Landscapes and White Balance

[Didace]

seems some folk are giving me answers to questions I didn't ask?

That's the nature of an internet forum - you make your post and then it goes on its way out of your control. Often the best answers are to the questions that were never asked.

[NorthernFocus]

Hi Dan, I will try to entertain, we,re agreed this photography thing isn,t painting by numbers then? There is a feeling in my water that I have got off on the wrong foot, seems some folk are giving me answers to questions I didn't ask? I was looking for thoughts on some images I submitted not seeking approval for experimentation or a colour chart for acceptable sunsets.
Regards
Ned

Not off on the wrong foot, Ned. It's all good. As you said in a prior post, we all learn one anothers' internet personalities along the way. Takes a while to feel things out among a new crowd. That said, based on my experience with different photography related forums (fora?) over the years, the membership here does seem to have a higher than average technical bent. So it's natural for peoples' heads to go to the area they are comfortable with. Plus when one is new, one doesn't have the benefit of knowing what topics have been discussed ad nauseum and who has particular pet peeves. I haven't been around here that long myself and still bungle into topics once in a while that get spun up. But now at least I quickly recognize the signs

None of it is good/bad, right/wrong, it's just people being people. Take in what's good/useful and take the rest with a grain of salt. Keep in mind that all arguments are voluntary. Most everyone means well. And if you don't take any of it too seriously it can also be hugely entertaining and educational on the human condition...

That's the nature of an internet forum - you make your post and then it goes on its way out of your control....

Roger that...

[nimitzbenedicto]

Its all good feedback. Why, well even if you don't comment on the images or production methods etc. etc. you tell me something about you. Photography has so many facets, its a journey for me and communicating with other people who engage in it is part of it. I also have no illusion about my standard.

I have the luxury of not having to make a living from photography so i can indulge myself. I think many loose their way in as much as if you don't visualise an end use for your imagery then its easy to become defensive or over technical or narcissistic. What does the client require is a good motivator. I like hearing the view of others it all helps me learn. There is no right or wrong in any of it, there are conventions and expected norms. If you want to be a good butterfly photographer there are conventions and expectations (all the beast in focus for example) or for portraits the eyes need to be in focus. I know this is a broad generalisation but you may get my drift.
So for me I learn what the rules are and ignore adhere or amend to suit my purpose.
The WB post in my experience always generates some sort of oblique debate that ranges from sell your camera mate to a more considered opinion (in my view) like Donalds.
The intention behind the images I submitted were to experiment in camera with the settings, ask peoples opinions, enjoy the ones I like and compare wb on this scene with un manipulated images taken by my wife. We also had a picnic and I took many golden hour shots from the same spot and close by of different things. The light was exciting when it arrived and the redder image captures my awe at such a beautiful occurrence.
What was interesting was that unadulterated images from my wives Konica Minolta were not a million miles away from the first colourful image here where I set the wb to cloudy. My second image here was auto wb.
I like the first one. Also I did a panorama at cloudy wb and then in raw process auto levelled which changed the colours and gave a different feel. The technocrats will say you can do all that from 1 image, that science is science. They are wrong. There are many variables and unless you can measure each variable exactly you can't predict the outcome. Another thing is perception, we all live in a virtual reality. Close your eyes and think of the colour red. Did you think of a post office red or was it more a cerise? But we all know what red is don't we. It feels like some of the responses were people seeing red rather than saying whether they liked what I posted or not. I don't recall asking whether what I'd done was right or wrong ?
Many thanks for your participation it all helps.
Cheers
Ned

Yes.

( btw, if you receive a PM , nope, I'm not a troll. Just agreeing with some of your post above. )

[Ned Ward]

Dan,Victor,Didace, thank you for your contributions. Without wanting to be argumentative here,s my final shot.
NIkon D600 reviews were excited about Nikons better sensor that gave better WB ? DId this mean earlier cameras were poor at determining WB
Many studio pros say they use a grey card to set the WB to give better colour rendition including Peter Hurley, who uses 30k plus Hassies and Adobe Lightroom, he obviously does not trust their science to give accurate wb and sets it at each shoot. Tungsten lights gave notoriously difficult to correct red light even in raw processing for certain makes of camera.
Why if there are buttons on your camera do some folks not press them to see what happens? It's all stuff and nonsense in my mildly red world' which incidentally means I burn cooler than the blue light boys n gals.
Thank you to all contributors, it's been a gas.
Regards
Ned

[Stagecoach]

Why if there are buttons on your camera do some folks not press them to see what happens?

I would suggest that some folks know what buttons they do not need or want to press for their purposes. This of course does not mean that they do not know what those buttons can do.

[Clive Kirby]

Ned
I like the sunset images, the first has drama and the second has soft pastel colours. One thing that strikes me about the second image (which I think I prefer) is that the oblique line formed by the cloud line is mirrored by the edge of the sea in the bottom left hand corner. That along with the headland in the distance and the horizon gives a balanced and geometric feel to the image.

Thanks for starting an interesting debate. I tend to agree with "in camera" experimenting, but then that is probably because that is what I generally do.

regards
Clive

[AB26]

Here's a couple of seascapes that I took about 30 exposures of over an evening till sunset. I used different in camera WB settings from cloudy to overcast, auto to dialled in k values.

Hi Ned,

I am not going to comment on these two shots as I can see you knew exactly what you were doing, by judging your Finch image.

Adjusting WB in camera to get different effects has been on my menu for a long while now. Discovering how to fine tune WB has made a big difference in what I can now achieve in getting the image in camera to look like I want before resorting to PP.

What I would like to know is the reason why you “fool around” with WB settings if you are shooting RAW and using CS5 as part of the workflow. I am a total idiot when it comes to “manipulating” images in PP, therefore I have to get it as close as possible in camera, hence my obsession with in camera settings.
The reason I am asking is because I am also a D200 shooter.

Now let me sit back and read all the other comments in this thread.

[Ned Ward]

Grahame,

You obviously know everything, as you would have me believe that its a good idea to drive 40 miles up the motorway to catch a sunset which has changing light and other conditions which would affect outcome ,for at least an hour and take 1 shot on auto pilot and then return home and play on the computer. If you don't like my efforts, methods, images and posts fine but don't try and tell me you are experienced or serious about photography or helping other people learn.
You are so superior, I bow and scrape to your undoubted talent, altruism and tit for tat approach, very mature.

You don't seem to have a very helpful attitude and especially where strangers are concerned. You need to get out more!

[Ned Ward]

Andre, I fool around with things like WB because I can. My learning style is to get my hands dirty so to speak and learn from experience rather than follow someone else's crib sheet. If you change WB settings on site and then view them even on the small on camera screen then you can see the effects whilst you are in the middle of good light. I know you may miss some detail because of the size of the viewing area, but its better than nowt.
If I set WB to cloudy it will introduce more red into the colours. It can liven up a lack lustre sunset or in the case of my post really saturate and give "unbelievable" colours and by that I mean more arty colours shade,saturation etc, than you may expect. Photography at my meagre level and ability should be fun and challenging not painting by numbers. There are rules as you know, but what the hey who gets hurt if you don't follow them. Its easy to get science and art mixed up and photography is a mixture of both.
Cheers
Ned

[Manfred M]

NIkon D600 reviews were excited about Nikons better sensor that gave better WB ? DId this mean earlier cameras were poor at determining WB
Many studio pros say they use a grey card to set the WB to give better colour rendition including Peter Hurley, who uses 30k plus Hassies and Adobe Lightroom, he obviously does not trust their science to give accurate wb and sets it at each shoot. Tungsten lights gave notoriously difficult to correct red light even in raw processing for certain makes of camera.

Ned - sunset shots are classical "mixed light" with a reddish light cutting through a lot of atmosphere and other blue light bouncing down from above; so it is very much mixed light shooting. I seem to vaguely remember why this happens from a physics course taken many decades ago. A white balance card is really not a lot of use for a sunset shot of a landscape or a seascape, but I can certainly see how it would help if you are shooting a portrait in this type of lighting (which clearly you are not). Your Peter Hurley example (head shots done in a studio using strobes) is probably the exact opposite of what you are looking for here; going for the “correct” WB. I get the impression you are looking at trying to figure out what result gives you pleasing results.

I remember doing a photographic lighting course a few years back where the instructor did more or less what you did; got all of us to shoot sunset scenes using different WB just to see what results the various settings got us. Daylight and cloudy settings provided those nice oranges and reds, shooting a white balance target gave very uninteresting results and the tungsten setting resulted in a very unattractive blue colour cast.

I usually find that the dynamic range of these types of shot is just too much for the camera’s sensor to record, and even when playing with the exposure, you just don’t get a shot that comes together quite right. I’ve been experimenting with a number of techniques to deal with the dynamic range. I have been playing with graduated neutral density filters to darken the sky (usually 2 or 3 stop) and this works fairly well with shots where the horizon is fairly well defined. I’ve also started playing around with shooting brackets images (+2 0 -2) shots taken at “golden hour” (rather than pure sunset shots) and then blending the shots in post to bring out the highlights and shadow detail. This is labour intensive, but the results can be very interesting. One gets high dynamic range without the nasty side effects of HDR / tone mapping.

[Daisy Mae]

it is an accusation levelled at me from other forums of which i have passed through many.

Why would that be..do you think?

[NorthernFocus]

...I remember doing a photographic lighting course a few years back where the instructor did more or less what you did; got all of us to shoot sunset scenes using different WB just to see what results the various settings got us. Daylight and cloudy settings provided those nice oranges and reds, shooting a white balance target gave very uninteresting results and the tungsten setting resulted in a very unattractive blue colour cast...

Thanks for bringing this up, Manfred. I was going to do so earlier in the context of this being a learning forum. But I figured there was no point until Ned's unofficial hazing was complete and all of the other nonsense got out of the way.

One must recognize that the white balance control in-camera is nothing more than manipulating color. The camera is attempting to evaluate the color temperature of the light entering the lens and then correct color to what the scene would look like under baseline lighting conditions. This is a similar process to the camera's light meter trying to set an exposure to make everything grey. So when shooting dramatic lighting conditions, left to it's own devices, the camera would make the image bland(to most peoples' perception). In the case of shooting with the camera facing the yellow/orange glow of a lovely sunset, the camera will try to correct for the warm yellow/orange light and turn the clouds white. So as pointed out, if one were to diligently and effectively use a grey/white card or an ambient color meter, properly evaluate white balance, and apply the resultant setting to a sunset capture, the very color tones that make the sunset interesting would be removed. Other than the angular lighting one might as well capture the scene in the middle of the day. So IMO there are very few situations when taking photos of interesting lighting that the technically accurate white balance is desireable even if it could be achieved.

Which brings us back to Ned's OP. Bravo for experimenting with varioius WB settings. It's like playing with the digital version of a box full of film era filters. Now that I think about it, the philisophical opinions expressed thereafter are similar as well. Same type of arguments used to occur between on camera filter users, dark room manipulators, and "purists". The technology changes but people are the same...

[Ned Ward]

Manfred,yes,yes,yes my post was a celebration of the different effects available by trying to understand what my camera on different settings was doing. (Not all sensors behave the same how could they?) and then manipulate that whilst on site to,maintain an attachment emotionally to,the subject. My gut feeling is that auto settings are anti art but useful in some circumstances. I referred to Hurley as a one trick pony but with style flair and creativity who instructs WB settings quite rightly to take full control. Sunsets and landscapes, in fact any image making that relies on mixed lighting that is not easily controllable, you need to take hold of creativity somehow and WB manipulation is a way to do it. The idea thrown at me by one respondent that experimentation at source was to be ridiculed really irritated. You tube tutorials on WB manipulation may be able to approximate skin tones to "expectations" of the human psyche but sunsets are indeed different. Although there are limits to the extent that manipulations are deemed acceptable, and the biggest critics seem to be photographers. Ordinary folk decide if they like something first and seldom examine in detail any perception of "reality" The red image I submitted seems well liked by some of the community where it was shot! despite my reservations about the credibility of the colours. I'm not keen on HDR photography but it is an art form in its own right and legitimate without prejudice.
As for the technology two cameras by different manufacturers gave different results on auto WB, but when I dialled in cloudy to inject red to the clean white auto corrected Nikon it corresponded closely with the auto WB Konica. Now tell me what's going on there, it's individual manufacturer nuances (the technology) not being consistent against the indisputable science. Gawd the colour of light is how real intelligent people can tell what the universe is made of! All I wanted was a yes we like or no we don't like!
Thanks for your input, I appreciate it.
Ned

[Ned Ward]

Sharon, I'm Einsteinian because what you see or perceive is relative to your space time position, understanding, knowledge and movement, It's relativity.
We are all subject to inflicting our prejudice, preferences, beliefs and existence on others. It's just a question of scale. I'm just an ordinary bloke passing time till I die, but some folks think they are the centre of the universe and can't tolerate diversity of thought action or deed. Ironically I'm probably my own toughest critic, but I know the boy means well. I have no credentials or standing but I'm entitled to an opinion, however flawed, along with everyone else. I don't mean to wind folk up but seem to have a knack!
Cheers Ned

[Stagecoach]

As for the technology two cameras by different manufacturers gave different results on auto WB, but when I dialled in cloudy to inject red to the clean white auto corrected Nikon it corresponded closely with the auto WB Konica. Now tell me what's going on there, it's individual manufacturer nuances (the technology) not being consistent against the indisputable science.

Is it because your are looking at two images on two different cameras of which the Jpeg you see has been determined by the individual manufacturers software and the internal settings of each camera set by the user?

[Ned Ward]

Dan, I concur, with your post, I'm glad you and Manfred showed up I was slowly tearing out what little hair I have left. If I had the resources I'd probably undertake formal training to degree level as these forums can be a minefield on a path to enlightenment
I have a lot to say but be assured it's in good heart and my desire to learn and respect others is sincere. I just don' suffer fools gladly there's not enough life left.
Regards
Ned

[Ned Ward]

Grahame, it's auto WB mode, which is the only mode on the Konica that only takes jpegs and dialled cloud WB on the Nikon camera dial shot as Raw. As you know the science of colour temp is sound so the difference must be the way the camera technology works. Hence I can't accept a catch all adjustment in any software my experience shows it ain't so. I probably don't explain myself very well, but I urge everyone to try a similar exercise. No doubt some cameras may behave in a similar fashion but I reckon there is enough difference out there to maintain my scepticism,
Regards
Ned

[AB26]

Why would that be..do you think?

Sharon, allow me to stick my neck out way beyond my shell. Many will attempt to chop my head off but as you probably know by now, I have a skin like a Rhinoceros.

In photography there is an unofficial term “photographers envy” nobody ever mentions it but it is real.

If it seems like I am seeking Ned’s favour you are right, I am. I would not like Ned to disappear from this forum as I might just learn something from him. Ned is at a “level” few will ever achieve, that is evident in the images he posted.

Envy is a nasty thing and it was evident in the way Ned was welcomed to this forum.
I am ashamed at the way some members have treated this new member to the forum. At least he is not some faceless individual on the other side of a computer screen. I think he deserves more respect from us here at CiC. We are all here to learn, at least I hope so. If you can respect Ned for what he has achieved in getting that Finch shot you will understand what I am trying to say.

CiC is supposed to be different from other fora, the ones Ned has passed trough. On other fora there might be lots more envy than there is here at CiC.

My remarks are not aimed at you Sharon. You asked the question and I have been burning to answer it. Be glad I am not able to write this in my home language, Afrikaans, for if I could do it I might have seriously hurt the feelings of those showing so much animosity towards a man, that I believe, is serious in joining a forum where he can share his passion with others whom understand what it is to be passionate about photography.

We should not allow our personal prejudice to get the better of us and make photography suffer because of it.

If Ned is going to fail me on my judgment of character on this one I will lose even more faith in humanity.

[Ned Ward]

Andre, I just trying to learn to be the best I can be and connect with others. I don't know if there is any envy involved and I'm certainly not looking to create any.If there is envy its misplaced as my standard is mediocre at best. CC has been referred to as a learning resource in some of the internet places I've travelled. Also Luminous Landscapes. Both sites seem to have great stickies and knowledge resources. Indeed there is some intelligent thought in this thread (and no i don't mean mine) I have visited the site many times but only recently decide to try the forum.
The problem with peer group assessment is the expertise that some claim to have. As I don't have any expertise I can offer only opinions and things I have tried myself or links to credible information or individuals. I can also identify through whats written kindred spirits or reasoned arguments or knowledge that I can research and verify.
I'm glad you like the Finch, its a work in progress (bird photography) but I can improve.
Good photography I believe is in the reach of everyone willing to learn and experience. Great photography is out of my reach but I'll keep stretching my level even if the rest of the world think its crap!
Its not my nature to be judgemental, there are people and circumstances I get along with, and others I avoid. My passion is photography.
You seem a 'stand up guy" Andre, thanks for taking time to comment.
Regards
Ned

[Daisy Mae]

So Ned has passed through many other forums because the other photographers were envious of him...well I am glad you sorted that out for us Andre.

Ned, I think you came at this forum like a bull at a gate and I think that's why you were not welcomed with open arms. Perhaps if you take the time to look around, view and comment on the work of others and get to know us all a bit before launching into lengthy speeches you would find that we really are a very friendly and helpful bunch indeed.

So...hello and welcome, it's nice to have you onboard.