Fran Loc: Northeast, United States

I recently learned a bit more about what balance thanks to one of MWCA's weekly lessons. If I am standing in the sun and my subject is in the shade should I set my WB to sun?

St3v3M Loc: 35,000 feet

Set your white balance where the photograph is.

GoofyNewfie Loc: Kansas City

Have you ever used a custom white balance? That's what I would do. Otherwise, shady would get you closer. The subject is in the shade not the sun. If you used sun for white balance the subject would be singing the blues.

aaron Loc: brooklyn ny

quite simple; you want to photograph the subject,not yourself.Look at where the subject is standing and set your camera appropriately. If ever in doubt, play it safe and go AWB. and try experimenting with custom white balance, you won't regret it.

mafadecay Loc: Wales UK

I steer clear from auto WB where ever possible. If shooting RAW you can adjust in PP but I will shoot a white object (under the same light as the subject) and use custom WB most of the time if I have the time to set it up.

Lucian Loc: From Wales, living in Ohio

Depends also on what camera you have. On the Nikon D7000 I get warmer looking skin tones when I set the WB to cloudy rather than sunlight, when shooting in the sun or on sunny days. Experiment with the WB settings on a subject with the exact same settings on your camera. Then go home and compare the images to see what you or the subject prefer for a colouring on them.

Do remember that if it is a sunny day and your subject is standing on grass under a tree to get some shade or next to a building wall, you will be getting a lot of green reflecting into the face. Bear than in mind when doing your colour corrections later, the faces will have a green colour cast due to the sun reflecting the light off the green grass into the face.

Your WB setting is always about the ambient light lighting your subject and nothing to do with where you are standing. For example if you were inside a room with standard light bulbs filling the room with light and shooting through a window to a subject outside in the sun light, you would use the sunlight WB. Now if you were outside in the sun but shooting through the window at your subject inside the room full of standard light bulb light, then you would have that setting for the light bulbs as your WB setting. Think of it this way and you will always set it correctly.

mrosenberg

How do you WB if there is no known white in the picture?

Is there a way to use white from a previous picture done under the same lighting in another picture?

mrosenberg

What's MWCA?

I'm assuming the google search I did turning up Michigan Wood Carvers Assoc is not what you meant)

GoofyNewfie Loc: Kansas City

MWAC (mom with a camera)
One of the frequent posters here on this site.

mafadecay Loc: Wales UK

There is but the white has to occupy the whole of the partial metering zone. (centre circle in viewfinder).

Or you can always place a white object in the scene (a sheet of white photocopier paper will do as this can fold down to nothing and be carried anywhere). Take a shot filling the centre but must be exposed correctly with no exposure compensation. Then in menu use this as custom WB and then select custom WB from your WB choices.

Remove paper and shoot scene with the custom. Some shots are too spur of the moment but if you have time to be thinking about white from previous image you have time to set up the custom.

It is about practice. You will automatically gauge a scene and adjust accordingly eventually and even over compensate to better an image once you get the hang of things it will be 2nd nature.



2 things I always always carry in my camera bag (even if traveling light) are a4 white paper folded and a penny (to adjust most tripod screws on the fly). Also a lenscloth but I got that attached to my camera strap.

Fran Loc: Northeast, United States

LOL, no not the MI Wood Carvers Assoc!!! The following are links to her first 4 lessons. Join in they are interesting!!!

Lesson 1: http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-41242-1.html
Lesson 2: http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-42355-1.html
Lesson 3: http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-44193-1.html
Lesson 4: http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-45521-1.html

Fran Loc: Northeast, United States

GoofyNewfie,Arron, and Mafadecay, thanks for your responses. I just started experiementing with white balance and like the results of the custom setting. I plan to use it more often. Do you ever use 'grey' cards for setting the WB setting? What imapct does the grey card have on an image?

Fran Loc: Northeast, United States

I shot a number of pictures of my son's baseball game yesterday in cloudy conditions and set the WB accordingly. I immediately noticed the warmer skn tones which I prefer.

Thank you for your examples regarding 'green' highlights and setting WB to adjust for the ambient light. It is helpful and easy to remember.

Lucian Loc: From Wales, living in Ohio

Glad it helped you out Fran. A little trick I used to do with video, and you can use it with today's DSLR video, is to use a very, very pale blue card and act as though that is white and do a white balance off that. By doing this I was able to get a great skin tone that made people look like they had a nice tan, rather than pasty white skin. You would not do a WB off a grey card, you should always use white for doing a WB setting. Grey cards are for judging the light and for using in the computer later for settings in PP when trying to balance the colour. You click on what should be black with one eye dropper, click on the grey card with the middle eye dropper an d click on something that should be white with the third eye dropper and that should give you as well balance image. However, some tweaking is almost always required.

mafadecay Loc: Wales UK

I have got one (18% neutral grey card) It was used more for exposure than WB back in the day. In tricky exposure situations where you know your camera meter will fail you can use exposure lock off the grey card and recompose in the same light to technically get the perfect exposure of your subject. You can do the same with grass though. I am also sure that there was an argument after using 18% grey as neutral for about 100 years that it should have been 12% grey all along.

I shoot a white object for digital WB.