Posted by Bill Bean on February 17, 2012 at 8:12 PM
I've just finished reading a blog called "5 tips for better sunsets" and one of the tips is to set the camera's white balance to "cloudy" which will warm up the image. I get that part. But I've read a lot of opinion previously saying set the WB to Auto and change it in your RAW processor.
Any opinions out there on whether there is a visible difference in these two philosophies? I'll probably test it this weekend but thought I'd solicit some opinions.
Posted by Bill Pelzmann on February 17, 2012 at 8:40 PM
If you are shooting raw, I see no reason to use anything other than auto for your white balance.
The only thing that will be affected is the rendering on you LCD preview and the default from which you start your raw processing.
Posted by John Mumaw on February 17, 2012 at 9:05 PM
I'm with Bill.
Posted by Scott Fricke on February 17, 2012 at 9:13 PM
I'm with Bill and John, leave it on Auto and if you feel the need to change the WB do it in processing.
Posted by Kane Engelbert on February 17, 2012 at 9:14 PM
WB is often the first thing I notice when I go into a critique. It's critical. In theory the article is correct. IMO that just seems lazy. Be careful with warm images, I think a lot of us have at one time or another gotten hooked on warming up images. But in time, too warm often renders tobacco-ish color. Yikes. Some people like that look, but most want accurate color. I would advise going for accurate color, then boost saturation.
I prefer shooting Manual WB anywhere between 5200K-6200K (Canon), then tweak to taste in RAW processing. If you want warm just bump it up in the 6000+, then tweak later. Also, you can adjust your manual setting while in Live Mode to taste and often nail the WB there to lessen your upcoming workflow. I think it's important to at least try to hit the WB with a manual setting, at the very least it will teach you different settings for different lighting instead of never understanding WB.
Posted by Todd Caudle on February 17, 2012 at 11:49 PM
If you want to see on the LCD how a sunset would render with a film camera, set your WB to Daylight. But once you're back at the computer, it matters not.
Is it possible that you might limit the effective dynamic range of one or more of your channels (particularly red during sunrise/sunset light, I'm guessing) by manually setting WB to a higher value? Might be another reason to leave it to auto and adjust in post.
Or am I misunderstanding how it all works?
Posted by Bret Edge on February 18, 2012 at 2:19 AM
I'm in the "Auto in RAW" camp. It's one less thing to worry about in the field and I change it to whatever I think looks good when I process it in Lightroom.
Posted by Bill Bean on February 18, 2012 at 7:49 AM
Thanks for all the input. Definitely a quorum of Auto in RAW. Let me be a bit more specific:
If I'm out shooting a sunset and have my WB set to Auto for a given number of exposure with the intention of adjusting the WB to "Cloudy' in post.
During the shoot I get a wild hair and change the camera's WB to Cloudy.
Ultimately, during post, I end up with one file that's been set to Cloudy by the camera's processor and one that was shot in Auto then changed to Cloudy during post. Would there be a significant difference in the two images?
Posted by Kane Engelbert on February 18, 2012 at 9:21 AM
There shouldn't be a differnece. During PP both images can be tuned to mirror one another.
Posted by Bill Pelzmann on February 18, 2012 at 11:35 AM
Bill, I think of it this way:
The raw file saved by the camera will be identical, regardless of WB setting at time of capture.
The WB is a set of instructions applied to this file, either in the camera or in post processing.
Stephen was wondering if the WB might effect the dynamic range.
It could, if the exposure metering took your custom WB into consideration - which apparently it doesn't.
However, if you set the WB to cloudy for a sunset and see the red portion of the histogram is blown out, then YOU might decide to change the exposure.
Posted by Ken Wyatt on February 18, 2012 at 3:20 PM
Setting to Cloudy was more important back in the days we were all shooting JPEG (or FILM!).When shooting RAW, it matters not where your settings are. The user settings ONLY affect the embedded JPEG rendering for the LCD view. Having said that, I do like to "preset" the RAW instructions (WB, ExpComp, etc), so it eliminates (maybe) having to adjust every slider during post-processing. It also allows me to better visualize what the final product might look like. That's just me, though. The points above are technically accurate.
The one thing I do pay the most attention to during sunrise/sets is the red channel as Steven pointed out. This is especially important when photographing red-rock scenes or red flowers ... well, anything red that's rather dominant. The red channel is very sensitive and saturating the channel can cause a host of post-processing headaches.
Discussion
11 repliesAny opinions out there on whether there is a visible difference in these two philosophies? I'll probably test it this weekend but thought I'd solicit some opinions.
The only thing that will be affected is the rendering on you LCD preview and the default from which you start your raw processing.
I prefer shooting Manual WB anywhere between 5200K-6200K (Canon), then tweak to taste in RAW processing. If you want warm just bump it up in the 6000+, then tweak later. Also, you can adjust your manual setting while in Live Mode to taste and often nail the WB there to lessen your upcoming workflow. I think it's important to at least try to hit the WB with a manual setting, at the very least it will teach you different settings for different lighting instead of never understanding WB.
Or am I misunderstanding how it all works?
If I'm out shooting a sunset and have my WB set to Auto for a given number of exposure with the intention of adjusting the WB to "Cloudy' in post.
During the shoot I get a wild hair and change the camera's WB to Cloudy.
Ultimately, during post, I end up with one file that's been set to Cloudy by the camera's processor and one that was shot in Auto then changed to Cloudy during post. Would there be a significant difference in the two images?
The raw file saved by the camera will be identical, regardless of WB setting at time of capture.
The WB is a set of instructions applied to this file, either in the camera or in post processing.
Stephen was wondering if the WB might effect the dynamic range.
It could, if the exposure metering took your custom WB into consideration - which apparently it doesn't.
However, if you set the WB to cloudy for a sunset and see the red portion of the histogram is blown out, then YOU might decide to change the exposure.
The one thing I do pay the most attention to during sunrise/sets is the red channel as Steven pointed out. This is especially important when photographing red-rock scenes or red flowers ... well, anything red that's rather dominant. The red channel is very sensitive and saturating the channel can cause a host of post-processing headaches.