Posted by Mark Pelton on March 7, 2008 at 11:41 PM
I thought I knew something about white balance, but apparently not much. I have seen in reviews in more than one place that the Nikon D200 has one of the most accurate auto white balance settings. To the point that many recommendations are to leave WB on auto, which is what i have usually done. When i look at auto white balance reading in ACR for a shot in overcast the temperature is 4250. ACR settings for daylight is 5500 and cloudy is 6500. I have noticed that my autowhitebalance settings when revealed in ACR are always much lower than these standard temperatures. What gives? What does accurate auto white balance mean?
It means the camera detects the ambient color temperature and "compensates" for it (i.e. eliminates color casts.) In essence this is no difference than letting your camera make shutter or aperture decisions on your behalf (maybe worse since you can't see the setting the camera picks until afterwards).
Personally I don't like the camera substituting its little brain for mine so I don't advocate AWB. Color temperature is essential to the mood of the scene and I don't want to risk losing it. I generally set my camera to Daylight just to keep it from killing color casts, but often change the setting manually in ACR.
Mark
I agree with Guy. I keep my WB set on Daylight most of the time and make my adjustments later.
Also, keep in mind software other than Nikon programs don't read the total information of Nikon Raw files. So some adjustments made in camera won't show in 3rd party Raw software.
MK
Posted by Mark Pelton on March 8, 2008 at 10:24 AM
Thanks, Guy. I was all wrong and wasn't thinking. I had drifted in to thinking that the camera was setting the correct ambient color balance, but had forgot that it was then compensating for it. Thanks for the clarification.
Posted by Bryan Peters on March 9, 2008 at 8:42 PM
If you don't have a kelvin setting, adn don't want to shoot a grey card- ( which takes all of what, 20 second to shoot it then define it as the custom reference?) I find it is best to set it for the situation- daylight, cloudy, etc. The lower numbers your camera is doing will make things more bluish- higher numbers will make it more yellowish. if you have the Kelvin setting, you can memorize the basic color temperatures, then adjust it to your taste very quickly.
The only time we use AWB is in fast changing circumstances on a location shoot, where we are constantly moving between several light sources. A good example is a wedding reception with things happening outdoors in both sun and shade, as well as indoors under both incandescent and florescent lighting, strobe filled and solely lit by strobe, and sometimes even candle light. You can sometimes even shoot three different sources without moving your feet, depending on which way you point your camera. Things are just happening too fast to add WB adjustments to the list of things you have to track.
In all other situations we use manual WB, whether presets on the camera dial or customs we generate ourselves. We even have a custom WB setting for use under strobes in our studio. Its difference from daylight or AWB is very slight, but it's noticeable in results.
I was rereading my post and realized there is a detail that should be added as a qualifier for my example of wedding shoots. We shoot and charge using an "ala carte" fee system, in which folks pay us an hourly rate for shooting, then buy individual photos priced on usage and size.
In our experience, as much fun as receptions are to shoot and as much as clients enjoy the shots, they are seldom selected for enlargement. At most they'll appear in an album or slide show, and only small adjustments in color balance may be needed in post (for continuity when shots are viewed in series). In those uses small shifts in WB just aren't a critical issue.
The few reception shots that get enlarged are carefully white balanced in post processing. With large $'s at stake for big enlargements, it's worth the extra time to color correct. And since there's usually not just one enlargement in a suite, it's important that the WB be compatible between any reception shots and the formal stuff shot with custom WBs.
The problem with an ala carte pricing system is that you simply don't know beforehand if, and which, photos are going to sell. Time-wise and accuracy-wise we have better luck relegating the color balance work to correcting failures in the camera's AWB rather than failures in our own efforts to keep up with lighting changes via manual WB setting changes. We're not nearly as good at remembering to change as the camera.
Discussion
6 repliesPersonally I don't like the camera substituting its little brain for mine so I don't advocate AWB. Color temperature is essential to the mood of the scene and I don't want to risk losing it. I generally set my camera to Daylight just to keep it from killing color casts, but often change the setting manually in ACR.
Guy
I agree with Guy. I keep my WB set on Daylight most of the time and make my adjustments later.
Also, keep in mind software other than Nikon programs don't read the total information of Nikon Raw files. So some adjustments made in camera won't show in 3rd party Raw software.
MK
In all other situations we use manual WB, whether presets on the camera dial or customs we generate ourselves. We even have a custom WB setting for use under strobes in our studio. Its difference from daylight or AWB is very slight, but it's noticeable in results.
In our experience, as much fun as receptions are to shoot and as much as clients enjoy the shots, they are seldom selected for enlargement. At most they'll appear in an album or slide show, and only small adjustments in color balance may be needed in post (for continuity when shots are viewed in series). In those uses small shifts in WB just aren't a critical issue.
The few reception shots that get enlarged are carefully white balanced in post processing. With large $'s at stake for big enlargements, it's worth the extra time to color correct. And since there's usually not just one enlargement in a suite, it's important that the WB be compatible between any reception shots and the formal stuff shot with custom WBs.
The problem with an ala carte pricing system is that you simply don't know beforehand if, and which, photos are going to sell. Time-wise and accuracy-wise we have better luck relegating the color balance work to correcting failures in the camera's AWB rather than failures in our own efforts to keep up with lighting changes via manual WB setting changes. We're not nearly as good at remembering to change as the camera.