Kelvin white balance

Moab Man

Senior Member
I was going to send this as a message to Rocky as he just got a D7100 as well but thought that this would be great to share with everyone that hasn't explored the white balance settings of "K"elvin.

When shooting a sunset or rise it never seems to match as well as I would like. By adjusting the Kelvin setting you can really dial it in. To access the Kelvin setting you hold down the WB button on the back of the camera and rotate through the various white balance settings until you reach "K". Then use the front dial to raise or lower the Kelvin number. Higher the number gets into the blue light spectrum. Lower number goes into the yellow.

​If you haven't played with this you gotta give it a try!
 

RockyNH_RIP

Senior Member
I was going to send this as a message to Rocky as he just got a D7100 as well but thought that this would be great to share with everyone that hasn't explored the white balance settings of "K"elvin.

When shooting a sunset or rise it never seems to match as well as I would like. By adjusting the Kelvin setting you can really dial it in. To access the Kelvin setting you hold down the WB button on the back of the camera and rotate through the various white balance settings until you reach "K". Then use the front dial to raise or lower the Kelvin number. Higher the number gets into the blue light spectrum. Lower number goes into the yellow.

​If you haven't played with this you gotta give it a try!

Moab, very nice!!! I did not know that feature existed (by K). I do not know how much I will use it... I normally shoot auto and if it needs a tweak, I do it right in LR... It is nice to see the results right on the screen..

I shot 3 here at work and will see how they adjust in LR..

Again, Thanks! Another bit of knowledge!

Pat in NH
 
I have found that if I am in a unusual light then RAW is much easier to deal with. I leave the white balance on Auto all the time. The only time it has really been off is shooting under street lights at night.
 

Moab Man

Senior Member
I agree, auto WB is really good. But there are those wacky colors that can befuddle the technology so I wanted to highlight this additional tool in the tool box.
 

fotojack

Senior Member
Moab Man is absolutely right. I've used this method a few times on my D200. Here are 3 examples of using K in extremes, from low K to very high K:

DSC_1502.JPG DSC_1500.JPG DSC_1501.JPG

The only settings changed were the K settings. Everything else was exactly the same. Notice the difference in colour.
 

jwstl

Senior Member
Auto White Balance gets you close but being able to adjust the Kelvin is critical. However, I don't do it in camera; I shoot in Raw and adjust in post processing so I don't have to worry about making changes while shooting.
 

RockyNH_RIP

Senior Member
When Moab posted this earlier, I was at work... so I tried it and it worked just fine..

Now that I am home... here are the 3 shots into the QC Lab
The first was at 4850, 2nd was adjusted to 3450K, 3rd was 6850K
In LR, if I set to Auto, they go to 4500 for reference.

DSC_0359.jpg DSC_0360.jpg DSC_0361.jpg

Again, thanks to Moab Man for pointing this out to me...'

Pat in NH
 

Moab Man

Senior Member
Rocky you're welcome.

​I know some prefer to just doing the adjustment in post with the raw files, but here is my thinking. The closer to correct I can be from the start the better off I am. Adjustments could always have unintended adjustments. BUT, i'm not trying to change anyone's process or tell them they're wrong. Just pointing out one more tool you might want to try if you have not played with it.
 
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jwstl

Senior Member
Adjustments could always have unintended adjustments.

I'm not sure what that means. When you shoot Raw the white balance isn't applied to the data; it just carries a tag that tells your software what the camera setting was so the software can choose it for you. It's no different than setting yourself.




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wud

Senior Member
Mostly I got WB on auto, but for more important pictures, I almost always take some testshots with different WB - first auto, then shade (if I'm in the shade) and sometimes I manually adjust even more.

Had the same thoughts as Moab Man, about getting as much info as correct as possible, to make sure you get max out of the final picture.


For this wakeboarding set, done at sunset, you can easily see the difference in auto WB (first picture) and me adjusting it to cool white fluorescent:

8666293318_92869f1c1d_c.jpg


8665144785_bded523c88_c.jpg




I'm not sure I would be able to get such blue a picture, if I had that much golden colors to work with.
 

jwstl

Senior Member
I'm saying that I would think the least amount of adjustment the better. However, I'm NOT claiming to know, just my thoughts.

My point is it's the same adjustment to the Raw file whether you choose a WB in camera or in the software. All the camera setting does is set the value in the conversion software. You still have to apply that setting in post. So all you save by getting it right in camera is about 5 seconds of post processing.
To get the best results, I use UniWB for Raw on my D800 so the in camera setting is moot.


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Moab Man

Senior Member
Wud could you try and adjust your first photo to the color of the second please. It sounds as though jwstl is saying white balance is completely irrelevant and that you can just slide the color temperature and still come up with the colors you did in the WB corrected photo. We of course could be wrong, but I suspect there would be data missing based on WB selected at the time of the shot that would prevent you from being able to duplicate the same vibrant coloring.

 

wud

Senior Member
Yeah, I thought about that but I dont have the raw file. Tried a little with color balance in PS, but I dont know that filter so good, so a bad result.

With more layers and a raw file, you might get something blue. It should also be a least 2 separate layers, as there are a tint of gold (blue picture) at the water. Vibrance could maybe help, and a separate layer for the blown out sun.

For me, I am not sure I would know which blue was the correct, if I only had the golden-ish pictures.

ND3_7147 copy.jpg


Maybe someone else has an auto and a manually fixed WB picture, in raw?

 
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riverside

Senior Member
Rocky you're welcome.

​I know some prefer to just doing the adjustment in post with the raw files, but here is my thinking. The closer to correct I can be from the start the better off I am. Adjustments could always have unintended adjustments. BUT, i'm not trying to change anyone's process or tell them they're wrong. Just pointing out one more tool you might want to try if you have not played with it.

I've noticed many people (not just on this forum) are far more dependent on post processing than initial composition using the tools available in our very sophisticated cameras. Not a critique, to each their own, just an observation.
 

jwstl

Senior Member
Wud could you try and adjust your first photo to the color of the second please. It sounds as though jwstl is saying white balance is completely irrelevant and that you can just slide the color temperature and still come up with the colors you did in the WB corrected photo. We of course could be wrong, but I suspect there would be data missing based on WB selected at the time of the shot that would prevent you from being able to duplicate the same vibrant coloring.


When you shoot Raw the White Balance you select is irrelevant except when viewing the image on the camera's LCD as the WB setting selected in camera is not applied to a Raw image. If it was it wouldn't be a Raw file. When you shoot Raw the preview image you see on your camera's LCD is the jpeg embedded in the Raw NEF. The settings you make in camera are applied to that embedded jpeg but not the Raw file. Here's an analogy: you give a chef the raw ingredients for a meal with a note as to how you want it cooked and a picture that shows roughly how it will look when cooked. That's Raw images. The Raw file contains all the ingredients, the picture of the meal is the embedded jpeg, and the note is the tag that tells your conversion software what the WB setting was. Nothing is done to those Raw ingredients until the chef ( your conversion software) does the cooking. That's the beauty of shooting Raw. You can leave the WB on the wrong setting and all you've done is screw up the preview on screen. The Raw file is not affected in any way. When you open the images to convert, select the correct WB and your all set and have done nothng to negatively affect the IQ.


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Moab Man

Senior Member
jwstl is correct on the white balance, IMO just not explained well. However, I figured out what jwstl was saying and decided to do a quick test.

1. Setting the WB does affect how the image colors look on both the raw and the jpeg. Here are three pictures combined to one: Auto WB, 2500K, & 10000K.

3ShadesOfWhiteBalance.jpg

2. The auto white balance set the picture to 5200K. Adjusting the other two pictures to 5200 brought the colors in line. I found differences so slight that I would credit that as shuffling of the leaves above and light passing through.
3ShadesOfWhiteBalanceCorrected.jpg

What I learned from this. White balance in a raw file can be corrected from extremes. However, setting the white balance from the beginning will save you a whole lot of work and in post processing.
 
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