White Balance setting for night photography

[Alan Koh]

Hi friends in Clubsnap,
I don't have much experience in night shooting for portraits, street scenes, and indoor events. I try not to use flash whenever possible if I can manage it with the adjustment in ISO, aperture, and shutter. As for WB, I set it to Auto.
Quite often I am disappointed with the colors on the subject in portrait shots at night.
As a guide, apart from auto setting in WB, what Kelvin Number should we adjust to, with and without flash in night shots for indoor and outdoor portraits.
Any suggestion for best WB setting in night shooting?

Camera in use: D700FX
Nikkor lens - 24-70mm f/2.8, 105mm f/2.8, 70-200mm f/2.8, and 14-24mm f/2.8 .
Flash - SB-800.

 

[ortega]

depends on the light falling on your subject

you have a nice big LCD behind the camera, take a test shot and see
or shoot in raw and set the WB later

 

[N-user]

depends on the light falling on your subject

you have a nice big LCD behind the camera, take a test shot and see
or shoot in raw and set the WB later

So bro, essentially, if we shoot in RAW we can actaully leave the WB at Auto all the time?? Damn, waste $$ getting all the gadget to get the right WB.... sigh.... :sweat:

 

[geekbrains]

You can quickly have a look here..
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/white-balance.htm

or as Ortega suggested, take the shot, view in your camera LCD and play around with the settings..

 

[amachi]

Haha.. true. I now shoot in RAW most of the time. Set WB to Auto and deal with it later during post-processing

Can't believe last time I was thinking to buy an expodisc.. lol.

 

[redname]

You can quickly have a look here..
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/white-balance.htm

or as Ortega suggested, take the shot, view in your camera LCD and play around with the settings..

hi,
in the link you provided, the last section talks about mixed lighting.

any suggestion on how to approach this? as it'll be quite hard to adjust to get the right colors

 

[ortega]

So bro, essentially, if we shoot in RAW we can actaully leave the WB at Auto all the time?? Damn, waste $$ getting all the gadget to get the right WB.... sigh.... :sweat:

actually it is best if you learn to recognise the ambient light and set it correctly

get it right on camera first

or use a flash and set to flash or daylight

 

[miaoteh]

agree, i prefer getting it right in the camera, will save u a lot of time in PP.

AWB will give you weird color under some tricky ambient light color and will be inconsistent between shots, custom/preset WB will give u consistent WB, easier to do batch correction in PP also.

apart from matching the camera WB to ambient light, i think it is also equally important to match the flash color to the ambient light by using flash gel.

for example if you are taking outdoor night portraits with flash, the AWB will often give you orangy/red sky color. by using CTO gel and manually change the WB to Incandescent, the result is much natural, and not achievable in PP (or super hard.. ;p)

my 2 cents.

 

[N-user]

actually it is best if you learn to recognise the ambient light and set it correctly

get it right on camera first

or use a flash and set to flash or daylight

haaa bro, actually sometime I use th expodisc lar.... but thought maybe can skip this part and do PP since I shoot RAW+JPEG..... then again, better to do it right at the cam level then spend more time at the comp....

 

[geekbrains]

hi,
in the link you provided, the last section talks about mixed lighting.

any suggestion on how to approach this? as it'll be quite hard to adjust to get the right colors

I'd go with an average..but it depends on your liking too..

 

[Alan Koh]

depends on the light falling on your subject

you have a nice big LCD behind the camera, take a test shot and see
or shoot in raw and set the WB later

Ha..ha.. bro, your reply did not help me because reviewing from the LCD screen is the first thing that we do after each shot is being taken.
Going into PP is the easy wayout, as most of us doing it to correct the images. To improve photography skill is learning how to do it right the first time.
If I need to correct more than 15% of the image through PP I simply delete it. What I want to learn is the technique and features of the camera and lenses for best result. I am sure there are difference settings between day and night photography, between portraiture and non portraiture, between street scenes and landscapes, etc. I am aware of different conditions in lightings and surrounding require the correct settings. That is what I need to learn from the more experience people in Clubsnap. I appreciate such tips from you friends.

 

[Irvine]

Ha..ha.. bro, your reply did not help me because reviewing from the LCD screen is the first thing that we do after each shot is being taken.

Wad ortega said was pretty basic since u r unsure bout the WB.

Now to further explain wad he had said:

If u r in ambient light, use incandescent white balance setting, and that's the white balance usually used for night landscapes as well. If u r in the open in the day, use direct sunlight WB when u got a nice sun shining down on u, n cloudy WB when u r shooting in a cloudy day. Indoor shootings? leave it to AWB. Using flash? use the flash WB.
Get the wrong WB nvm, u can always change the WB settings thru PP.

To improve photography skill is learning how to do it right the first time.

When did every1 gets to do it right at the very first shot? Usually ppl will experiment wif the first shot, look thru the photo, n if they find the settings r wrong, they take again with new settings.

Practice makes perfect. Experiment with the settings. Gain some experience. if u see that the photos in ur LCD screen doesnt turn out well then delete n try again. There's always a histogram at every picure, then look at it. Zoom into the picture, n see if it's clear.

 

[fv18m]

I used to do AWB, and moved on to Preset WB (i.e. Sunlight, Incandescent, etc.). I have since moved on to using Colour Temp (K). IMO, this is the most accurate. Set the temp. in accordance to the ambient light conditions. Lower numbers for cooler (i.e. Bluish tint), and higher numbers for warmer colours (i.e. Yellowish tint)... :thumbsup:

 

[ortega]

Ha..ha.. bro, your reply did not help me because reviewing from the LCD screen is the first thing that we do after each shot is being taken.
Going into PP is the easy wayout, as most of us doing it to correct the images. To improve photography skill is learning how to do it right the first time.
If I need to correct more than 15% of the image through PP I simply delete it. What I want to learn is the technique and features of the camera and lenses for best result. I am sure there are difference settings between day and night photography, between portraiture and non portraiture, between street scenes and landscapes, etc. I am aware of different conditions in lightings and surrounding require the correct settings. That is what I need to learn from the more experience people in Clubsnap. I appreciate such tips from you friends.

maybe in your case, you need a colour temperature meter

 

[Alan Koh]

Thank you to Bro. fv18m, ortega, and all.
Lately I am experimenting with color temp (K) adjustment to improve the colors in dificult situtation. It is the right tool to use on the camera to get the proper color reproduction.

Using sunlight, cloudy, shady, incandescent, fluorescent, etc., is only for general conditions.
Occasionally, I also used the expodisc for quick references. What I have not try is the color temp. meter that I do not have at this moment.

I am often rather critical on my own photoshots. My photos that are acceptable by others are most of the time not good enough. I go for competitive standard. Sad to say among the thousands of snapshots I have taken, only two is considered as worthy for submission.

Therefore, I have much to learn in the art of photography.

Once again thank you to all.

 

[twiki]

Alan's point is that one should try to get all the settings just right in the field (and in the camera) without having to resort to PS/PP (Photoshop / post-processing).

If you've botched the exposure, then resort to PS/PP to recover it.

But don't rely on it as a crutch that is always there, and in place of getting the shot right in the first place.

To improve photography skill is learning how to do it right the first time.

When did every1 gets to do it right at the very first shot? Usually ppl will experiment wif the first shot, look thru the photo, n if they find the settings r wrong, they take again with new settings.

Practice makes perfect. Experiment with the settings. Gain some experience. if u see that the photos in ur LCD screen doesnt turn out well then delete n try again. There's always a histogram at every picure, then look at it. Zoom into the picture, n see if it's clear.

 

[huggable]

One tip I learnt from the "dan jia", you can use the front-dial button to fine-tune the AWB or any of the presets. The display should should a +1 or -1, etc.

Quick adjustment to get the WB right.

 

[Witness]

So bro, essentially, if we shoot in RAW we can actaully leave the WB at Auto all the time?? Damn, waste $$ getting all the gadget to get the right WB.... sigh.... :sweat:

If your colour channels are clipped because of shooting in AWB, the clipped colours will not be in your Raw. Raw does allow for you greater latitude to play around with, but colours that are not there are, at the end of the day, not there.