white balance question/nighttime

what should the white balance setting be at when you are taking sunset/ near dark photos?

ps249 wrote in post #3879201
what should the white balance setting be at when you are taking sunset/ near dark photos?

Just my $0.02 worth but unless there's something in the photo that is obviously white (a shirt, a car, etc...) then "white balance" is actually a meaningless term.

Obviously, late afternoon - early evening (sun) light is very, very warm and everything will look redder than it does at mid-day. If you are in a mixed-light situation with evening glow fighting, say, sodium-vapor street lights, then all bets are sorta off and you have to tweak in post until you get as good a balance as you can.

If you're shooting RAW (and therefore have a handle on the color temp in post processing,) then your going to adjust things to whatever your eye tells you is a faithful rendition of what you shot.

If you have a shot that you are having a problem with, post it and I'm sure people will be happy to help you!

Good Luck

got it. thanks.

FlyingPhotog wrote in post #3879224
Just my $0.02 worth but unless there's something in the photo that is obviously white (a shirt, a car, etc...) then "white balance" is actually a meaningless term.

A picture does not have to contain any white elements for WB to be relevent. WB is always "meaningful" to put it in your own terms. The WB needs to be corrected even if no white elements in the photo in order to get the other colors right.

When the sun is going down, everything gets that nice warm glow to it. If you want to capture that, an accurate white balance will screw it up.

DDan wrote in post #3883824
When the sun is going down, everything gets that nice warm glow to it. If you want to capture that, an accurate white balance will screw it up.

Not true...an accurate WB will show faithful...and if that low sun gold glow is there, it will show up...WB on the teeth during raw conversion...good results.

Steiglitz wrote in post #3883838
Not true...an accurate WB will show faithful...and if that low sun gold glow is there, it will show up...WB on the teeth during raw conversion...good results.

Please explain. Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of WB setting. If you use an Expodisc it will remove the orange cast just like it would for incandescent lighting. If you use a Whibal card same thing. I don't see how you could do this without a custom setting in PP to match what your eyes saw when you took the shot. That is not not a normal WB procedure.

Steiglitz wrote in post #3883390
A picture does not have to contain any white elements for WB to be relevent. WB is always "meaningful" to put it in your own terms. The WB needs to be corrected even if no white elements in the photo in order to get the other colors right.

I disagree. If there is nothing in the frame that reads 255.255.255 then on what do you "white balance?"

I didn't say you wouldn't have to correct the color temperature (and you may now accuse me of splitting hairs...) but you can't "white balance" when true white does not exsisit (and I mean the mechanical action of clicking on some part of the image with the eyedropper...)

eg: A rock band is on stage and the lead guitarist is playing a Stratocaster that has the traditional white bit (pick guard?) around the knobs. The lights are all red. Is the white bit of the guitar going to be white? Don't think so.

I don't correct the white balance for a shot of only the sunset sky. Just set the camera to "daylight" white balance and go.