White Balance - how often do you change it?

[losfp]

I ask this question because... I'm not really sure when I should be fiddling about with it and when I should just stick the damn thing on auto and be done with it.

Over the weekend's fun photographing family for Christmas (narrowly avoiding injury from "put that camera away or I'll get you"-itis several times)... Many's a time when I would think - hey, that photo looks pretty damn good. Snap away for 20 minutes, then change the WB on a whim and then think - uh oh. Actually, THIS one looks more natural.

Most of the time, the auto WB gets pretty close though, especially in natural sunlight - gets confused easily when using the flash. I've also noticed that in Photoshop CS2's RAW import, you seem to be able to change the WB presets on the fly, which is great.

I know WB is probably another one of those features where, (1) I know what its purpose is supposed to be, but (2) I don't have a clue how or when to apply said feature.

Gotta keep trying!

[phillipb]

I shoot RAW and completely disregard the WB.

[christiand]

Hi Des,

I started to change and fiddle white balance when,

a: I changed it the day before and forgot to set it back to auto,

b: the colours don't look quite right on the LCD,

c: I want to preset the white balance due to wrong colour.

The very first time I preset white balance was in a classroom
when the auto white balance gave me shocking red skin tones.

The second time I preset white balance, I was taking a photo of a purple fringe bush flower and that purple wasn't ok.

Both times I did the preset with a white piece of paper and the results though not being perfect were very very close.

HTH,
CD

[avkomp]

auto balance can work ok but I tend to set it manually to the appropriate settings like sunshine, shade etc.

I found initially that in daylight conditions auto wasnt too bad but when I moved under shadows, the colours finished up wrong. one example which comes to mind was a shot of a wallaby I took in the shade on auto wb.
What I got was a slightly greenish tinge to the wallaby which was grey.

There are those who pay critical attention to WB and use things such as expodisks to set it correctly at all times. The problem arises when the light is somewhere between the cameras built in modes. maybe when shooting indoors you might dial up flourescent lighting, but the lights may be sodium, then you would not get correct colour balance using a canned wb and would need to preset it.

Steve

[Oneputt]

I never muck around with WB, preferring to leave it up to the camera on auto. It is one of the simpler things to correct when you shoot in RAW.

[Marvin]

I shoot RAW and completely disregard the WB.

Me too, but mine is set to cloudy most of the time. I like the warmer tones I get with it but tend to play with it in PS anyway.

[leek]

I don't think that my WB setting has ever moved off Auto and in most circumstances it tends to do a very good job... As others have said, it's easy enough to play around with it in Raw Conversion if the colours don't seem right...
I occasionally make the temperature slightly warmer in Raw Conversion if it suits the image... or use the droppers to set the white & black point...

[nito]

I set depending on how may shots I want. I mostly shoot in RAW so WB can be easily adjusted. But if I need more shots, I determine the WB with a grey card. Then shoot JPEGs

[big pix]

Shooting RAW, auto is the way to go, as you have total control when you convert the raw image......... but it helps if your screen has been profiled......I call this the KISS principle.......

[stubbsy]

I'm an Auto & RAW boy too - I figure that's one less setting to remember to reset given I can play with it in PP and since I PP every shot (I'm an artisan and a craftsman )

[big pix]

(I'm an artisan and a craftsman )

....... does this translate to red wine or white wine when PP.......or one of each....

[kipper]

I leave mine on Cloudy(-1) when outdoors, and set it to Incadescent when indoors using filament or dichrohic lights.

I don't set it to Auto even though I shoot RAW as it's annoying when shooting a moving target only to see the blues shift in the sky due to Auto WB. I know you can adjust it after but when I'm previewing I like to see it as accurately as possible.

[Onyx]

As one who despises changes in RAW - both on the matter of principle (it makes one a lazy photographer IMHO), and also due to the time consumption such changes would take, white balance is something I try to achieve to my satisfaction in camera.

In most conditions, I find the auto does a pretty good job, including under flash use. I tend to want warmer images, so routinely use cloudy in sunlight conditions, or set a -2 bias to the auto WB setting to warm it up a touch.

The times auto WB consistently fails me is when the lighting is outside of the auto's temperature range (ie. incandescant below 3500K) and under flurorescent lights. For these I either use the presets, or grey point it in RAW, and adjust to maximise the histogram. I've so far failed to find a satisfactory WB setting for sodium vapour lighting.

Also, I find I'm using that slow laggy raw converter software more often due to how much of a pain in the arse the 3rd party alternatives are when they ignore all incamera settings that I had painstakingly chosen at the time of capture. That's just encouraging photographic laziness!

[mitedo]

Only time i change mine is when i shoot with the flash on then i change from auto to flash WB thats with the d2x , i allways seem to get a bette rWB doing this way

[shakey]

I leave mine on auto and adjust in PP RAW files. Your monitor must be profiled to give you accurate colours....hey it really needs to be profiled for anything digital anyway...reminds me time to do it again!...must be a month ago I did it last

[the foto fanatic]

I am a little surprised that so many of us choose to let the camera decide WB. I guess I thought that more people would at least use the manual choices in the WB menu.

I prefer to preset using an ExpoDisc, or if there is no opportunity for me to
do that, I use the WB menu in the camera, even though I shoot RAW.

However, I do think that Auto WB function on DSLR cameras is much better now than previously.

Each to his own - whatever works, hey!

[Sheetshooter]

The DSLR camera is essentially a computer and the First Law of computing still applies:

GARBAGE IN = GARBAGE OUT

AWB has improved a lot but it is still only basing a reaction on indiscriminant data collected from the scene (and possibly the environment in the case of the D2nn series) with no possibility of non-user aesthetic input.

For every shot I do I use a Colour Temperature Meter and key in the ºKelvin appropriate to the scene AND the placement and illumination of the subject within the scene. The Expo-Disc is a step in the right direction but considerably cumbersome and error prone in my opinion.

Shooting in RAW the colour temperature can be modified subsequent to capture ..... however on some cameras keying in the ºKelvin will centre the movable gamut on the nominated point.

Cheers,

[johndec]

Walter, that meter sounds like a wonderful tool in certain static situations, but in a world were things move (everything from bees to basketballers ), there often isn't time to set a shot up. Therefore, one has to rely on best guesses or AWB.

For example, today I took about 200 photos at a relatives birthday party and had to deal with indoor flash, partial shade underneath green shadecloth, full sunlight and kids splashing about in the pool. Nobody was polite enough to allow the photographer to take all the flash shots, then the shade shots,etc, so I was back and forth all afternoon.. No way did I have time to muck about with meters, expodiscs or grey cards. So it was shoot with AWB and adjust if necessary in NC. I probably only had to drastically adjust 1 in 10, so that's a pretty good ratio. BTW, like Onyx I tend to use AWB-2 most of the time. I read somewhere that the AWB on the D200 is set a bit warmer than the D70, closer to my settings.

[Sheetshooter]

John,

The situation you describe is EXACTLY the sort of situation where AWB comes into its own. And what a boon of the digital age it really is because it is not so long ago you'd either have a film full of different colour renderings or you'd be changing filters or emulsions constantly.

Being one who flatly refuses to do any social photography I had forgotten the predicament it poses at times - you are right.

Cheers,

[Killakoala]

AWB on Nikon cameras still leaves some work to improve on. Hopefully Nikon will work on it in the future and get it right. They need to speak to Fuji.

I usually shoot on AUTO, unless the lighting isn't going to change in which case i use the expo-disc and a PRE-WB, this would mostly be indoors.

[birddog114]

I used both Auto WB and preset with Expodisc, depending on the lighting and venue.
Auto WB is almost, then NC is next.

[huynhie]

The AWB is definately alot better on the D2X after the firmware upgrade.