[Isnwm]

So, I know this shouldnt be a big deal, because I can fix it in lightroom pretty easily. but it bothers me, so Im trying to figure out if anyone can explain this to me. I recently did a Quinceanera event wih my brother & his wife. They both shoot nikon 5100. They both shoot raw. I also shoot raw. When comparing their pics to my pics on our digital camera screens, theirs looks so much "warmer" than mine. my skin tones looked cold, and pale, and unappealing. I can fix it in lightroom by turning the temperature up. but, id rather know if theres some setting on m K-5 that im over looking ? I went to a creativity workshop yesterday and they paired us up in 2's , to practice some of the new concepts they were teaching us. The lady I was paired with had a Canon t2i, shooting jpeg, and once again, compared to mine, hers were walm, vibrant, just a nice looking picture. I have shot with my 90mm tamron, 50 SMC FA 1.4, and almost every other lens in my bag, and sometimes ill get lucky and get that nice healthy looking tan skin tone, but more often than not, itll be pale and cold. has anyone else experienced this ? is this just how pentax works ? lightroom will always be needed to warm up the colors ? thanks in advance, i appreciate your hep.

P.S. - I shoot in auto white balance. Im sure this will be one of the first questions I get asked. and the "hexagon" looking chart thing, i have it set on "natural".

[maxfield_photo]

I never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever use AWB, it's the dumbest idea anyone has ever come up with. It saves you 2 seconds while shooting and costs you 2 hours in post.

Here's what you do, get a gray card, or better yet a color checker passport, but a simple gray card will work fine. Go into your Fn menu, go to white balance and arrow down to manual WB. Now take a shot of your gray card. That's it. You colors will be great. (Sometimes I have to give it +1 EV compensation, because 18% gray seems to be a little dark for the camera's white balance routine. The camera will say "NG" if it's too dark)

I shoot RAW too, and sometimes I forget to set my white balance while setting up for a shoot. Know what I do? I leave it. I shoot the rest of the day with incorrect white balance, then I get home, open Lightroom, and it takes me exactly 4 clicks and a keystroke to correct my whole afternoon's shooting. With AWB I'd be there forever.

AWB=Evil

[maxfield_photo]

P.S. There is a setting in the custom function menu that allows the camera to make minute adjustments to the WB even when you specify a light source or a color temperature. I of course turn that off, but I understand it can be useful when shooting under florescent light or using continuous CFL due to the fact that they cycle with the electrical current.

[SpecialK]

You can't really evaluate images from the back of a LCD, which displays the embedded jpg using the camera settings. Raw files will not be affected by WB and other settings until you process it. You can adjust your in-camera jpg settings to get the color you want on the LCD, and also adjust the defaults on your PP program.

[slowpath]

Pentax cameras see the world as a cold, dark place. I could never set my K5 to produce colors I liked without post processing.

AWB in the Nikon and Canon cameras seems to perform a lot better than in Pentax, as you mentioned in your post. I wish Pentax would fix that.

[Ole]

White balance isn't necessarily the culprit here.

You can adjust the color rendition of the LCD screen in the Setup menu and make your pictures look warmer on the LCD screen. This doesn't affect the actual image file, just the playback display.

When shooting JPG: To make the captured image pop you can experiment with the image tone adjustments. Try bright or vibrant. You can fine tune saturation and other parameters and it should be possible to get what you like.

I don't know lightroom and therefore I can't say if the image tone adjustments are taken into account when Lightroom develops the RAW image.

[audiobomber]

Here are my generalized opinions on AWB and skin colour:
- Canon skin tones are too red.
- Nikon skin tones are too yellow.

On old Pentax cameras with CCD sensors, flesh tones were a little too warm, but not as yellow as a Nikon. The K20D has perfect skin colour. Newer Pentax cameras, from the K-x onward, are too cool (blue). I suspect they do this to get the best numbers in DXOMark and similar ISO tests. because warm colours are inherently noisier. I don't know where the K-7 fits, but I recall Benjamin Kanarek saying he stayed with the K20D over the K-7 due to better skin tones.

[maxfield_photo]

Think of it this way, every time you press the shutter, the camera guesses at what the white balance should be. Does it guess the same way every time? No.

If I were to pick a number, just one, between say 2400 and 6400, and then told you to take ten guesses at what my number was, what is the chance that you get all 10 right? Well if you guess the same number all 10 times, it's 1 in 4000. If you guess a different number each time, two things happen; your chance of getting one number correct rises to 400 to 1, but your chance of getting all 10 right becomes nil. In order to get all 10 right, you must pick the same number each time, because my number isn't changing. This is what happens with white balance, and why AWB is a bad idea.

The fantastic thing about RAW is you don't even need it to be correct when you're shooting, only consistent. Then just fix one in post and you know exactly how to fix them all. If the neutral white balance you get from your gray card doesn't suit your taste, warm it up by about 400 degrees kelvin, but with manual white balance, or a preset, at least it'll still be consistent. The only time AWB might come in hand is if your lighting is changing from shot to shot, like if you were hiking down a trail and moving in and out of the shade.

[wombat2go]

As amateur with old ist ds (ccd) , I like to just shoot camera jpgs and rarely do any post processing.
So I went though a rigmarole like this with color/grey cards:
https://www.box.com/s/po0c0gcvjrg63u3tzn6z

I concluded by comparing the actual cards near a sunlit window with camera jpgs displayed on Eizo monitor and also with RGB readings from Gimp that:
In any sunlight dawn to dusk,cloudy hazy etc, the ist ds is accurate (say within a few parts /127 on the channels).
-Using manual white balance functions on a grey card does not make the camera more accurate in natural light.
-Various M lenses did not show color changes also my only DA lens ( 18~ 55mm kit)
-Some Filters on/off made some color differences, Hoya filters and some others made no measurable difference.

Indoors, most of my shots are not late night so i just use available window light with a mix of window, tungsten, cfl and sometimes low fill flash
In those cases AWB seems to work OK on skin tones.
https://www.box.com/s/c362d247a5d1dd92aa44

here are late night indoor lit shots with AWB
This one is quite accurate
https://www.box.com/s/209edf19081385021670

This one is pure low temperature tunsten lamps with AWB and obviously wrong.
https://www.box.com/s/7426cecc84c150986055

[asp1880]

P.S. - I shoot in auto white balance. Im sure this will be one of the first questions I get asked. and the "hexagon" looking chart thing, i have it set on "natural".

Two suggestions for better skin tones in out-of-camera jpegs:
Tune the AWB to +2 amber, that fixed the bluish cast on AWB for me.
Portrait custom image (the "hexagon" chart) gave me the best skin tones.

When you shoot in unchanging light temperature like overcast or sunshine, try to set the appropriate white balance instead of AWB. AWB can get it wrong and tint the pictures, especially if the scene contains large areas of tan (eg. wood), yellow or blue.

Regards,
--Anders.

[DAZ]

All white balance is a lie. A white lie, but a lie none the less. The trick is to pick the lie you like. If you would like to try a setting that is a little less of a lie you can try the CTE setting and tweak it to your liking.


DAZ