White balance

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villain1973uk

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Lee
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Hi, was just wondering what White balance you shoot the majority of you pictures with, I'm still unsure which one to choose, I here auto does a good a job?,

Cheers
 
I tend to leave mine in auto, unless I wanna stich the images together in a pano.

Though I guess if you were doing a function you would manually set this so all the images came out the same.
 
Auto also unless I'm after a particular shot. WB is easily corrected in PP (I'm a lazy tog)!
 
I shoot raw but I tend to select cloudy or tungsten depending on ambient light. It just gives consistency and makes it easier to judge what's going on when I review images on LCD or in post.
 
My default is auto, in case I forget to set it - might leave it there in daylight as it's usually okay there.

But in artificial light, all AWB systems are pretty poor. If I know what's what, I'll use the appropriate pre-set, and if not, eg bounce flash or gelled flash, custom WB.

If you need a series of images to be exactly the same, don't use AWB - it can change. And while each individual image might look okay/acceptable, when you put them together even slight changes become really noticeable.
 
villain1973uk said:
Hi, was just wondering what White balance you shoot the majority of you pictures with, I'm still unsure which one to choose, I here auto does a good a job?,

Cheers
Click to expand...

White balance is measured in Kelvin (K) Zero to 10,000.

Normal day light is around 5600K for cloudy conditions, push it up to 6 or 7,000. Essentially, the lower the number, the cooler the photo, and the higher the number, the warmer the photo. But it really depends on the type of lighting you are in. At night under flouro lights, push WB down to as low as 2000K. Look out for the whites; they must be white, not yellow or blueish.

The settings in your camera will (or should) allow you to set a Custom WB, which will allow you to set the colour temp (K). Try to get the colour temp set correctly in camera, before you go to post processing. There should also be a custom setting where you shoot something that you know is white, and the camera uses that image to set the WB correctly. Adjusting WB can only really be done effectively in RAW. I hope that isn't too complicated for you, but you will get the hang of it with some practice...
 
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RAW and adjust in post.. it's not the lazy way, it's the best way that just happens to also be the easiest way :D

The "get it right in camera" mob will say set the custom white balance for every shot, or choose the best of the available presets.. but life's too short to stuff a mushroom, and post-processing has been part of the art since the very beginnings of photography.
 
Auto WB can be very good, and in changeable conditions, or moving between inside and out I'll go with that, but I try to shoot with the WB preset for the situation most of the time, if I'm out on a sunny day for example. That is just for consistency from shot to shot, which you may not get with AWB.

I shoot RAW all the time, so it is not a crucial decision to commit to, but it's nice to get it close to perfect at the beginning. :)
 
Assassin said:
White balance is measured in Kelvin (K) Zero to 10,000.

Normal day light is around 5600K for cloudy conditions, push it up to 6 or 7,000. Essentially, the lower the number, the cooler the photo, and the higher the number, the warmer the photo. But it really depends on the type of lighting you are in. At night under flouro lights, push WB down to as low as 2000K. Look out for the whites; they must be white, not yellow or blueish.

The settings in your camera will (or should) allow you to set a Custom WB, which will allow you to set the colour temp (K). Try to get the colour temp set correctly in camera, before you go to post processing. There should also be a custom setting where you shoot something that you know is white, and the camera uses that image to set the WB correctly. Adjusting WB can only really be done effectively in RAW. I hope that isn't too complicated for you, but you will get the hang of it with some practice...
Click to expand...

Don't you mean the other way around? ;)

Setting custom white balance is the same as using the dropper in Raw. Both set the red/green/blue channels indpendently and should, in theory, be more accurate than just Kelvin which is relatively crude (though usually fine).
 
On some cameras auto works well and on others it doesn't. My Pentax is not bad, but the 7D is a bit of a joke.

Most of the selections should be fairly self evident such as sunshine, cloudy, tungsten etc.

Bottom line - as said above, shoot raw then it isn't an issue. :thumbs:
 
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