Newbie WB Questions and Other Stuff

Okay I've got some newbie questions...

1. How can I properly set the white balance when I must use a flash?

2. How can I properly set the white balance when I am using a polarizing filter? Do I set the WB before or after placing the filter on?

3. On windy days, I can't get my light stand to hold my diffuser in place. So, if I need to get a shot (where harsh lighting is present), what should I do?

4. Do you all adjust your exposure before your WB, or the other way around?

Okay, that's all I can think of for now after a couple of sleepless nights. Yeah, I really appreciate all your help in advance. Thanks.

1. In general, you can't. If there's much ambient light, you'll get mixed lighting and there is no single correct WB. What the experts do is to "gel" the flash to match the ambient lighting, and set WB for that.

2. A polarizing filter should have no effect on WB unless you're using a Singh-Ray warming polarizer or some such.

4. Exposure and WB are pretty much unrelated. Exposure determines what the overall signal levels in your Raw data will be, while WB affects how that Raw data will be interpreted into color.

Most folks here would recommend that you simply shoot in Raw, where you can select your WB during post-processing instead of worrying about it in the field.

My advice would be to reflect on whether you might be obsessing too much about WB. As Petteri Sulonen wrote, "people never used to be so picky about white balancing. Pick up a National Geographic from, say, the 1980's, and you'll find a tremendous variety of color casts in the pictures therein -- and you'll also find that most of them look damn good."

Doug Pardee wrote in post #6037112
Most folks here would recommend that you simply shoot in Raw, where you can select your WB during post-processing instead of worrying about it in the field.

My advice would be to reflect on whether you might be obsessing too much about WB. As Petteri Sulonen wrote, "people never used to be so picky about white balancing. Pick up a National Geographic from, say, the 1980's, and you'll find a tremendous variety of color casts in the pictures therein -- and you'll also find that most of them look damn good."

I agree!

Advice taken, and thanks for confirming the things I have read across several forums regarding WB and exposure. I have found a way to stop my reflectors from blowing around, but I hope I won't have to do it too often!