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I am using my Canon 5D on auto white balance (AWB) setting and all my images are coming out a tad on the warm side, no problem as i can cool them in my .RAW program but i was wondering the best setting for getting it right in camera, i was shooting with flash in this instance.
Terry.
Hi Teapot. What is the cameras colour temp. set at?
Mine is set at 5200K most of the time which seems to work out suitable for most things.
I think the slightly warm results are just a Canon thing. As Nick_w says, why worry? If you do worry, then just set an import preset to compensate.
There is a thread on WB and Raw in the Digital Cameras section which you might find illuminating.
The colour temp in the camera is set to 5200, but if i set the WB to auto, it tends to pick it's own value depending on the scene.
Yes i used to use Nikon and my shots were definately a little cooler out of the camera, it's definately a canon thing. I'll have to set my white balance to 4900 in the menu since thats were my personal preference lies, but how do i make it shoot at that temp all the time?
Terry.
Terry,
As Justin says, you can easily set the camera to shoot at the same colour temperature all the time. But why would you want to? (unless you were shooting everything in a controlled environment with totally consistent lighting).
Outwith such a controlled environment, theoretically you need to use a different WB setting for every shot you take. Either you adjust the WB on the camera before every shot or you adjust it in Lightroom or ACR (or whatever) afterwards.
Or, like most of us, you leave the camera on AWB and accept that for most of your shots, with the option of adjusting later if you feel the need.
I usually set it to what I am doing ie. flash, daylight, not got my head around custom white balance yet. If I can I take a test shot before I start the real shots with a piece of white paper and then use Lightroom to ajust the white balance. The only thing I find a problem using AWB is every shot can be different even if you are taking the same shot.
Quote: The only thing I find a problem using AWB is every shot can be different even if you are taking the same shot.
That'll be the case whichever setting you choose to leave it on.
Like probably everyone else, I've tried all the fiddling about with various settings between shots, or from one day to the next and I concluded long ago that, providing you've got Lightroom or something similar, then using AWB was just so much easier.
The only time now, that I could be tempted to try some alternative settings would be if I was taking a specific shot. A portrait in a controlled environment, for example.
Like many I normally leave my camera set to AWB and for most shots it gives a WB which is good or at least a good starting point. If the shoot is critical I take a shot of my Colour Checker Passport for one of the shots. By using the spot WB tool in LR I can select the calibrated panel and get the WB spot on. It is then a simple matter to select all of the other images in the shoot and "Synchonise settings" ensuring WB is ticked. The colour is still affected by the profile (or style) you use to render the image. This is particularly easy in LR but I think you can synchonise is ACR as well.
Dave
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