White Balance - using 5600 Kelvin

[ReggieB]

I was taking some pictures in a studio. My camera was set to manual. The studio lights had modeling lights built in and they were switched on.

I noticed that if the model changed outfits there was a colour shift. At first i couldn't understand why i was getting this shift. Then i realised that the camera was set to AWB and the camera was changing the white balance. I changed the WB to 5600 Kelvin and like magic the colours were perfect and more importantly consistant.

Since then i have taken to keeping my WB set at 5600 Kelvin when shooting in daylight and studio and my results are more realistic colours and consistant from frame to frame.

Afterall colour negative film used to be balanced at 5600K.

Is anyone else doing this? how are you controlling your white balance?

[Steve Paxton]

For serious shoots (i.e. working with clients), I manually control the WB. However, since I shoot raw, I don't worry too much about it. Even when I manually set the WB in the field, I almost always adjust it in Lightroom to warm the images up, etc. Grey card WB is just a starting point for me. It's difficult to know how a client's skin tone is going to look in the LCD preview window so I typically fine tune it later in Lightroom.

BTW - I have found that Canon cameras do a exceptional job of dial in the correct WB automatically. I just tend to adjust it manually - more or less to keep things consistent - which makes processing the shots much easier later on.

[ReggieB]

It's interesting to hear others WB workflow. More and more one tries to get everything right in camera which then makes the post processing quicker. I remember when many people used to leave so much to post process, it surely better to get as good an image as you can without post process.

For our sports event photography we have failed if we have to post process an image and we shoot only jpeg - there isn;t the time and it requires someone with a level of knowledge to make he adjustments. Every Image needs to be correct in camera. That is it should be sharp, exposed correctly, colours correct and well framed (this can be changed more easilly than the others).

When shooting raw, like you, I adjust white balance as best you can in camera, and tweak (small adjustments if necessary). I use the lid of the lightsphere gizmo and seems to work just as well as a grey card. I am still experimenting with 5600 kelvin for daylight haven't tried it shooting raw yet - shouldn;t be any different than the jpeg images.

[Phil]

I use an ExpoDisc for white balance and exposure, I also shoot RAW and tweak it when the need be.