[ffking]

I'm (another) one who doesn't worry over much about WB in camera - I tend to leave the camera on 'natural' and do the WB in post. The reason for this is twofold: first, our eyes (or brains) have their own WB, which isn't consistent with the actual physial wavelengths of the light actually hitting our retinas most of the time (ie doesn't alays respond to the same wavelength the same way in the image it creates in our minds), and so making the image how I remember it is more important that makijng it 'accurate' - and second, photography doesn't just flatten 3 dimensions into 2, it flattens a multi-sensory experience into a visual image, so sometimes adjustments to colour temperature (or even the magenta/green slider) which are not 'accurate' are useful to receate the feeling of being there.

[pschlute]

I think the famous white & gold / blue & black dress is always worth remembering in any white balance discussion, because it's such a startling example of how differently we all perceive colour: The dress - Wikipedia

A great example , and one to remember when someone insists they want natural real world colours !

Slightly off topic but here is a similar example that shows how our brain that can be the final arbiter of colour

You Tube

You Tube

[lsimpkins]

The internet makes it easy to learn things. It also makes it easy to find contradictory information. Photographers can get great results using AWB, a gray card, or other techniques.

My preference is to always use raw format (DNG) and AWB. Raw saves all the color information and allows liberal white balance adjustment if needed; jpg format does not.

When I import photos into Lightroom for processing, the white balance setting defaults to what the camera detected. That's correct in most cases. If I don't like what the camera detected, though, I can ask Lightroom to try its own version of autodetect, or use the color picker, or manually adjust the slider.

I do much the same - shoot DNG in AWB and make any adjustments in LR. I find that in most cases, I don't need to make any adjustments to "As Shot" but when I do, LR's "Auto" setting is usually the answer. Upon rare occasion, I actually adjust "Temp" or "Tint" to produce the results I have in mind and the eye dropper helps in difficult situations.

[StiffLegged]

I've shot RAW (DNG) with the white balance wildly adrift and was horrified at the results in camera. However, correcting the colour temperature in PP showed that the RAW isn't affected by the WB at all, only the camera's preview. Done the same with colour set to B&W and still got full colour from the DNG – try that shooting JPG and you're stuffed!


What can be occasionally useful is setting the WB manually to make a Live View image match the scene as you see it in extreme conditions, especially sunrise/sunset strongly coloured lighting of a subject – it makes setting exposure via the histogram more accurate, especially avoiding blowing out the red channel. I only do this atop a tripod or it's too much futzing around. (the camera atop the tripod, not me...!)

[stevebrot]

I think the famous white & gold / blue & black dress is always worth remembering in any white balance discussion, because it's such a startling example of how differently we all perceive colour...

...and also what difference one's display makes in what one sees.


Steve

[C_Jones]

A basic strategy for me is to use Daylight for a fairly lit day, Flash for flash/monolight use, or AWB for other types if the situation is a changing one. Otherwise, if I am not on the go and want to make use of the manual setting of the Kelvin numbers I just choose whichever one provides the most normal looking image when I look through the live view screen, and adjust the Kelvin number as needed.

Of course there are variations of that type of strategy, but that is sort of a guideline unless I decide to adapt to the situation using another method.

Good luck.

[swanlefitte]

Just tonight I went back and changed white balance on an old photo. My gf's cat died and she wants a photo to paint but the photo was taken in dark incandescent lighting. She isn't painting the background so true colors matter now.

[Digitalis]

My habit is to set my cameras white balance to 5000K and leave it there. Only for really critical work where colour accuracy is paramount, will I change it to suit conditions.

[Take-5-JB]

Stevebrot, Photooptimist, and others bring up good points. Additionally, fabrics used for clothing, curtains, furniture covers, etc, can have optical brightners and "bluing" agents applied, which cannot be seen by the eye without a "black" light. Studio shooters control their light sources and Temps, and can set a standard WB to control bizarre aberrations in whiteness. Out in the real world folks like Digitalis have a favorite temp, or a trained eye that lets them ballpark temps. Others can make themselves neurotic trying to manually perfect WB control. As stated a "white" piece of paper is a paradoxical nightmare. For an uncouth commando photographer like me, one can use clean snow as a fill-in for "white", gray tree bark, concrete sidewalk/bridge, gray roof, or gray rock to sub for approximating "gray 18" and be relatively close. I know the pure and applied folks are going to rip me for this. AWB, PP, and Raw/Raw+ is a Godsend for me. The less handled things I have to carry in the pack or a pocket while hiking, boating, or canoeing to a shot is preferred personally. Striving for perfection is not a bad thing, just don't loose the fun in your photography and outings while perfecting your craft. Take it as stepwise improvement and be happy you did it. I appreciate the knowledge brought forth here in most of the discussions. It is a learning tool for me and a pitfall illumination for me. You folks are solid, helpful, and tolerant of varying levels of knowledge and technique, which makes this forum fluid and not so much an exercise in flogging the dunce.

JB

[Cerebum]

I went out yesterday and proved what you have all said, it was cloudy and wet, I set my k3 on cloud and got some fabulously rich and true to life exposures saying that I did use a grey card later with my mir1b and it did improve things in camera I think the lesson I have to learn here is that YouTube experts often talk bollocks! Also, I have come across one or two anti-digital film purists who were also full of sh*t lol. One was spouting about single ins diminishing the photographers capability and only capturing that perfect moment. I pointed out that 70% of my single in examples were where you capture the moment! He hasn't replied I am pretty sure he would have plenty to say about this thread