White balance settings for speedlights?
Discussion
Morning all,
I'm tring to get into a bit of strobist lighting on vehicles, and one cold night when I was bored, I shot my work van using a remote manual speedlight in various places to light it, as can be seen below.
I'm going to get more practice this weekend with a car of a friend, but it just occurred to me that if virtually 100% of the lighting is from speedlight(s) then what should I set my white balance to, or does it matter?
Camera: D7000
Speedlights: Chinese Yongnuo things
Thanks
I'm tring to get into a bit of strobist lighting on vehicles, and one cold night when I was bored, I shot my work van using a remote manual speedlight in various places to light it, as can be seen below.
I'm going to get more practice this weekend with a car of a friend, but it just occurred to me that if virtually 100% of the lighting is from speedlight(s) then what should I set my white balance to, or does it matter?
Camera: D7000
Speedlights: Chinese Yongnuo things
Thanks
I would set the wb to 'flash' and shoot raw for better results when processing.
Having it set to a fixed value, rather than auto, will give more consistent results between shots.
If you're just shooting individual images then either should work but if you're using a tripod to take multiple shots, with the flash in different positions, to merge in photo shop then consistent wb would be needed. :-)
Having it set to a fixed value, rather than auto, will give more consistent results between shots.
If you're just shooting individual images then either should work but if you're using a tripod to take multiple shots, with the flash in different positions, to merge in photo shop then consistent wb would be needed. :-)
Choices, choices!
1 Take a shot with a grey card in it, leave in AWB - adjust in Lightroom
2 Take a custom WB using a grey card, use the custom setting - adjust if necessary in Lightroom
3 Just leave in AWB - adjust in Lightroom
4 Change to Flash WB and adjust if necessary in Lightroom
5 Use a filter over your speedlights to balance with ambient light and use 1-4 as preferred.
6 Process in monochrome
1 Take a shot with a grey card in it, leave in AWB - adjust in Lightroom
2 Take a custom WB using a grey card, use the custom setting - adjust if necessary in Lightroom
3 Just leave in AWB - adjust in Lightroom
4 Change to Flash WB and adjust if necessary in Lightroom
5 Use a filter over your speedlights to balance with ambient light and use 1-4 as preferred.
6 Process in monochrome
NinjaPower said:
I'm going to get more practice this weekend with a car of a friend, but it just occurred to me that if virtually 100% of the lighting is from speedlight(s) then what should I set my white balance to, or does it matter?
If you're lighting 100% from speedlights then you should set your white balance to flash. If you're using AWB then nearly always get this wrong if you're using off-camera strobes.As others have said you can fix this in post if you shoot in RAW but I always prefer to get it as close as possible in-camera.
As a pragmatist I see no point whatsoever in setting a specific WB if shooting RAW.
IMHO shooting RAW means one less thing to worry about when shooting; fire away and deal with it later at leisure.
Xerstead said:
Having it set to a fixed value, rather than auto, will give more consistent results between shots.
It's true that AWB might give different values between shots, but when you load them into your RAW processor of choice, if you want them all the same, simply set the WB for the first shot the way you like it and simply apply it to all the rest.IMHO shooting RAW means one less thing to worry about when shooting; fire away and deal with it later at leisure.
Set it to....whatever you want it to be. The colour for Flash is about 5500k I think. Maybe it's 6500k, I forget. Anyway, anything that's not lit by flash will be affected by your WB choice. Which is cool when you start gelling the flashes and burning in the ambient. I like blue gels and yellow wb's every so often.
andy-xr said:
Set it to....whatever you want it to be. The colour for Flash is about 5500k I think. Maybe it's 6500k, I forget. Anyway, anything that's not lit by flash will be affected by your WB choice. Which is cool when you start gelling the flashes and burning in the ambient. I like blue gels and yellow wb's every so often.
CTO gel and tungsten WB makes for awesome blue skies and nice warm skin tonesSimpo Two said:
As a pragmatist I see no point whatsoever in setting a specific WB if shooting RAW.
Correct white balance not only makes it look right on the LCD preview but also affects the histogram so can affect your exposure. It also helps with previews on the computer.Its a simple task to switch WB to flash and have it about right enough for working with straight off.
Of course its also a simple thing to forget you've manually set a WB and have all your photos the next day look weird...
K12beano said:
Sir Simpo, have you any tips for mixed sources?
I know that OP doesn't consider this an issue in this case - so slightly OT, but often relevant.
This is a valid point actually, despite what I said earlier...I know that OP doesn't consider this an issue in this case - so slightly OT, but often relevant.
One of the locations will be a dimly lit workshop, so I will then have a combination of dim fluorescent lighting and the speedlights to contend with!
Simpo Two said:
Turn the fluorescents off and bounce the flash?
or keep them on and get some CTG gels for your flashes http://flashgels.co.uk/shop/index.php?main_page=pr...Gassing Station | Photography & Video | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff