White Balance question for Wedding/Event photographers

[TGphoto]

Hi,

I have now shot 6 weddings and am finding that the most tiresome part of the editing process for me has been getting a consistent white balance/look across the set of images.

I was wondering if you guys have any tips/tricks to achieve a consistent white balance in an easier/less time consuming manner. Or, just what your process is for getting w/b consistent in your edits.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Tom

 

[holty]

check you tube how to batch edit or sync phots in light room

 

[ukaskew]

I edit one photo per location/scene (such as prep, speeches etc), tweak until WB is spot on, then batch apply that (in Lightroom) to the rest of the photos in that particular scene. It's not perfect but it's a good start.

It's the thing I dislike the most about editing, some just feel impossible to get 'right' (and right rarely means a true reflection of the scene, but more often than not just means whatever looks good).

 

[DG Phototraining]

There's pretty much no such thing as 'correct' WB at a Wedding, so as Chris says, just go with what you're happy with

Dave

 

[KIPAX]

Is getting it right when you take the shot totally out of the question ?

 

[TGphoto]

check you tube how to batch edit or sync phots in light room

I have been doing that, though I find that sometimes a different position in the same room can have a vastly different w/b requirement.

I edit one photo per location/scene (such as prep, speeches etc), tweak until WB is spot on, then batch apply that (in Lightroom) to the rest of the photos in that particular scene. It's not perfect but it's a good start.

It's the thing I dislike the most about editing, some just feel impossible to get 'right' (and right rarely means a true reflection of the scene, but more often than not just means whatever looks good).

Thanks, yes that’s very similar to what I’ve experienced - cheers

There's pretty much no such thing as 'correct' WB at a Wedding, so as Chris says, just go with what you're happy with

Dave

Cheer Dave, yeah correct on that - I suppose it’s more about achieving consistency across shots in the least time consuming way.

Is getting it right when you take the shot totally out of the question ?

I’ve been using AWB most of the time and find that it’s usually close but not exactly what I’d like. I think the camera often tends to be on the warm side, and the dropper tool in LR tends to often be quite cold so requires manual tweaking.

 

[ukaskew]

Is getting it right when you take the shot totally out of the question ?

As mentioned above, 'right' is not always the best outcome. You can nail 'true' white balance all day long, but much of the time it's not necessarily going to be a good look.

 

[DG Phototraining]

As mentioned above, 'right' is not always the best outcome. You can nail 'true' white balance all day long, but much of the time it's not necessarily going to be a good look.

I was going to say that lol

I actually had a lol moment years ago when Expodisc - the device sold as the perfect way to get a 'correct' WB - started to sell a 'warm' version, which was clearly NOT the 'correct' WB

The biggest problem I see is deciding which bit of a scene you want to be 'correct', you'd probably imagine that'd be that a white Wedding Dress is white, but when?

For example, in most venues and churches, as Brides enter and walk down the aisle they pass a series of windows and artificial light sources, the mix of which is constantly messing with the WB of light falling on the dress; if we 'corrected' that in each shot to ensure the dress was white the rest of the church would keep changing colour, which would really seem odd. Just as keeping a white dress white in a sunset photo would look odd too when everything is bathed in warm light and the mood of that is more important to the shot

Dave

 

[KIPAX]

I’ve been using AWB most of the time and find that it’s usually close but not exactly what I’d like. I think the camera often tends to be on the warm side, and the dropper tool in LR tends to often be quite cold so requires manual tweaking.

My point was NOT to use AWB but to set your WB in camera to make life easier...

I wasn't suggesting to do this.. I was just asking if there is a reason why not ?

 

[TGphoto]

My point was NOT to use AWB but to set your WB in camera to make life easier...

I wasn't suggesting to do this.. I was just asking if there is a reason why not ?

situation and lighting changes too frequently and quickly at weddings to set it manually in my opinion. Maybe more experienced wedding togs could but at the moment I don’t think I’d be comfortable with that.

 

[DG Phototraining]

My point was NOT to use AWB but to set your WB in camera to make life easier...

I wasn't suggesting to do this.. I was just asking if there is a reason why not ?

Just to add to Tom's correct reply

I'm sure that ideally we'd all love to do that Kip, but as you know its not actually necessary as most of us shoot raw anyway

I do know of only 2 top Pros who shoot jpeg, one I know takes time to set his WB manually while the other shoots on AWB. He did tell me though that for really tricky situations where its miles off his 2nd card records the raw files, so he'll use them if needed

Clients I suspect will ever notice if a WB is correct or not, and moreso these days as so many use toning as part of their processing, meaning it matters even less

But yes, if I was confident enough of setting it manually I'd do that and shoot jpegs - one day maybe

Dave

 

[ukaskew]

I know a well regarded JPEG shooter but the vast majority of photos he delivers are black and white!

 

[swanseamale47]

One tip I was shown was using live view and scrolling through the WB settings, you can get a pretty good idea what looks best before you shoot.
That said I tend to leave my WB in flash and ajust in post in LR (I shoot raw for weddings) auto WB can be a pain as colours in the image can affect it shot for shots. For example if theres a lot of say red (a red coat maybe) in one shot the camera will ajust to compensate for it and the next shot in the same spot (without red coat) will be different, at least with fixed WB you can batch ajust all pics from one spot.