> I'm a raw shooter and shoot almost everything in the camera's daylight
> or flash white balance so the JPEG previews look about like what I
> expect to see. I post process everything but white balance adjustments
> are relatively rare except for occasionally removing a bit of blue from
> heavily shadowed areas. Yes, I do have a WhiBal card but almost never
> use it.
Chuck, you and I operate in a similar manner. I prefer to lock things
down to a known. Also, since I tend to shoot a bunch of film along
with digital (or instead of), I like having the film and the digital
camera matched. And all my films are daylight balanced.
The problem with white balancing an image comes in with mixed
lighting. What if you have a scenic that is partically in the sun and
partially in the shade? What about post-sunset? Oh brother, do things
get nasty in a hurry.
An aide, like a WhiBal or Expodisc are very handy in some artificial
lighting situations. Sports venues are a good example of this. The
lights may appear to be daylight balanced (or close), but they do so
through a low CI. What you think is white is a combination of several
narrow band colors that don't quite exactly match our RGB array.
When I shoot weddings and stage events, I do take a color temperature
reading for the stage. Prior to the start, I'll pop up on the stage
and with the expodisc, lock in a color temperature. However, I always
test and adjust to get it right. Rarely do you get it the first time,
which indicates just how fickle stage lighting can be.
If I'm shooting RAW+JPEG (which I always do for weddings), this gives
me mostly correct JPEGS for uploading for immediate online usage
through the Eye-Fi card. But in post, this gives me a chance to set
the WB for a series of pictures based on the Expodisc image.
Flash is always daylight balanced unless I'm running a warming gel.
AG
--
Ken Norton
ken@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.zone-10.com
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