White balance issues

[Barabm]

Hello everyone,
Here is my issues:
I'm trying to make a time lapse at night. Once I'm done with the shooting and look at my photos in LR I can clearly see a difference of the white balance between consecutive frame. Going from red-ish to green-ish. I tried to set the camera white balance Auto or just set the temperature. I don't think it should matter since I shoot raw. All other settings are on manual and doesn't change frame to frame. The results is a totally annoying flickering. I can't explain myself why this happen. It seems quite more obvious with my Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 but I'm thinking that's because more lights get in than my other f3.5 lens. I don't see how it could be the lens since it's just glass. Nothing should change from frame to frame. Why such discrepency with 2 consecutive frames. I'm thinking something is wrong with my camera (D90) when processing the data inconsistenly with the pretty much the same information.
This is not an issue for still photos since I just can adjust the WB manually. For TL, it's just unworkable...

I'll appreciate any comments that can help me understand what's going on.

Thank you!

[HaseebM]

Use 'Daylight' as your WB.

[Kodiak]

Use 'Daylight' as your WB.

+1

[IzzieK]

During the day WB is cloudy; at night use Daylight WB. Is that confusing enough?

[Barabm]

+1

Alright. I'll try that. I have a hard time to understand how's that work. Shooting in raw and setting the temperature, I would've expect consistency in the WB. So, if I shoot in raw and change to DAYLIGHT on existing sequences, would you think that would fix the problem on these existing sequences? Well, I guess I just have to give it a try. If you have some explaination on "why", it would be good to understand.

Anyway. Thank you very much for the input!

[Barabm]

Totally!! But it seems like everybody agree. Almost like it's obvious ;-)
Still don't get it though...
thx!

[xpatUSA]

Totally!! But it seems like everybody agree. Almost like it's obvious ;-)
Still don't get it though...
thx!

Here's an explanation. The background of the explanation was a long research into "what is the correct WB for a traffic light shot at night with no other lighting in the scene". The answer turned out to be (theoretically) the 'equal energy' white point (google CIE 1931 color gamut diagram). The nearest in-camera WB to that is 'daylight'. In ACR the 'equal energy' setting is 5455K and -13 tint (IIRC).

Hope that helps . .

[Barabm]

Thanks Ted.
I guess I do somewhat understand that Daylight will give me the closest "real" white balance. Using 5455K should give similar results. However, my main issue is (for timelapse purposes) the consistency between consecutive frame taken with seconds of interval between each of them. If I take two consecutive frames at 5455K or Daylight WB, I would expect very close WB. I'm experiencing quite visible discrepencies.
I could live with "wrong" WB, but I want consistency...
thx

[Stagecoach]

What is your subject and what is providing the light to enable you to photograph it?

[Slipper]

As you use LR, and RAW, could you adjust your first and then copy/paste to the others. I wonder if this would result in a consistent set?

[SteveF]

Thanks Ted.
I guess I do somewhat understand that Daylight will give me the closest "real" white balance. Using 5455K should give similar results. However, my main issue is (for timelapse purposes) the consistency between consecutive frame taken with seconds of interval between each of them. If I take two consecutive frames at 5455K or Daylight WB, I would expect very close WB. I'm experiencing quite visible discrepencies.
I could live with "wrong" WB, but I want consistency...
thx

Time lapse of exterior lights at night? Possibly the problem is the cycling of the lamps such as we suffer in arenas and such where some lamps on a phase are out of synch with others on a different phase.

[Barabm]

Time lapse of exterior lights at night? Possibly the problem is the cycling of the lamps such as we suffer in arenas and such where some lamps on a phase are out of synch with others on a different phase.

Hi Steve,
I experience this issue with stars. Only natural light.
Thx.

[Barabm]

What is your subject and what is providing the light to enable you to photograph it?

Milky way, stars. It's a long time exposure.

[Barabm]

As you use LR, and RAW, could you adjust your first and then copy/paste to the others. I wonder if this would result in a consistent set?

I did try that. My understanding of that feature is that, for example, if my WB temperature would be different, it would copy the same value for the frame I paste to. For my case, both frame have the same value of WB temp but doesn't show up as the same.

[Barabm]

I did try that. My understanding of that feature is that, for example, if my WB temperature would be different, it would copy the same value for the frame I paste to. For my case, both frame have the same value of WB temp but doesn't show up as the same.

I mean, visually I can see a difference. Values are the same for WB.