Real daylight temperature

Heya,

Say, what is the REAL daylight temperature. Some sources list it as 5500K and that is the same value that LR uses (plus a slight bias towards magenta). Yet, my camera (5D2) lists 5200K as its value for its Daylight WB mode. Should I use the custom value and set my WB to 5500K and use that as default?

Similarly, my literature says that strobes are designed to be daylight temperature... meaning, what? 5500K? Again, the camera uses a temperature of 6000K for its Flash WB mode. What gives? Which mode to use? So far I have been using AWB and doing all my adjustments in LR, but I was experimenting with these settings the other night and I did notice a slight shifts in the temperature between them.

TIA

P.S. I didn't know if this question should have been posted on the Cameras forum instead, apologies if that was the case, and please feel free to move it.

Real daylight temperature? No such thing.

Daylight color temp at sunset? Maybe 3000K. In shadows? Could be as high as 8000K. Midday sunlight? Around 5200K.

Welcome to POTN, BTW!

-js

Not even that simple; flash exposure is varied by altering the length of the burst and this affects the color. Canon Speedlites (and perhaps on-board flashes) communicate with the camera and change the WB accordingly when Flash or AWB are set.

Hmm, what to do then? Use AWB and correct in port-processing? Nathaniel Coalson in his book advised to just use the camera's Daylight value pretty much always, except when shooting indoors or with strobes.

number six wrote in post #14848868
Real daylight temperature? No such thing.

Daylight color temp at sunset? Maybe 3000K. In shadows? Could be as high as 8000K. Midday sunlight? Around 5200K.

Welcome to POTN, BTW!

-js

I imagine it also varies with time of year, latitude, altitude, and maybe even humidity.

More important than the Kelvin temperature setting is to achieve accurate color balance among the RGB channels.

Auto WB will choose RGB multiplier values based on a portion of the image thought to be white. The values chosen typically do not correspond to the values used when the camera WB is set to a Kelvin temperature.

There are light meters which measure the RGB values of 'white'...

Alveric wrote in post #14849432
Hmm, what to do then? Use AWB and correct in port-processing? Nathaniel Coalson in his book advised to just use the camera's Daylight value pretty much always, except when shooting indoors or with strobes.

If you are going to look to correct in post-processing, shooting Raw gives you a much more reliable approach than shooting jpeg.

That being said, our AWB does seem to work well in daytime scenes, although I have seen it get thrown off if there is a mix of sunlight and shadows. But that can be a tough combo at any rate.

If you are shooting indoors without a flash I'd definitely use a Custom White Balance if you are shooting jpeg. With Raw it can help give you a "starting point", although having a good "target" in a shot can help you get things going with Raw as well.

I don't use studio lights/strobes, each will be different. With Speedlites I keep the camera in AWB and I tend to be happy with things. I tend to let some of the ambient light into my exposures, which provides a "mixed effect" to the lighting that I tend to like.

People worry too much about WB. The human eye is not very good at seeing the exactly right WB. In the same way that the brain makes allowances and "sees" objects that it knows should be white as white in real life, it also does the same in, to a lesser extent, in a photo. Use AWB to get it in the general area and then tweak it to look good to you.

tzalman wrote in post #14850873
People worry too much about WB. The human eye is not very good at seeing the exactly right WB. In the same way that the brain makes allowances and "sees" objects that it knows should be white as white in real life, it also does the same in, to a lesser extent, in a photo. Use AWB to get it in the general area and then tweak it to look good to you.

^

If you do really want to know what WB value to use, "Use the WB value which allows your lens + camera to capture a neutral rendition (R=G=B) of a neutral target" ...and then alter the WB value to best suit the mood that you wish to communicate to the viewer.

or use one of those wb cards and use the wb picker. I actually vote for changing it to suit the mode of the photo as valid as any other pp

If you're looking for accurate color, you certainly want to do a custom white balance. Otherwise, the difference between 5200K and 5300K is going to be pretty inconsequential for casual viewing. Generally, those preset color balance settings (sunlight, cloudy, shade, etc.) are going to be close enough. And as someone stated, the auto white balance of most cameras seems to work pretty well for normal daylight settings, though it can get thrown under artificial lighting or early morning/late evening light. Lastly, keep in mind that "correct" white balance may not give you the result you want. For instance, if you want that warm red glow from a setting sun and you set a custom white balance using a white card, the photo is probably not going to turn out the way you want it to. Of course, in situations like this, shooting in Raw is a beautiful thing since you can adjust the white balance until your heart's content during processing.

Ya, I use the SpyderCube for accurate colour rendition; but, as some of you have mentioned, it turns colours neutral. This works well for product photography or architectural (interiors), but when used in landscape, especially for pictures made during the 'Golden Hour', it robs the scene of its mood by clinically neutralising the WB. All I really want is to capture the scene as my eyes saw it (i.e. to use the WB/temperature that will render the colours along with their casts at the moment the picture was made).

When I forget to use my Whi-Bal card during outdoor sunlit shoots, 4950-5100 usually looks pretty good to my eyeballs. I'll select something around that temp only if I can't find something close to neutral gray in the image to sample from.

dave

I wouldn't process for real. i would process for what looks good. I tend to like my pics warm. Beauty is in the eye. . .