white balance????

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alxxx

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Alasdair
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I have a question, this is following on from my other thread " I tried again" where i was informed by by CT about the white balance under tungsten light and how to set my own white balance for a specific (spelling :suspect:) light. well I went to my photo of a robin, which at the time I thought was great because it was in focus (ish) :D, now my D40 has been set on auto white balance since I first used it, well this made me think so I opened the photo with the white balance set to "as shot" (opened in PS and I have the nikon raw thingy installed so it shows me a window with options for exposure and such, also white balance) and then again with the white balance set to cloudy, which it was that day, well i was suprised with how much differance it made, I think it looks so much more natural, so the question is can i trust my camera to get it right, I know a photo can have a nice side effect from the wrong white balance (see I tried again) but is the auto setting in my D40 making me more work in PS, should I manual set it, or just live with it.
how do you cope with this or do you just deal with it when you think the need arise's
the one on the left is as shot
robcomp.jpg
:thinking:
 
Leave it on auto and sort it in software later

I'm not wholly convinced that camera or software settings are correct all the time. I like to play around and see what works / feels right on the PC

Neither of your pics above is right or wrong - just different.
 
I tend to leave my camera in daylight for daytime and switch to a manual kelvin setting for most other situations.

When I process the raw files I'll set a final WB for an entire batch of shots (taken in the same light) all in one go and the results are far more consistent than if I'd used Auto WB.
 
alxxx said:
can i trust my camera to get it right
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No, as you have seen for yourself. The camera may get it approximately right in the majority of cases. But when it really matters the cam will let you down (Murphy's Law). Better is to set WB appropriately. Still better is to set it appropriately and shoot RAW!

Auto settings are convenient for taking quick snapshots when you don't want to spend time and attention on thinking the shot through beforehand. The trade-off for that convenience is that you, indeed, get 'mere' snapshots. Not great photos!
 
With AWB the camera "evaluates" the scene and then makes an assumption as to the WB. Therefor the same scene, say a portrait will have a different WB if the subject changes from neutral clothing to a strongly coloured one

I've tried several methods for WB and always come back to the daylight preset as standard. Saves a lot of PP work

You can mess around with all sorts of toys to get the WB right, but I would suggest set it to daylight and leave it there. Only change it is the light quality changes, i.e. tungsten.
 
thanks for the replies, I tried a few shots today and I have to agree with chappers, alfred D and plx8, I have set it manualy and I appear to be a better guesser than my D40, either that or my eyes need calibrating :lol:
 
In daylight, I leave the camera on the Auto WB setting and it's pretty reliable. Same with using flash, which has the same colour temp as daylight. Any sort of artificial light though and the camera settings aren't at all reliable. That applies to all brands. With film you buy either daylight film or tungsten film, but our digital sensors have to deal with every lighting situation and there's a way to go yet before they get it right.

As someone said, neither of the Robin images is right or wrong, although the left one probably reflects the light at the time better. The right hand one is more attractive though, and using the 'cloudy' WB setting is a good trick anyway if you like a warmer look to your images.

Under artificial light I set the WB in degs Kelvin or take a custom WB shot.
 
tarmac_chaser said:
Is this 'Daylight' recommendation strictly for Nikons? What camera brand do you own Chappers?
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Should work for all cameras. I'm a Canon user, but have used Nikon's in the past
 
Fionab said:
shoot in RAW and sort it later if needed. that way u get it right all the time and u dont need the camera to make any adjustments for you at all, you just do them all yourself.

Fi
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I agree. It's so easy to adjust WB in Camera Raw, and if it's a RAW file you have to open it in Camera Raw first, and then it's only a couple of seconds work to adjust it. Much easier than messing about with your camera settings all the time.
 
I find it well worth taking a custom WB reading & working from that - an accurate WB reading will always be better then an approximation/one that you guess at later.

If you're working for a client that demands you shooting in JPEG then you cannot adjust WB (you can adjust colour temp but that's not the same) you have to get it right in camera - a few seconds to take a custom reading will pay off every time :thumbs:
 
moomike said:
I find it well worth taking a custom WB reading & working from that - an accurate WB reading will always be better then an approximation/one that you guess at later.

If you're working for a client that demands you shooting in JPEG then you cannot adjust WB (you can adjust colour temp but that's not the same) you have to get it right in camera - a few seconds to take a custom reading will pay off every time :thumbs:
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Just curious - how could a client demand you shoot in JPEG. How would he know, as you would only pass the JPG onto him?
 
Just curious - how could a client demand you shoot in JPEG
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One that comes to mind would be covering an event for a company providing prints and disks, where you shoot hundreds, possibly thousands of frames in a day and they're all taken straight off of your cards.

I have clients that demand raw files, which I find far more annoying as the scope for them to ruin my vision is much greater.
 
hillwalkinggirl said:
Just curious - how could a client demand you shoot in JPEG. How would he know, as you would only pass the JPG onto him?
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dazzajl said:
One that comes to mind would be covering an event for a company providing prints and disks, where you shoot hundreds, possibly thousands of frames in a day and they're all taken straight off of your cards.
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Got it in one, I've done a lot of work for events companies where the images were printed on the day & you just don't have time to mess around with RAW files.

Taking an extra 20 seconds to sort out a custom WB & being spot on with your white balance rather than having to spend time guessing about it later is, as with most things, always better to get it right in the camera in the 1st place imho :thumbs:
 
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