I've taken quite a few shots using my new DSLR.
Some shots looks okay while some don't. For example night shots look orangey, which is quite alright but not too good with the new DSLR(still experimenting) but morning shots looks dull blueish, lifeless, which looks ugly.
I use automatic white balance, is it alright to do so or must i do a custom white balance(how do i go about doing this if required?)
Also, does the picture come out better in RAW or JPEG if i'm not allowed to do post processing.
I noticed DSLR pictures come out less colourful that normal digicams.... its the user and not the DSLR's fault right? =/
1) night shots tend to use a warm wb, because your camera tends to be fooled by the tungsten/fluorescent lighting. this can be easily corrected in camera when shooting by selecting fluorescent wb for slight cooling, and tungsten for more extreme cooling effect.
2) your morning shots might depend on
how early you are shooting. what is morning here? i don't think you will have "dull bluish lifeless" if you are shooting at sunrise with the sun present in full glory? :dunno:
3) automatic wb is fine, but if you don't like what your camera is giving you, then best not to listen to it, no? you are the owner of the camera, not the other way round.
alternatively, you can always shoot in raw, and correct it on your computer later.
4) why won't you be allowed to do postprocessing? are you another of the crowd that subscribes to "art, straight out of the camera"? as always, i will express the opinion that any digital image has some processing done to it, whether you have done it in photoshop; or whether the camera has done it for you. to think that photoshop is worse than straight out of camera is equivalent to the chinese fable of the soldier who fled 100 steps laughing at the one who fled 200 steps. and you have the added disadvantage of taking a machine's opinion for your own and feeling proud of it (ironically).
raw is a lossless format, jpg will not be that far off, but it *shows* at large sizes. raw also is a more "malleable" format, you can experience more leeway during your processing when it comes to raw, be it wb correction, exposure correction, etc.
5) well, it's of course the dslr. the makers do have an assumption that users will have their own vision to create. so they would rather preserve detail by limiting the amount of processing in the camera compared to consumer cams. alternatively, if you still believe in out-of-camera shots after all this ranting in point 4, you can always bump up the saturation, contrast settings when shooting. it does seem a tad silly to me though; the only logical reason i would think of this is that you shoot a lot and don't have enough time to custom process pictures.. though every good picture does deserve it.