Best way of setting the white balance manually?

[leffe]

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What procedure and maybe tools do you use when you want to set your white balance manually in difficult light situations?

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[gwelland]

I carry a WhiBal in the bag which is great for using as a reference either by shooting in the light and using in post production to set the white balance for use by all other raw shots, or alternatively you can shoot it as part of the custom white balance process in camera.

 

You can also find a white card or napkin etc and use that as the target for setting the custom balance.

[iainmurray]

What procedure and maybe tools do you use when you want to set your white balance manually in difficult light situations?

 

Expodisc.

[stephengilbert]

I agree that the answer is the Expodisc or something like it. It allows the camera WB to be set and saved until reset. As I understand the question, it deals with setting the WB in the camera. The WhiBal card is great, but it doesn't set anything; it just provides a part of the image to refer to later when setting WB on your computer.

[lars_bergquist]

I do not bother with balancing each shot individually (maybe because I grew up with just Daylight and Tungsten Kodachrome). After some experiments with a Minolta three-channel colour meter, I have settled on the following procedure, using pre-set values:

 

My user profile for general outdoor work has 5000K set, because this fits locations around 60 degrees North better than the standard 5500. You may prefer a different value. But sunshine is not terribly variable, and the light from a low sun should be accepted as it is!

 

The profile for indoors uses 3000K, because I do not want my available light night shots to look like daylight. Now the EU is prohibiting tungsten lamps, God knows what we shall do then. Switch over to black and white?

 

The presets for Cloudy and Shadow (under a blue sky) work out pretty well as they are. Flash should be used for direct flash only, 5000K is best for bounce. This gives a slightly warm rendition, which is all right for indoor shots.

 

The old man from the Age of Kodachrome II

[Guest Luis D]

Tell me what I am missing? If you shoot DNG, why it is necessary to be spot-on with WB? Is not "pretty close" fine, since the colour temp can be tweak in C1? But if want to be anal about WB why not buy a colourmeter? What is another ~$800 after $6000 of camera?

[vanhulsenbeek]

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Tell me what I am missing? If you shoot DNG, why it is necessary to be spot-on with WB?

 

Same question with me. But I understand/my experience is that with DNG and a camera-set, or manual, WB, the Raw Converter opens the picture with that setting. Then you can tweak as you wish.

 

I find the M8 manual settings quite good. Usually use Daylight for anything outdoors. Rarely have to tweak it later in DNG

[Chuckcars]

None, not necessary when you shoot RAW.

[gwelland]

I confess that I very rarely set a custom white balance. The primary benefit for RAW shooting is that it saves a bunch of post production time.

 

I prefer to shoot something neutral at the beginning of a set and use this later to establish the desired white balance and will apply this to all subsequent pictures. A WhiBal/ExpoDisc/Pringles Cap/White or grey card performs this function perfectly.

 

I find adjusting a batch of pictures' WB individually to be a worthless use of time. It's much easier to do it once.

 

Using the custom white balance in the camera works pretty well. Forgetting that you set it and leaving it on for all subsequent pics is a bit tedious though.

 

So yes, you can adjust each picture individually and try to find a reference within it but it's much easier to just take a reference shot and apply that instead.

 

If you're shooting JPG, it's imperitive that you get the white balance as close to correct as possible when you take the shot. It's not so easy to change this later in post production, unlike RAW.

[ChrisC]

None, not necessary when you shoot RAW.

 

Not necessarily so. The OP referred to difficult lighting and in a complex mix of colour temperatures where a subject's colour needs accurate rendering; winging it in the RAW processing could be rather hit-or-miss if you don't have a true neutral colour to process from. [Having said that, I'd avoid getting caught out by mixed colour temperatures and would likely use flash as the predominant light source].

 

For daylight, my camera setting is Cloudy, Auto White Balance strips out too much of daylight's colour character for me.

 

............... Chris

[fotografr]

It might not be "necessary" to get the WB correct in the camera when shooting RAW, but it will certainly make your life easier in post. What looks correct to you one day may not look right another day. Why make the process so subjective when you can use something like the ExpoDisc (best) or WhiBal (very good) to get yourself to the same starting point consistently? RAW processing is faster and easier when you only have to make very minor adjustments to the whole batch, and as far as I'm concerned anything that cuts down on the time I spend staring at a monitor is a good thing.