Bryan Peterson (New book and advice)

[Mark_Cohran]

Just picked up BEYOND PORTRAITURE: Creative People Photography a new book by Bryan Peterson, and it's quite a good read and well illustrated with some excellent photos. I like reading Bryan's book and I agree with most of his advice. I try to keep in mind that his audience is the general public/hobby photographer. Sometimes his advice needs to be taken with a grain of salt - shooting at f22 on digital cameras for example.

In his new book he writes:

Set your white balance to CLOUDY and leave it there for all of your outdoor photography! The context of this statement is that amateur photographers don't get up at dawn or stay out late to catch the golden hours of light, Most amateur shoot during the late morning/mid afternoon. CLOUDY white balance then makes their photo look warmer and sort of acts like a 81B warming filter (for those of us who remember film).

What do you guys think? Good advice? Bad advice? Would you do it?

Mark

[In2Photos]

Mark, I quite agree with you. I have Understanding Digital Photography and I think it is a great read. He states those same things in this book as well. Until I learned about diffraction I used to use f/22 occasionally. Now I don't. I always shoot RAW and prefer a more natural look to my shots rather than a warmer look. If I ever wanted it I could certainly make that change very easily.

[kevin_c]

I set my 20D on 'Daylight' permanantly - I work on the grounds that that is what film used to be.

I do shoot RAW all the time so any adjustment is easy but I usually find my Wb is OK.

[mackb]

Thanks for sharing that, I'll have to try it.........also wat to but that book (on my long list)

[Redbird_xo]

In his new book he writes:

Set your white balance to CLOUDY and leave it there for all of your outdoor photography!

Mark

I don't think it is a good advice and I wouldn't do it. Instead, I would use AWB for outdoor shots (Canon's weakness in terms of white balance is its AWB accuracy in indoor tungsten lighting condition) and shoot RAW to fine tune it in PP if needed. Leaving it at Cloudy white balance won't necessary hurt the picture, but neither will it help in any significant way either.

[calicokat]

Thanks for the info, I like reading Bryan Peterson, he rights in a way that is so easy to read

[Mark English]

The problem with using AWB is that it is subject to the same foibles as your in camera exposure meter... your in camera meter can be unduly influenced by areas of tone in your image that diverge greatly from middle grey, AWB can be unduly influenced by predominant colours in an image, or the colour of the scene illuminant,

A prime example is shooting at sunset or sunrise. AWB will attempt to remove the very colours that you are trying to capture.

So, I agree with Bryan, and set my cameras to "cloudy", simply because I prefer a warmer balance. Daylight is fine also... it's about placing control into your hands rather than allowing the camera to make decisions for you.

The only time I use AWB is situations where the main illuminant is complex "discontiinuous spectrum" lights such as metal halide, commonly found in gymnasiums or hockey arenas. Here the illumination requires a correction along the magenta-green axis as well as the red-blue axis. These are never ideal situations, but AWB can probably get closer than going it on your own.

Of course if you shoot RAW, then you have the flexibility to second guess any decision you, or your camera made at the time of exposure.

[blueM]

I shoot RAW 98% of the time. I just leave it on auto. WB in PP. Warmer or cooler kind of depends on the subject - these days my taste leans more to a bit on the cool side.

[DocFrankenstein]

What do you guys think? Good advice? Bad advice? Would you do it?

I shoot raw. Does it apply?

Personally, I dislike his books somewhat for general statements like this and covering only the basics... usually. It's one of the requirements for selling.

[Mark_Cohran]

This thread is old news. :) I've found that Bryan's advice works for some things, but definitely not in all cases. Like DocF, I shoot RAW most of the time and I've found that if I want a warmer shot, the Cloudy WB setting when processing the RAW file gets me very close, then I can just adjust the temperature balance from there to get the final look that I want to achieve.

Mark

[Hermeto]

I don't think it is a good advice and I wouldn't do it. Instead, I would use AWB for outdoor shots (Canon's weakness in terms of white balance is its AWB accuracy in indoor tungsten lighting condition) and shoot RAW to fine tune it in PP if needed. Leaving it at Cloudy white balance won't necessary hurt the picture, but neither will it help in any significant way either.

Exactly!

AWB outside seems to be the best starting point.
Cloudy is too warm for my taste, in most situations..

[Picture North Carolina]

I guess I'm the odd person out regarding Brian Peterson. I feel his talents, compared to others in today's professional field, are overblown. I saw a video of his about 6 or so months ago that I thought was pretty well uninspired. /Dan

[Hermeto]

I guess I'm the odd person out regarding Brian Peterson. I feel his talents, compared to others in today's professional field, are overblown. I saw a video of his about 6 or so months ago that I thought was pretty well uninspired. /Dan

Talent has very little to do with ability to teach..
We buy his books not look at his beautiful pictures, but to learn about his techniques..

[DocFrankenstein]

I'm putting a post-it sticker on the monitor... "check the thread's date"