AWB or Custom ?

[Turn7]

Sooo, do you leave the body to sort the WB itself, or do set a custom white balance ?

Those that run Custom, do you do it every shoot, and if so, whats your method ?

No real reason for this, other than pure interest. Ive seen things like whibalance and the expodisc....

[LongQ]

Turn7 said:

Sooo, do you leave the body to sort the WB itself, or do set a custom white balance ?

Those that run Custom, do you do it every shoot, and if so, whats your method ?

No real reason for this, other than pure interest. Ive seen things like whibalance and the expodisc....

Auto.

But then I use RAW 99.9% of the time so it doesn't really matter anyway.

[steveatesh]

Auto but as above, I shoot in Raw. I then spend ages with Paintshop Pro wondering what the "right" WB is as it seems to be subjective!

[Turn7]

Yeah, I should have said in the OP, leave it in RAW and worry about it later!

[rottie102]

Cloudy for 90% of the time and if it looks weird than Auto

[Simpo Two]

Turn7 said:

Yeah, I should have said in the OP, leave it in RAW and worry about it later!

^^ That.

Depending on your software you might have a dropper that will make the part you click on neutral grey, and/or another 'auto WB' option which can be surprisingly different from what the camera thought. Somewhere between the three will be something that looks right

[RobDickinson]

Auto generally , sunny or cloudy for panoramics, tungsten it cloudy for astro.

It's true shooting raw you can change it later but there's still a few reasons to set it manually even for landscapes.

If you're shooting needing colour accuracy you have to take a reading at the time

[markmullen]

Auto usually with raw. I use Colorchecker passport for colour accurate jobs.

The one time I use a custom white balance is if I'm printing on site at an event where I'm shooting JPEG and working quickly.

[tim-b]

Auto as well (but always RAW).

The only times I've used 'manual' WB is when I've messed about with multiple image panoramics or 'brenizer' type shots (where you stitch together lots of images), since I've done then in jpg to save card space....

[RobDickinson]

Just remember auto will suck colour out of golden hour shots, in camera, and throw the histogram out because this typically has the wb applied

[LongQ]

RobDickinson said:

Just remember auto will suck colour out of golden hour shots, in camera, and throw the histogram out because this typically has the wb applied

In a similar vein if the shot has no evident areas of mostly pure white, grey or black the AWB will have nothing very useful to work with ... and neither will anyone editing the image. But then you are even more likely to be better off with RAW if you have the time to make the necessary edits. (And the skill for interpretation if it's a really tricky one ...)

That said, for many images in most regular use situations even re-balancing a marginal jpg is likely to be quite acceptable especially if you have an editor that allows local WB and colour adjustments should they be needed.

[Simpo Two]

LongQ said:

In a similar vein if the shot has no evident areas of mostly pure white, grey or black the AWB will have nothing very useful to work with ...

The only advantage of wedding photography is that there's usually something white in the shot... if not a wedding dress then a shirt or tablecloth. However it's surprising how often a WB that is technically correct 'looks' wrong; I usually start by getting the whites white and then add a little warmth - and as the day goes on sometimes I need to add more.

[rottie102]

Simpo Two said:

The only advantage of wedding photography is that there's usually something white in the shot... if not a wedding dress then a shirt or tablecloth. However it's surprising how often a WB that is technically correct 'looks' wrong; I usually start by getting the whites white and then add a little warmth - and as the day goes on sometimes I need to add more.

That's why for me CLOUDY is the default setting, IMO most of the time photos look better.

[Oldred_V8S]

I am a follower of the Guy Gowan methodology. Always left on flash, whatever the scenario. Then WB can be adjusted in raw converter on each batch of images in the same setting. Not as daft as it sounds.

[JulianHJ]

I always left it in auto (for landscapes), as I shoot RAW, but started using Cloudy in the last couple of weeks following a recommendation by my wife.

[Turn7]

JulianHJ said:

I always left it in auto (for landscapes), as I shoot RAW, but started using Cloudy in the last couple of weeks following a recommendation by my wife.

Have you noticed any difference?

[markmullen]

Turn7 said:

JulianHJ said:

I always left it in auto (for landscapes), as I shoot RAW, but started using Cloudy in the last couple of weeks following a recommendation by my wife.

Have you noticed any difference?

The only difference you'll see if shooting raw is on the preview LCD and on import into your raw converter. You could leave it in Tungsten if you wanted, your preview screen would be blue, and the individual colour histograms will be out but the resulting raw file will be just the same.

[Simpo Two]

Oldred_V8S said:

I am a follower of the Guy Gowan methodology. Always left on flash, whatever the scenario. Then WB can be adjusted in raw converter on each batch of images in the same setting. Not as daft as it sounds.

?

I can set all RAWs to the same K in a few clicks regardless of what they were taken at. It seems a pretty basic requirement to me.

[JulianHJ]

Turn7 said:

Have you noticed any difference?

As Mark says, it's purely a difference on the LCD. Lightroom shows the 'As Shot' WB initially IIRC, but I invariably change this, though sometimes only fractionally.