White Balance 'Magic Wand' Needed!

Matt_Paint

New member
I have been outside today taking lots of pictures of people doing outdoor activities, but have really struggled with getting my white balance consistent. A bright sunny day but with lots of small intermittent clouds that blot out the sun just when you are taking the shot. Is there a ‘magic wand’ solution on my D600 that will work to what ever the light is doing?
Sunshine WB setting is great when the sun is out. Cloudy WB setting creates colours that are too vivid when the sun appears. Auto WB just seems too washed out.
 

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
I have been outside today taking lots of pictures of people doing outdoor activities, but have really struggled with getting my white balance consistent. A bright sunny day but with lots of small intermittent clouds that blot out the sun just when you are taking the shot. Is there a ‘magic wand’ solution on my D600 that will work to what ever the light is doing?
Sunshine WB setting is great when the sun is out. Cloudy WB setting creates colours that are too vivid when the sun appears. Auto WB just seems too washed out.
Well, what tools do you have at your disposal? It sounds like something PhotoShop or Lightroom could clear up with few clicks.
Could you post an example photo or two?
 

Matt_Paint

New member
Thanks for the replies. I'm new to RAW, so I will give that a try.
My aim is to minimise any post processing, as there are lots of pictures and I need to get them uploaded to a Facebook album really quickly.

A link to the pictures is:

Britvic Team Activity Day (14th March 2013) | Facebook

Some of the pics are from an iPhone, but most are on a D600 - driven by a newby photographer (me), so any critique is very welcome!
 

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
Thanks for the replies. I'm new to RAW, so I will give that a try.
My aim is to minimise any post processing, as there are lots of pictures and I need to get them uploaded to a Facebook album really quickly.

A link to the pictures is:

Britvic Team Activity Day (14th March 2013) | Facebook

Some of the pics are from an iPhone, but most are on a D600 - driven by a newby photographer (me), so any critique is very welcome!
Well, I'm not sure what to tell you... Either you invest the time and resources to do a proper job of post processing or you post what you have to your FB account. I don't really see a whole lot of other options here.
 

Eye-level

Banned
I'm probably not the greatest example to follow for sure but here is what I do...try at your own risk...lol

Most of the time I have my white balance set on flash (which is about 5000 Kelvin on my D5000). The reason why is most of the time I am shooting outdoors and that setting imparts sort of a golden hour glow to everything which I personally like.

If I am indoors I set it at incandescent and try to use available light only.

I shoot JPEGs btw although I do know that I should be RAW...I just never have really messed with much because I like to get the snap and not mess with much PP other than maybe boosting the warmth, contrast, or saturation.
 

hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
Contributor
Matt, many of your photos are very colorful! What Picture Control setting are you using? Standard? Neutral? Anything that is +1, +2, or +3? Some of their faces have a reddish cast which may or may not be due to WB--it might be due to your Picture Control settings.

Just wondering about the soil...is it a clay-type soil or is that from the color shift of the photos?
______________________________________

Edit: forgot to add that I would use Auto WB in this type of situation.
 
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theregsy

Senior Member
If you are going to be doing a lot of shoots where you are getting a few hundred photos to work through and you want to do it fast, you really should have a look at Lightroom 4, it is a great workflow photo fixing tool, absolutely indispensable to me, I shoot loads at music festivals and find Lightroom essential for post processing and staying sane. As to the white balance I leave it on 'Auto' and use the tools in Lightroom to fix, just drag the dropper onto a neutral grey, black or white and instant accurate white balance.

Liking the days shoot btw, good record of the days activities.
 

Matt_Paint

New member
Thanks Hark, - I had my Picture Setting at 'Vivid' on some of the pictures so this will certainly have thrown the colours out. The 4x4 pictures are too red - we have heavy clay here, so it is certainly orange, but not that much.

Eye-Level - I will give the 'Flash' setting a try outdoors.

Lightroom sounds interesting theregsy. I will give it a try next time.
 

Mfrankfort

Senior Member
Lightroom can solve this problem VERY easy, atleast for me. If you upload all the RAW images into it, I found clicking "Auto White Balance", or changing it from "As shot" to "Auto white balance" does a pretty decent job. There are other options such as flash, outdoor, cloudy... etc that produce different balances. It's a pretty easy thing to do, and works pretty good for me. Very rarely I have to tweak it, and if I do, it's minimal. I'd give Lightroom a shot, plus there are 100000 video's on how to get the best of it.
 

Dave_W

The Dude
Gray cards make a lot of sense if you're shooting with 2 or more cameras. It's a mess trying to back correct each camera so that all the images match one another but if you're only shooting with a single camera then gray cards are not really that helpful, all in all. It's far more important, IMO, to be sure you're shooting in RAW (which everyone who cares about how their photos look should shoot in).
 

Mfrankfort

Senior Member
Using auto tone control, with auto white balance, has been pretty good for me so far. It's a good way to get into the basics of Lightroom which is a wonderful program. Clicking auto tone, you can see what the camera thinks are good settings (usually pretty close). I did find exposure is usually a little off, but you can see what the program thinks should be done to the picture, and compare it to what you think should be done. It'll get you into the PP aspects.
 

theregsy

Senior Member
It's far more important, IMO, to be sure you're shooting in RAW (which everyone who cares about how their photos look should shoot in).

Sorry i disagree With this one, as an event photographer I have found it far better to shoot jpeg in the past to get a fast turnaround, you can do a lot of tweaking to Jpegs in lightroom I admit not as much as RAW but enough. I do now tend to shoot RAW as I have the power of PC to handle them and the experience to edit them quickly but I do not and never will think that shooting in Jpeg if you want too as wrong.

For fine photography or art photography depending on circumstance it may be necessary but it isn't the only way to shoot and certainly isn't only for those that care about their photos.
 
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hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
Contributor
I'm old school in that I remember the days when photographers would choose a specific film to yield the types of color/grain/contrast that they were after as well as using filters on the fronts of their lenses. They did all this so the processed image had everything tweaked in camera. Back then they didn't have much of any computer software as personal computers weren't too common. To me, shooting jpegs offers the same type of style where many photographers aim to capture as much artistic information within the photos during the shoot rather than relying on post editing.

Both jpegs and RAW have their benefits, and each person needs to decide which format works best for a specific situation.
 
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