Shooting RAW & 18% Grey Card

Dear Event and/or Wedding Shooters,
Do you shoot the 18% Grey Card from time to time in between indoor and outdoor even though you shoot the whole event in RAW?

If you don't, do you mess around with WB in PP at all?

Most digital cameras ignore white balance completely, when shooting RAW. 18% gray, would then only be good for establishing a median exposure.

steve40 wrote in post #13065653
Most digital cameras ignore white balance completely, when shooting RAW. 18% gray, would then only be good for establishing a median exposure.

It doesn't ignore it ... it's just part of the metadata.

Anyway IANAWP, but I would think that even if you shoot Auto WB, shooting a grey card when you change light would make for pretty quick WB adjustments in post. Just sync the other photos color temp to the grey card shot.

rpaul wrote in post #13065683
It doesn't ignore it ... it's just part of the metadata.

Anyway IANAWP, but I would think that even if you shoot Auto WB, shooting a grey card when you change light would make for pretty quick WB adjustments in post. Just sync the other photos color temp to the grey card shot.

^ I thought so too and I am wondering how everyone else does it ? )

I'm a wedding shooter, I never use a white or grey card, I do everything in post.

A grey card is a tool that can certainly be useful, especially in some scenes that are light-challenged on one way or another, so with your Raw processor you get a reasonable "starting point", and, of course it can also be used to get a decent starting exposure as a "middle" target.

That being said, you should be aware that, as you can see here, many of us don't use that tool as a matter of habit -- we shoot Raw and we set our exposure using other approaches and so tyically a grey card is nowhere to be found unless you are shooting in a well-stocked studio and know where one is.

Heh! I don't have a studio but all my photo gear is gathered/scattered in one area in my home. And, somewhere in there I think is my crey card "sleeved" with my Greta MacBeth color card. But wherever they are they've been there for several years. I've looked around for them, though, and can't find them! They have either been moved, tossed out by some well-intentioned family member thinking she was doing me a "favor", or they are buried so deeply under some combination of gear, cables, electronics, books, magazines, etc, that I can't bring them "to light".

Well, I do get by with my White Balance and I'm happy with my overall approach to exposure, so I will survive!

I used a grey card when I shot an outdoor wedding and I think it helped. You can highlight all of the images shot during that sequence and set the white balance for all of them in a matter of seconds. I have a small collapsible grey card that I keep with me, but I often forget to use it.

ShotByTom wrote in post #13066767
I used a grey card when I shot an outdoor wedding and I think it helped. You can highlight all of the images shot during that sequence and set the white balance for all of them in a matter of seconds. I have a small collapsible grey card that I keep with me, but I often forget to use it.

That's the idea of a grey card for WB, for sure, as long as you are in the one scene and your lighting is consistent, you can use a grey card in one shot and in your Raw processor apply it to all shots in that scene, or you can always set a custom WB in-camera using the grey card -- Raw processors can pick up the Exif/Metadata flag for the WB and apply it as a "starting point" which, of course, because you are working with the Raw data you can freely change around.

Of course you can take a similar approach with exposure if, say, you are in the Manual exposure mode -- with a grey card you can meter it, set your exposure to either medium or that you by experience can give you optimum results, and then, as long as the scene/lighting doesn't change you can fire away without needing to keep checking your work after the first shot or two to verify that you got it "nailed" with the grey card.

Of course the challenge here is that you need to be ready to shift gears with any such approach -- whenever the scene/lighting changes, even if you are in one spot and turn to where your field of view changes, then if you really want to use that grey card then whip it out and re-shoot your WB, and re-check your exposure. A lot of us who do a lot of outdoor shooting have learned the hard way that we have to be prepared! If, for example, I am shooting on a sunny day and am getting great results shooting at one orientation, then maybe I see something interesting in the corner of my eye and I want to "capture" it, I turn and fire off some quick shots, then I find out, some times too late, that my exposure is all messed up! White Balance can face similar challenges...

Since this thread is about White Balance and Raw shooting, well, to those of us who are not doing color-critical shooting we do find some freedom in shooting in AWB, and we may or may not find an improvement shooting a grey card. However, there is a good argument for either setting a Custom WB in-camera, or, something as simple to setting a WB preset which is appropriate for your scene: If you do that, it will ensure that that each shot taken will have a consistent WB as a "starting point" in your Raw processor, so that at least you can do a quick "something" without a lot of fuss and fiddling in one image and apply it to the rest.

And, I'd hope that it goes without saying here that this discussion is about Raw shooting. Those seeing this who are shooting jpegs should not be led into thinking that they can take the same "relaxed" approach toward White Balance. Jpegs are less "forgiving" when it comes to making adjustments in software -- you can do a certain amount "smoothly", but at some point "smooth" breaks down into "messy"!