Sunrise and sunsets

[Jonathan Ang]

Hi CSers! Have a question on my mind about WB issues when shooting sunrise and sunsets.

So far my experience with both,most recent was yesterday, was that the light is constantly changing, so WB was extremely challenging! What do you guys fix it to? I do do post-processing, but in camera right of the bat, it's quite disheartening to see that the orange glow ur eyes are are slightly off in cam

another thing is that it seems the sun isn't entirely round in the pictures compared to what we see.. Sometimes. Does shooting in a larger aperture help?

Lastly would be shooting portraits in that kind of lighting.. Somehow I adjusted to sunshine or cloudy or shade , the skin tone still looks too off, like too warm or over saturated look.

Before ending off, I'm shooting with a 550d. Can't set custom Kelvin unfortunately, only can set custom WB. Currently , have yet to buy a grey card. Will do one soon. I suspect this will help for portraits but not so much for the landscape shots

Keep on shooting. Yay!

 

[Jonathan Ang]

PS - I do shoot in Raw for these photos .. Not an issue doing adjustments in Com. Just trying to learn more about accurate reproduction of colours ( sometimes I want this sometimes I don't ).. Also dunno how an expodisc will help if the light is everchanging.

I suppose there is no "correct" WB settings for these?

Just curious .. When u guys do the WB correction, do u guys set a standard WB then sync all the same, or, as light is changing by the second , keep tweaking each photo slightly ?? I'm not sure if u guys have my problem of looking at the photos u took and the colours "sometimes" cannot tell the chronological order of the shots from the colour tones except from the photo sequence?

 

[karnage]

Why not post a few shots to show what you mean by off?

For me, I usually just set it to "sunshine" or if I want abit of purplish/pinkish in the sky, I use "fluoroscent". Otherwise, I don't think there's anything "wrong" with an orange sunrise/set. It is, after all, known as the golden light. =)

 

[Jonathan Ang]

Why not post a few shots to show what you mean by off?

For me, I usually just set it to "sunshine" or if I want abit of purplish/pinkish in the sky, I use "fluoroscent". Otherwise, I don't think there's anything "wrong" with an orange sunrise/set. It is, after all, known as the golden light. =)

Sure! Give me awhile I just reached home

 

[Jonathan Ang]

Here's 3 from my Flickr. Last month's account full so haven't uploaded more yet XD

I don't think can tell it is "off" or not from one pic la...haha! Then again hor, I suspect that it's not as bad as i thought. Maybe just colour space issues when looking at the on-cam screen?? Shrugs... :bsmilie:

+ another thing is that there is no "correct" exposure to sunset sunrise shots...thus complicating the "right colour" issue? I wonder...lol

 

[voxies09]

@1 i think the wb a bit off.. the rock doesnt look right
@2 why got white line?

 

[Jonathan Ang]

@1 i think the wb a bit off.. the rock doesnt look right
@2 why got white line?

#1 is a HDR...haha

#2 ..the white line is an aeroplane that turned up across the sky! I've gotten a clean shot but I thought that streak was pretty cool !

 

[voxies09]

It's better without the white line, just my opinion

 

[Dream Merchant]

Don't rely on your LCD totally, nor get upset if it look a 'little off'.

It's just a JPEG preview of your RAW file, and since you're already shooting RAW and adjusting in post, there really should be no issue.

 

[Octarine]

Don't become a slave of technically correct white balance. Finally, the white balance that you like or that supports your intention is the best. If want your image warmer or cooler than what is 'normal' so be it, do it. All this has nothing to do with colour space. Just make sure that all devices work in the same one and the final output should be RGB for web posting. Good to keep the colour space profile embedded.
In your second image you have a mixture of two light sources: the light from sunrise and the lamp on right hand side. There is no WB setting that could cater for both on the same image. Decide what is the main source and adjust accordingly. Your current result looks ok to me.