White Balance Confusion!

[Nicks Pics]

Sorry, Nick, but I must disagree with the last sentence. There are too many different cases of outdoor photography to be able to apply the single scenario of 'a snowy mountain at sunset' to most cases.

Should have said nature photography, as that is what the original question was about and that's what I was referring to- any sort of photography where nature is the subject, I would think in most situations you would want to match the WB to what you see, so that you can capture the look of the present light.Loosecanon described my perspective well here:

Outdoor lighting varies - indeed surely it is one of the wonders how a sceen changes with different lighting, colour temperature, intensity, diffusion. and direction. So outdoors I set it to look right,for my personal preference, but with any series of the same place with the same lighting keep to the same colour temperature.

This is one of my pet peeves, people "correcting" snow to white. Sometimes we forget that photography is all about capturing light. What better reflector of light than snow? When I correct scenes with snow in them, I correct them to what I remember seeing, not to make the snow white. Golden tones under some conditions and blue shadows on clear, sunny days. That's what snow looks like in my world. I do seem to recall some rosy tones in my youth that I haven't seen for years

Yes, I agree that for nature potography it makes sense not to set the WB to your mind's interpreted WB,-See blue snow, and know it's white, but to an actual WB so that the viewer must then look at the image the same way you would look at the real scene, that seems like the only way to portray natural outdoor lighting.

[ajohnw]

Ya might want to take a gander at this video as an alternative method ...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWaFDKrNrwc

Not a bad thought WM. Thanks.

John
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[DanK]

Yes, I agree that for nature potography it makes sense not to set the WB to your mind's interpreted WB,-See blue snow, and know it's white, but to an actual WB so that the viewer must then look at the image the same way you would look at the real scene, that seems like the only way to portray natural outdoor lighting.

I agree with the principle but not the procedure. Perhaps others do better than I do, but I often find it hard to know what camera setting will provide an image that looks as I will remember it. So, my approach is that I never rely on the setting. I will often choose a setting that I think may get me close, e.g., setting to a fixed temperature, but I never rely on that. I always shoot raw, which makes it trivial to adjust the image to match what I want. In doing that, I often find it very helpful to have a true white, even if I won't keep it. That is why, if I think WB may be difficult, I shoot a frame with a whiBal. It gives a neutral starting point. If it yield too warm a color temperature for snow, just cool it off to taste.

What I am suggesting is that it is a lot easier to do this in post than to worry too much about camera settings.

[NorthernFocus]

...What I am suggesting is that it is a lot easier to do this in post than to worry too much about camera settings.

Exactly. I can't even recall the last time I changed the WB setting on a camera. It can be useful if the scene is dominated by a warm or cool color. For example taking a seascape shot with a lot of blue sea and sky on a clear, sunny day. In a situation like that I might switch WB to daylight setting knowing that on auto WB the camera will over compensate and choose a very cool WB setting.

[xpatUSA]

Yes, I agree that for nature potography it makes sense not to set the WB to your mind's interpreted WB,-See blue snow, and know it's white, but to an actual WB so that the viewer must then look at the image the same way you would look at the real scene, that seems like the only way to portray natural outdoor lighting.

I agree with the principle but not the procedure.

Yes, Nick seems to be paraphrasing the standard 'white balance' mantra, that the eye makes a strong effort to make white appear white but does not succeed fully - unlike the camera shot with custom WB set to a neutral surface which results in perfect neutral colors, thereby needing an adjustment somewhere to bring back that cold blue tinge or that warm sunset look.

Dan's method looks a bit easier to this lazy old man . . .

[ajohnw]

It's possible to have colour temperature problems just because one part of the shot is in shade and another isn't. eg



What colour should all of the grass be - visually the same all over and maybe a tiny touch darker. Most of it is covered with dew but that is more apparent in the darker areas. It has had some local adjustment too.

John
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[Nicks Pics]

Probably most of you have more experience with it than I do, with which to develop a workable method, but I was thinking that if you don't take any care to set the WB at the time of shooting to a nearer WB to what you see , you would merely have to guess what it looked like later in post. Not to say that I wouldn't be adjusting in post some either way likely.

What color should all of the grass be - visually the same all over and maybe a tiny touch darker. Most of it is covered with dew but that is more apparent in the darker areas. It has had some local adjustment too.

John, you may be right that not all parts of a scene should have the same white balance, because in the above example you are seeing into two different temperatures of light, it seems, because some grass is in shadow and other grass is in sunlight.

[ajohnw]

Probably most of you have more experience with it than I do, with which to develop a workable method, but I was thinking that if you don't take any care to set the WB at the time of shooting to a nearer WB to what you see , you would merely have to guess what it looked like later in post. Not to say that I wouldn't be adjusting in post some either way likely.


John, you may be right that not all parts of a scene should have the same white balance, because in the above example you are seeing into two different temperatures of light, it seems, because some grass is in shadow and other grass is in sunlight.

That's why I always use auto white balance Nick and the if working from raw select camera white balance and adjust if needed - in either case. Even the auto on my ancient 300D is decent - the 1sr reasonably priced dslr. My Olympus stuff produced rather warm tone images under tungsten lighting in particular until I noticed an option to turn it off.

One alternative is to only shoot under certain circumstances where mixed lighting doesn't happen. Personally I am not into that sort of thing but some are - golden hour plus shooting in a particular direction etc.

John
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