Auto WB or not?

bastibe

bastibe

Veteran
Location
Germany
Name
Bastian Bechtold
The bane of my editing has always been white balance. Then Sean Tucker mentioned in one of his videos that he just uses daylight white balance instead of relying on auto mode. This made sense to me, after all, film doesn't auto-WB either, so I tried it.

To I tried it, and I love it. I no longer struggle with colors. Sunsets are vibrant, mornings are blue, evenings are warm, skin tones look realistic. As they should be. In retrospect it makes sense, auto-WB tries to claw "neutral" color from tinted light. This is bound to be difficult and lead to unpredictable color when the light is weird.

Artificial light is a different matter of course. There's no sanity to be had here. But at least my natural-light photography got simpler.
 
When you think about it, when you use AWB you're asking the camera to lie about the prevailing lighting conditions, which sometimes means that it will remove the very colours which drew you take a picture. Being slow on the uptake, I've only lately discovered that if you use AWB in a forest of green trees, the camera will add a lot of magenta in an attempt to make the average tone less green. Result - trees look less green and everything else (including people) looks magenta.

I still haven't quite made the step to leaving the camera in daylight rather than AWB as default. Old habits die hard.

-R
 
I use Auto White Balance when under artificial light, and Daylight for almost everything else. I do find though that white in the shade becomes a rather nice shade of pale blue! See image below. Through the gate is in sunlight, the rest isn't! To the eye they are all the same shade of white!
IMG_9560.jpeg
Join to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
 
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Do you alternate between 'direct sunlight' and 'shade' settings on the Fuji ? This is the last piece of the puzzle I'm trying to understand - there isn't a single daylight setting on my camera, there are two.

-R
 
Richard said:
Do you alternate between 'direct sunlight' and 'shade' settings on the Fuji ? This is the last piece of the puzzle I'm trying to understand - there isn't a single daylight setting on my camera, there are two.

-R
Click to expand...
I use the Q menu quite a lot, and have Sunny, Cloudy, Artificial light etc on different Custom settings, each one appropriately named!
If you need help setting this up, just say.
 
Richard said:
Do you alternate between 'direct sunlight' and 'shade' settings on the Fuji ? This is the last piece of the puzzle I'm trying to understand - there isn't a single daylight setting on my camera, there are two.

-R
Click to expand...
I generally stay on daylight, and adjust as needed in post. Within the normal daylight/shade range, I find the temperature slider to work well, and predictably.
 
I use auto white balance exclusively, unless I know for sure that I have some weird situation that would trick AWB. If you shoot in RAW or as i do when shooting with certain film simulation recipes, RAW+JPG, then it doesn't matter as you can change the white balance in post as needed. With modern cameras, I find that the auto white balance is less fooled than it used to be...but I have also been shooting long enough to bre able to recognize situations where the AWB may be fooled, when I have to throw in a +- 1 or 2 exposure comp to get proper exposure.

The longer you are in the game, the more you get to now thegear you shoot and canreasonably predict wehat it will do and when. Heck, there are times when just by hear and feel, you can tell if the camera took the wrong shutter speed, automatically switched from full mechanical shutter to EFCS!

So long as what you are doing is getting you the shots you like, then keep on keeping on!
 
Charles, I have white balance on the Q menu too, so I can switch readily between AWB, sunny and cloudy as you say. I haven't experimented with the other settings and probably won't for the time being. My question really relates to the difference between sunny and cloudy, as it's not always obvious. For example, if it's a sunny day but actually my subject and I are in shade, does that count as sunny or cloudy? (in colour temperature terms) And if I'm taking a lot of pictures, in and out of shade, which is the better default setting?

To go back to an earlier point, when we tell the camera that it's 'sunny', could that remove a golden tone that might be desirable?

Film stock didn't come as cloudy or sunny, did it? It was just 'daylight'

Bastian, same question - is that daylight 'sunny' or daylight 'cloudy' ?

(sorry to labour the point)

-R
 
Richard said:
Charles, I have white balance on the Q menu too, so I can switch readily between AWB, sunny and cloudy as you say. I haven't experimented with the other settings and probably won't for the time being. My question really relates to the difference between sunny and cloudy, as it's not always obvious. For example, if it's a sunny day but actually my subject and I are in shade, does that count as sunny or cloudy? (in colour temperature terms) And if I'm taking a lot of pictures, in and out of shade, which is the better default setting?

To go back to an earlier point, when we tell the camera that it's 'sunny', could that remove a golden tone that might be desirable?

Film stock didn't come as cloudy or sunny, did it? It was just 'daylight'

Bastian, same question - is that daylight 'sunny' or daylight 'cloudy' ?

(sorry to labour the point)

-R
Click to expand...
Depends on the camera. Some have a cloudy and a shade. Cloudy is normally out in the open, but cloud cover, so it tries to nullify the cooler color temperature without the direct sun. Shade is used when it is sunny out, but you happen to be under tree canopy or sunlight is blocked by some structure. It tries to nullify the green color shift you can experience in these situations.
 
That's the point I've been trying to get to. Realistically I'm not going to change the white balance shot by shot on a day when the sun is sometimes on the subject and sometimes not, either because of cloud or a tree canopy or whatever. That's a real distraction from the business of composing and taking photos. I don't go changing ISO unless I really have to for the same reason, I leave the camera to take care of that.

But I'm coming around to the idea that leaving the camera in 'daylight sunny' as default might be a better strategy than AWB.

(in any case, I can use the in camera RAW developer to change my mind later)

-R
 
Richard said:
That's the point I've been trying to get to. Realistically I'm not going to change the white balance shot by shot on a day when the sun is sometimes on the subject and sometimes not, either because of cloud or a tree canopy or whatever. That's a real distraction from the business of composing and taking photos. I don't go changing ISO unless I really have to for the same reason, I leave the camera to take care of that.

But I'm coming around to the idea that leaving the camera in 'daylight sunny' as default might be a better strategy than AWB.

(in any case, I can use the in camera RAW developer to change my mind later)

-R
Click to expand...
I don't change my white balance shot by shot either. I am not that much of a purist! Day light sunny is a good option as default. I use it most of the time. However, if it is very overcast with little chance of sunshine, I would probably change to a different custom setting, and leave it on that until another (sunnier) day. A bit of chimping will help you decide which setting suits you best! But, as Andrew suggests, if it ain't broke don't fix it!
BTW, I don't do RAW, ever, and any tweaking my JPEGs need is adequately handled by Apple Photos on my iPad.
 
gryphon1911 said:
I use auto white balance exclusively, unless I know for sure that I have some weird situation that would trick AWB. If you shoot in RAW or as i do when shooting with certain film simulation recipes, RAW+JPG, then it doesn't matter as you can change the white balance in post as needed. With modern cameras, I find that the auto white balance is less fooled than it used to be...but I have also been shooting long enough to bre able to recognize situations where the AWB may be fooled, when I have to throw in a +- 1 or 2 exposure comp to get proper exposure.

The longer you are in the game, the more you get to now thegear you shoot and canreasonably predict wehat it will do and when. Heck, there are times when just by hear and feel, you can tell if the camera took the wrong shutter speed, automatically switched from full mechanical shutter to EFCS!

So long as what you are doing is getting you the shots you like, then keep on keeping on!
Click to expand...
I use Auto at least 99% of the time, and I only say that because I'm sure I have set it manually occasionally.

I've rarely had an issue with Nikon, Fuji, or Olympus/OM auto white balance. I specifically remember when I was second shooting a wedding with a Canon shooter. I believe he was using the original Canon 5D; I had the Fuji S5 Pro. The venue had fluorescents, incandescents, and two or three different-colored light shades. The Canon was all over the place while my Fuji didn't seem to have any trouble. But that was almost 20 years ago now.
 
Auto White Balance for me.

As I only shoot in RAW I can adjust in post to my heart's content.
Amazingly simple — especially if there is a light grey or white object in the scene.

Eye-dropper click and boom! All's well. 🙂

If I where not using RAW however… I can imagine it would be more of an issue.
 
arkitect, that's true until you actually want to preserve the colour cast in a picture. Supposing you are walking past a pub at night and see that it is lit inside with a warm tungsten glow. You go inside and take discreet artistic shots of the interior and the clientele with your camera set to AWB. Back home, you discover that the camera has seen all those warm tones and yanked things firmly in the cyan direction. The lovely warm colours which drew you in have been 'corrected' away.

The same thing would happen if you shot RAW and there was a bit of white paper or something in the shot which you could use for the eye-dropper when editing.

The colour cast, in that example, is the truth. Something to be preserved, not 'corrected.' That's when AWB is not your friend.

-R
 
Richard said:
arkitect, that's true until you actually want to preserve the colour cast in a picture. Supposing you are walking past a pub at night and see that it is lit inside with a warm tungsten glow. You go inside and take discreet artistic shots of the interior and the clientele with your camera set to AWB. Back home, you discover that the camera has seen all those warm tones and yanked things firmly in the cyan direction. The lovely warm colours which drew you in have been 'corrected' away.

The same thing would happen if you shot RAW and there was a bit of white paper or something in the shot which you could use for the eye-dropper when editing.

The colour cast, in that example, is the truth. Something to be preserved, not 'corrected.' That's when AWB is not your friend.

-R
Click to expand...
👍

Right!
I'm off to the pub! 😆

This calls for fieldwork.
 

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