if needed.

Be interested to see what others do though.
 
If you have a camera with live view then switch to that and then adjust the WB whilst looking at the screen until the screen's white balance looks right.
 
Thanks everyone, just wanted to see what everyone else does as i was unsure about using the preset ones.

cowasaki said:
If you have a camera with live view then switch to that and then adjust the WB whilst looking at the screen until the screen's white balance looks right.
Click to expand...

What i tend to do is take a pic with different settings and flick through them to compare them.
 
I have been stuck on this subject too.

People have suggested using cards. I haven't bought any or don't use white card / paper and have found better results for me leaving the camera on auto and setting the white balance in LightRoom.

Just my 2p worth, I know others have different techniques.
 
I've always used auto and tweaked it in PS if need be...shooting RAW of course. But i sometimes go to 'day light' or 'cloudy' or shooting in snow...use the picture pre-set option...is this what you meant by manual?
 
kirif1 said:
I've always used auto and tweaked it in PS if need be...shooting RAW of course. But i sometimes go to 'day light' or 'cloudy' or shooting in snow...use the picture pre-set option...is this what you meant by manual?
Click to expand...

those are the presets, by manual i mean buy selecting the custom icon on the far right (canon) and then taking a picture a some paper and setting the white balance off that.

Some times that works fine for me but moving about means you have to keep redoing it, and sometimes it just shows horrible colours.
 
Ah thank you Tyler! Yes indeed, i can see how that can get annoying as the subject and lighting changes.
 
Hi peeps, I have been reading 'Understanding Exposure' by Bryan Peterson - excellent book by the way - and he sets his WB to cloudy, unless inside and this gives a warmer look to his shots.

I have decided to give this a go and see how they turn out. During the evening, especially when the moon is out he uses Incandesant and this gives a blue look of a moonrise.
 
What I tend to do it shoot using raw.
That way, I can adjust the white balance during pp.
There is no right or wrong white balance imo, normally I just adjust it according to my taste.
 
I shoot only RAW, but I set the WB to the situation that I'm in as it gives consistent colour between images which Auto WB may not. If the colours look correct then it is something I don't need to change if I process the image to Jpeg.

Obviously because I shoot RAW I can easily change the WB after the fact but I think it is better to get as much right in the camera at image capture.

I'll only use a Custom WB if I'm in a situation with mixed light sources.


If you find the Preset WBs not quite right you can customise the Presets on most cameras to get more accurate or more individual WB.
 
I generally use auto, unless I know it's going to be out and TBH the auto setting on most cameras is a bit iffy in artificial light.

So switch to one of the presets. That generally works very well.

If absolute accuracy is essential, and bearing in mind that the correct white balance is the one that looks right and may not be absolutely 100% technically correct, then do a custom white balance. But if the type of light changes of course, you have to do it again.

With flash, on AWB the camera automatically switches to flash balance whenever the flash is charged. This may or may not give you the result you're after, especially when shooting in normal (tungsten) room light. This the time to fit a light organe gel over the flash (a CTO gel) and switch the white balance to tungsten which should then be correct for both the flash and the ambient background light.
 
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