Few Questions

[T&E Run]

Hello everyone. My wife and I love photography. She has been in it a lot longer than I have. I'm still learning. One of my questions is; when you guys (and gals) go to shoot a wedding, do you use anything to set a custom white balance from the get go, or do you use one of the presets on the camera? We bought an ExpoDisc and it seems to do a decent job. But, I've never seen a professional photographer use one of these before. Do any of you use grey cards (is this the correct term)? Do you use the auto white balance? I know if you shoot in raw you can change the WB later on, but I would rather get it right (or at least close) the first time. My wife and I will be shooting a friend's wedding in a couple of months. It will be both of ours first wedding. Any input is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[tim]

I keep a kodak white/grey card in my bag, I used it when there's might light sources inside a church. The rest of the time I just do it in my raw converter later, I use AWB 99% of the time. Since setting the WB in the camera just chooses a number and makes no difference to the RAW data it only really affects the preview and the histogram - though the histogram can actually be significantly different depending on the WB you choose.

White card is for WB, grey card is for metering.

[T&E Run]

Thanks for the reply.

[elisesanchez]

Custom white balance is important. Yeah you can pp it correct, but I find life is simple when you get it as perfect as possible in the RAW.

[Mike]

I use auto white balance, shooting in RAW and then I can adjust in post processing.

Some useful wedding info here (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showpost.php?p=5999915&postcount=2)

[tim]

Custom white balance is important. Yeah you can pp it correct, but I find life is simple when you get it as perfect as possible in the RAW.

I agree that it's important, but IMHO the only reason to get it right in the camera is so your histogram is accurate. On a busy wedding day I would rarely have time to do a custom WB, and it's so easy to select a batch of photos and apply a WB based on the brides dress in your RAW converter.

[Valjoy]

I am with Tim and Mike...I use auto WB and shoot raw so I can change it if need be later.

[rammy]

I keep a kodak white/grey card in my bag, I used it when there's might light sources inside a church. The rest of the time I just do it in my raw converter later, I use AWB 99% of the time. Since setting the WB in the camera just chooses a number and makes no difference to the RAW data it only really affects the preview and the histogram - though the histogram can actually be significantly different depending on the WB you choose.

White card is for WB, grey card is for metering.

Tim, when you correct in PP, how do you do that? It's not a dumb question because I just bought this and aim to use it for each scene. Then balance in LR across all photos taken in the same scene.

Do you use the kodak card for similar?

375777

[tim]

Tim, when you correct in PP, how do you do that? It's not a dumb question because I just bought this and aim to use it for each scene. Then balance in LR across all photos taken in the same scene.

Do you use the kodak card for similar?

375777

Grab the WB tool, click on the white or grey parts of the thingy you bought.

[figmented]

I use the whibal, same thing pretty much but its on a lanyard around my neck.. bam