Posted by chris jones on January 29, 2007 at 12:46 PM
hi i allways use my w/b on auto but over the last 2 weeks shooting in dull conditions my pics look better to me when i alter the w/b setting in the canon raw to jpeg software, i cant tell wich photo is a true reflection of what i took.
eg shoot in raw auto w/b pic looks a bit flat
then in canon software alter w/b to cloudy and the pics looks warmer to me and better but is this a true reflection of what i took ?
what do you do?
Posted by Andy Bate on January 29, 2007 at 1:28 PM
i shoot in auto and i change it to the conditions i shot in in C1, although it can be nice to play around with it and add a warm glow to some shots
Posted by Sean Bolton on January 29, 2007 at 6:52 PM
Hi Chris
Outdoors I mostly shoot on AutoWB. Occasionally if the shot doesn't look right at the RAW conversion stage I will tweak the white balance manually and set the Colour Temperature. With Canons and often find in dull conditions the auto WB can tend towards a blue cast so I tweak the WB to a warmer setting. In most daylight conditions though AUTO seems to be fine to my eyes.
You are fine leaving the camera on Auto W/B when shooting RAW, however it is important to remember that Auto is only the camera processors guess at what the colour temp and bias should be based on elements within the sensor, so 'average' scene will look about right...
As nature photographers the scenes we are shooting are often not 'average' so some 'tweaking of w/b is needed on conversion, the simplest is to use one of the presets within your software that closely matches your shooting conditions and then adjusting slightly to give a pleasing result.
If I am working a set such as a feeding station I have a QP card just outside the scene that is lit in exactly the way that the perch is, this I shoot at regular intervals during the session and then use this to set the w/b on conversion....
HTH
Phil
Posted by Elliott Neep on January 30, 2007 at 5:36 AM
I always shoot on a custom daylight setting of 5000K. Its slightly cooler than the average daylight setting. I found, that if I shoot on auto, I cannot always remember what the original scene was like. Shooting near daylight seems to give a more accurate depiction of the scene and I can then make any slight adjustments to w/b where necessary.
Discussion
4 replieseg shoot in raw auto w/b pic looks a bit flat
then in canon software alter w/b to cloudy and the pics looks warmer to me and better but is this a true reflection of what i took ?
what do you do?
Outdoors I mostly shoot on AutoWB. Occasionally if the shot doesn't look right at the RAW conversion stage I will tweak the white balance manually and set the Colour Temperature. With Canons and often find in dull conditions the auto WB can tend towards a blue cast so I tweak the WB to a warmer setting. In most daylight conditions though AUTO seems to be fine to my eyes.
cheers
Sean
You are fine leaving the camera on Auto W/B when shooting RAW, however it is important to remember that Auto is only the camera processors guess at what the colour temp and bias should be based on elements within the sensor, so 'average' scene will look about right...
As nature photographers the scenes we are shooting are often not 'average' so some 'tweaking of w/b is needed on conversion, the simplest is to use one of the presets within your software that closely matches your shooting conditions and then adjusting slightly to give a pleasing result.
If I am working a set such as a feeding station I have a QP card just outside the scene that is lit in exactly the way that the perch is, this I shoot at regular intervals during the session and then use this to set the w/b on conversion....
HTH
Phil