White Balance for Nature Photography

[Colin Southern]

Incidentally, Donald et al, WhiBal cards are silly money, take a look on Amazon, ebay etc, there are equivalent quality WB plastic cards such as DGK (Digital Grey Kards) at a fraction of the cost. Have been using these for at least five years to no detriment.

Many of the clones suffer from metamerism, meaning that the change in temperature recorded on the card isn't directly proportional to the change in colour temperature of the light source.

[shreds]

Many of the clones suffer from metamerism, meaning that the change in temperature recorded on the card isn't directly proportional to the change in colour temperature of the light source.

The card of course is not recording anything in the way of temperature, it is purely a means of providing a constant reference.

I would agree that some clones will be less satisfactory, the one I mentioned would not seem to suffer metamerism in practice, and as it is used in film, TV and photographic industries, this particular one does seem to have won over the critical eye of more than just myself.

[Colin Southern]

The card of course is not recording anything in the way of temperature, it is purely a means of providing a constant reference.

What I'm meaning is, eg shoot a card - measure it - and get, say, 4000 K. Then shoot it again with a light that's 5000K, but when you measure the card under that light it's 5200K. So the "constant reference" isn't constant. A good example is the RRS bracket on my 1Ds3 - under flourescent room lighting, both are black, but under incandescent lighting, the camera is still black, but the bracket turns purple.

I would agree that some clones will be less satisfactory, the one I mentioned would not seem to suffer metamerism in practice, and as it is used in film, TV and photographic industries, this particular one does seem to have won over the critical eye of more than just myself.

You could well be right. My personal choice though is to stay away from products that are a knock-off of someone else's hard work -- just doesn't seem ethical to me. Probably the best example of that was the Gary Fong Lightsphere. Not saying others should or shouldn't follow suit by the way -- just my personal thoughts on them.

[AB26]

Christina is not alone, no one ever does!

Who does?

When all else fail - READ THE MANUAL!

[AB26]

Has anybody ever tried this one - http://www.expoimaging.com/product-d...FXQftAod7FsAiw

[Manfred M]

Kinda/sorta ... flourescents vary from about 2700 K through to about 6500 K., and it also involves a tint correction component, which changing colour temp manually won't compensate for.

And of course, the light produced by fluorescents does not follow anything that resembles a smooth curve, but rather is has a number of spikes, that are related to the phosphors that are used inside the lamp. Just to complicate things, each manufacturers uses different formulations of phosphors. so even when two different bulbs have the same name; cool white, warm white, daylight, etc. the actual light that these put out are going to differ, sometimes significantly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:F...s_labelled.svg

Nicely said, most fluorescent lighting is not a great light source for photography.

[Brownbear]

Thank you Andre, Colin and Ian

Andre, I have read my camera manual and I re-read little bits of it quite frequently...

I am questioning white balance in terms of the Kelvin Scale. (ie; part of my question)

For example here it states that the golden hour temperature is 3000-4000 K

http://digital-photography-school.co...e-kelvin-scale


And here it states that the temperature is 2500 K at sunrise and sunset

http://www.clickinmoms.com/blog/colo...white-balance/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_...photography%29

[Digital]

Thank you Andre, Colin and Ian

Andre, I have read my camera manual and I re-read little bits of it quite frequently...

I am questioning white balance in terms of the Kelvin Scale. (ie; part of my question)




http://digital-photography-school.co...e-kelvin-scale


And here it states that the temperature is 2500 K at sunrise and sunset

http://www.clickinmoms.com/blog/colo...white-balance/



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_...photography%29

Christina, you may have answered my question posed in an earlier post.


Bruce

[davidedric]

'tis better to take photographs and neglect to read the manual, than to read the manual and neglect to take photographs....

[Brownbear]

Great quote Dave...

I wonder if someone could explain WB with reference to the colour temperature on the Kelvin Scale 30-60 minutes after sunrise on a sunny morning (no clouds in the sky)...

My camera manual describes the temperature as being 5200 K, but the references which refer to the Kelvin scale all seem to indicate a much cooler temperature 2000-3500 K.. And it makes sense to me as I'm usually out and about early in the morning, and the ocean waters are much bluer at that time of day, but, birds are bathed in a warmer, golden light.

All of the replies have been very helpful in that I feel confident in how I will set my WB in different situations, and I know that I can fix it easily in the raw photo.

Nevertheless, I feel like I am missing some key point about WB in terms of the Kelvin scale? Perhaps it isn't important but I would like to understand why it differs from what is stated in my camera manual.

Another example which describes sunrise as 2000-3500 Kelvin.


Daylight (Sunlight is the light of the sun only. Daylight combines sunlight and skylight.)

Sunlight: Sunrise of Sunset

2000

Sunlight: One Hour After Sunrise

3500

Sunlight: Early Morning or Late Afternoon

4300

Average Summer Sunlight at Noon in the Mid-latitudes

5400

Direct Mid-Summer Sunlight


5800

Overcast Sky


6000

Daylight Fluorescent Lamp (see note below)


6300

Average Summer Sunlight (plus blue skylight)


6500

Light Summer Shade


7100

Average Summer Shade


8000

Summer Skylight (varies)


9500 – 30,000

Source
http://www.apogeephoto.com/july2004/...en7_2004.shtml

I ask because it is like knowing that the X = 2 in the equation 2 + X = 4, ie knowing but not understanding why or knowing how to figure it out.

Thank you.

[davidedric]

Quote I just made it up

[Colin Southern]

Has anybody ever tried this one - http://www.expoimaging.com/product-d...FXQftAod7FsAiw

Yep - I've got two, and never use either.

They have two main issues:

1. You need to point them at the light source to take the reference shot (which isn't always practical), and

2. They're essentially useless anytime fill flash is used because it becomes a mixed lighting situation that you can't replicate to get the reference shot.

[Colin Southern]

Great quote Dave...

I wonder if someone could explain WB with reference to the colour temperature on the Kelvin Scale 30-60 minutes after sunrise on a sunny morning (no clouds in the sky)...

My camera manual describes the temperature as being 5200 K, but the references which refer to the Kelvin scale all seem to indicate a much cooler temperature 2000-3500 K.. And it makes sense to me as I'm usually out and about early in the morning, and the ocean waters are much bluer at that time of day, but, birds are bathed in a warmer, golden light.

All of the replies have been very helpful in that I feel confident in how I will set my WB in different situations, and I know that I can fix it easily in the raw photo.

Nevertheless, I feel like I am missing some key point about WB in terms of the Kelvin scale? Perhaps it isn't important but I would like to understand why it differs from what is stated in my camera manual.

Another example which describes sunrise as 2000-3500 Kelvin.


Daylight (Sunlight is the light of the sun only. Daylight combines sunlight and skylight.)

Sunlight: Sunrise of Sunset

2000

Sunlight: One Hour After Sunrise

3500

Sunlight: Early Morning or Late Afternoon

4300

Average Summer Sunlight at Noon in the Mid-latitudes

5400

Direct Mid-Summer Sunlight


5800

Overcast Sky


6000

Daylight Fluorescent Lamp (see note below)


6300

Average Summer Sunlight (plus blue skylight)


6500

Light Summer Shade


7100

Average Summer Shade


8000

Summer Skylight (varies)


9500 – 30,000

Source
http://www.apogeephoto.com/july2004/...en7_2004.shtml

I ask because it is like knowing that the X = 2 in the equation 2 + X = 4, ie knowing but not understanding why or knowing how to figure it out.

Thank you.

Hi Christina,

They're a compensation temperature, so they kinda work in reverse. eg the "warmth" of a sunrise needs a "low" temperature to null it out, where the "coolness" of the mid-day sky needs a "high" colour temperature to null it out. In the case of something like golden hour shooting where the temp is very low though, generally, YOU DON'T WANT TO NULL IT OUT - so you wouldn't necessarily use a low colour temp setting on your camera.

In reality you just use whatever looks best in post-production.

[Brownbear]

Thank you Colin

[LocalHero1953]

I went all round the houses in WB, including using Auto or testing white balance cards under all sorts of natural and artificial lights, but I remained dissatisfied. My aim is to get a final image that looks attractive and natural, though not necessarily identical to what I "saw". Trying to achieve that solely in Lightroom, however, is tricky when the lighting conditions are anything other than just standard sunlight or solely flash, so I appreciate any initial help I can get in-camera. My current simple practice for all natural light shots is to set the camera to daylight, not AutoWB. This seems to work pretty well for most conditions - sunsets are much more successful shot this way than with Auto, and I like the indoor shots using natural light from windows. At least I feel I'm not starting with the camera's bad approximation to what it thinks the WB should be.
I don't find flash a problem as long as there is no other artificial source. If I have to shoot with fluorescent, then those shots are just kept for the record, not for artistic merit - others may be able to handle fluorescent, but I can't. Tungsten is less common these days, but some industrial or commercial lighting appears to have a similar high IR component which throws my sensor (Leica M9). These shots, and any with mixed light sources, are what cause me to spend too long working in Lightroom.

[Colin Southern]

I went all round the houses in WB, including using Auto or testing white balance cards under all sorts of natural and artificial lights, but I remained dissatisfied. My aim is to get a final image that looks attractive and natural, though not necessarily identical to what I "saw". Trying to achieve that solely in Lightroom, however, is tricky when the lighting conditions are anything other than just standard sunlight or solely flash, so I appreciate any initial help I can get in-camera. My current simple practice for all natural light shots is to set the camera to daylight, not AutoWB. This seems to work pretty well for most conditions - sunsets are much more successful shot this way than with Auto, and I like the indoor shots using natural light from windows. At least I feel I'm not starting with the camera's bad approximation to what it thinks the WB should be.
I don't find flash a problem as long as there is no other artificial source. If I have to shoot with fluorescent, then those shots are just kept for the record, not for artistic merit - others may be able to handle fluorescent, but I can't. Tungsten is less common these days, but some industrial or commercial lighting appears to have a similar high IR component which throws my sensor (Leica M9). These shots, and any with mixed light sources, are what cause me to spend too long working in Lightroom.

There's a couple of things going on here that you need to consider:

1. If you're shooting under mixed temperature lighting then no one compensation temperature is going to provide an accurate starting point for both light sources.

2. There's more to accurate colour than just white balancing -- the next step is camera profiles & monitor profiles -- and beyond that, you start getting into gel territory to modify the colour temp of your light sources.

[PhotomanJohn]

By Colin

2. There's more to accurate colour than just white balancing -- the next step is camera profiles

Thank you Colin. I was waiting for someone to bring camera profiles up. For most of my serious photography, I use a ColorChecker Passport to make a custom white balance and then create a profile that I apply in ACR. I find this helps me get all the colors much closer to what I saw when I took the photo. This doesn't mean that I don't sometimes tweak them a little to taste but at least I feel I am starting with colors that appear to be more accurately represent the scene. I would recommend that others give it a try.

John

[Colin Southern]

By Colin


Thank you Colin. I was waiting for someone to bring camera profiles up. For most of my serious photography, I use a ColorChecker Passport to make a custom white balance and then create a profile that I apply in ACR. I find this helps me get all the colors much closer to what I saw when I took the photo. This doesn't mean that I don't sometimes tweak them a little to taste but at least I feel I am starting with colors that appear to be more accurately represent the scene. I would recommend that others give it a try.

John

Yep - same here John. It needs to extend to monitors and printers too though of course.

[PhotomanJohn]

Of course.

[Brownbear]

My monitor is calibrated and set to Adobe sRGB, as is my camera... Do I also need a colour checker passport by Xrite?

Thank you.