stump4545 Posted March 1, 2012 Share #1 Posted March 1, 2012 Advertisement (gone after registration) if shooting DNG on my M9, does my white balance setting matter at all? if so do you recommend daylight, cloudy, or auto for best results? thank you. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted March 1, 2012 Posted March 1, 2012 Hi stump4545, Take a look here M9 white balance setting . I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
hoppyman Posted March 1, 2012 Share #2 Posted March 1, 2012 When shooting DNG the WB value is recorded with the raw file as metadata but does not affect the recorded image (for example the exposure values are unaffected). The low quality LCD preview and later the thumbnail/preview built into the file will use the calculated (Auto) or manually set WB value. When you open the DNG in your raw converter you may find it convenient to have your chosen or 'correct' value applied as your starting point but you can alter that value after the fact without penalty. Depending on what settings you use in your raw converter, it may show you 'as shot' or calculate the 'correct' value for you. Personally I only shoot DNG and use AWB for every frame. On opening in Lightroom my default is 'As shot' for a starting point. There is not only one 'correct' answer of course and you may have more than one temperature light source in your shots or choose what you think is most important or for the effect you prefer. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
tredlie Posted March 1, 2012 Share #3 Posted March 1, 2012 I found the suggested white balance handling by Thorsten Overgaard plausible. leica.overgaard.dk - Thorsten Overgaard's Leica Pages - WhiteBal greycards for white balancing digital photography and video Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted March 1, 2012 Share #4 Posted March 1, 2012 I tend to keep my camera to daylight, probably because I usually shot daylight slide film in the past. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul J Posted March 1, 2012 Share #5 Posted March 1, 2012 I keep it in daylight 90% of the time. That is what is most natural and it's fixed and therefor more consistent. AWB on any camera just floats around too much unnecessarily imo. Either that or I use a custom white balance sometime too. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean-Michel Posted March 1, 2012 Share #6 Posted March 1, 2012 Hi, AWB works well in most cases, but I find that setting a manual colour balance is a great time saver at the development stage in LR. Setting manual balance is so easy that there is no reason not to do so --see Mr Overgaard's link above. I use a Color Checker Passport. And if you happen to forget to set a new manual balance and the balance is off, no big deal as you can find a correct balance in LR. Jean-Michel Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul J Posted March 1, 2012 Share #7 Posted March 1, 2012 Advertisement (gone after registration) on the subject of custom or manual white balance, how much of the frame needs to be filled with the grey card? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
1JB Posted March 1, 2012 Share #8 Posted March 1, 2012 When I'm outdoors auto works fine. Indoors I use a wb card and manually set the wb on the M9 to get the best skin tones. It still can result in warm light being white and whites being a bit blue in incadescent light but the skin tones are spot on and I can work with the the other issues more effectively in pp than if I had set the wb to auto indoors. Auto wb in incadescent lighting has produced tones in off white walls and skin that I've just been unable to work around in pp at times. I shoot raw all the time. I use NIK in pp since I'm just not good with the intricacies of pp in CS5 and the ability to paint filters in specific areas of the photo is just brilliant. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
1JB Posted March 1, 2012 Share #9 Posted March 1, 2012 on the subject of custom or manual white balance, how much of the frame needs to be filled with the grey card? Go to the Thorsten Overgaard link above and there's a video. You set the camera to manual wb, place the white balance card in front of the lens so it has the desired light on it and fills the shot, mabe 4 - 6 inches away from the the front of the lens, no need to focus just take the picture. It's very easy. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ario Arioldi Posted March 1, 2012 Share #10 Posted March 1, 2012 Since i shoot only in raw (DNG) I keep WB in auto and then I season to taste in LR or CO. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul J Posted March 1, 2012 Share #11 Posted March 1, 2012 Go to the Thorsten Overgaard link above and there's a video. You set the camera to manual wb, place the white balance card in front of the lens so it has the desired light on it and fills the shot, mabe 4 - 6 inches away from the the front of the lens, no need to focus just take the picture. It's very easy. Hi, yeah I use the function quite a bit already. I saw the video a while back but I seem to remember him only covering half of the frame with is card and wondered if you need to fill the frame with the card or is it just the centre of the frame? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul J Posted March 1, 2012 Share #12 Posted March 1, 2012 I've found the auto white balance to be reasonable but still quite random between shots. Any dominant colour tends to throw it a little meaning more time in tweaking random shots later. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stump4545 Posted March 1, 2012 Author Share #13 Posted March 1, 2012 thanks for the info. does any one know how aperture 3 (as opposed to Light Room) handles the M9 auto white balance setting when shooting dng files? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sandymc Posted March 1, 2012 Share #14 Posted March 1, 2012 does any one know how aperture 3 (as opposed to Light Room) handles the M9 auto white balance setting when shooting dng files? The same as LR, in principle. The actual result will be a bit different as (a) there isn't one way to convert to a color temp, and ( WB depends on how you go from raw data to final color space. Sandy Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoppyman Posted March 1, 2012 Share #15 Posted March 1, 2012 To add a little to Sandy's always instructive comment there, I learnt recently (from an example by Eric Chan at Adobe) that some camera profiles in Lightroom need to be set before you set WB. I'd always assumed that the order did not matter as I think is the case for the develop settings. I guess that shows how much can be going on in camera profiles and the complexity of the raw conversion processes in general. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmorris Posted April 4, 2012 Share #16 Posted April 4, 2012 Personally I find the auto WB on the M9 (and any camera for that matter) is awful. I use an ExpoDisc which requires some work, but once you get the hang of it, it's fast and works great! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lars_bergquist Posted April 4, 2012 Share #17 Posted April 4, 2012 Personally I find the auto WB on the M9 (and any camera for that matter) is awful. I use an ExpoDisc which requires some work, but once you get the hang of it, it's fast and works great! I agree completely. The old man from the Age of Kodachrome (daylight) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamie Roberts Posted April 4, 2012 Share #18 Posted April 4, 2012 AWB is terrible. I manually set the WB level and its generally daylight 5600K or tungsten-ish 3000K or a little less. I only do this really to get a reasonable preview; it doesn't matter at all in post with raw processing. The problem with WhiBals and Expodiscs and all those other things is that they're a lot of fuss for colorimetric accuracy, but you don't necessary want to make grey things grey. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
digitalpowershot Posted April 4, 2012 Share #19 Posted April 4, 2012 Search "whibal" and buy a neutral wb-card. Since after I've bought this card, the colors are perfect and Kodachrom-like Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted April 4, 2012 Share #20 Posted April 4, 2012 Expodisk has been mentioned a few times. I have seen it used the wrong way (pointing at the subject) too often to have much trust in the results obtained. It should be used to balance incident light, pointing at the light source. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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