How Do You White Balance (outdoors)?

For years, I've shot Raw, and not worried about White Balance because I figured "I can just do it later in Adobe Camera Raw".

However, lately I've been trying to streamline my workflow, switching back to good old Canon Zoombrowser/Raw Image Task to get images/colours as Canon intended straight out of camera, but with the benefit of having a Raw original.

One thing I've realized is that getting White Balance correct at the time of shooting really improves workflow when I'm working on 1000 pictures from an event, like a marathon.

My question is mainly aimed at shooting outdoors, because I find that AUTO WB is decent, but often a bit on the cool side, especially if the clouds come out. When it's cloudy, I find that CLOUDY WB seems to make things a bit too "amber?" for lack of a better word. Daylight isn't bad, a bit of a compromise of both, but again, can sometimes be too cool.

Anyway, how do most of you work your outdoor white balance, especially when working on an event with a large number of pics? Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

I also find cloudy and shade WB to be too warm. In general I've found auto WB to work well in daylight - cool in the shade, of course, but that's what it really looks like to my eye.

I find with auto WB on raw images the "as shot" WB in DPP is good for most of my shots.

-js

Thanks Number Six.

One thing I notice when I look at a lot of pictures taken outdoors, especially by new photographers, is that their images don't have "pop" and often it's due to a white balance that is too cool.

However, like you, I find a bit warm, but I like that sometimes, but I haven't found an instance where Shade ever looks good.

Recently I was talking to a very successful and talented fitness photographer, he does all his shooting outdoors, natural light, with a silver reflector if necessary. The first thing he does is sets his 5D WB to CLOUDY. The results look amazing, but he uses Bibble (CLOUDY from Bibble, especially B5 looks quite good), and he must do some sort of extra processing.

That's when I realized that apart from not liking the ACR colours, I didn't like it's presets for WB, and that out of camera, the WB was often too cool outdoors.

The only two problems I've had shooting outdoors in the daylight using Auto WB have been first in the late afternoon just before sunset -- it comes out quite warm and sometimes has wanted a touch of cooling -- and in heavily shaded areas, especialy if I'm trying to balance the scene with some sunlit areas. Both of those scenes could be challenging even with a Custom WB, depending on what you're after -- you may want the late afternoon scene to be warm, after all. Generally, though, I stay at Auto in the day time or at night or indoors if there is a real mix of lighting, or often if I'm using a speedlight flash, since they have a color temp close to daylight.

Thanks tonylong. I have a similar experience, however my results tend to be on the cool side of things.

I haven't done much shooting at sunset (I need to start though), but here is an example taken in May at about 7am, just as the sun was rising, on a partly cloudy morning. These people were in the shade, and here are my results (out of Raw Image Task, don't get me started on ACR WB Presets, ugh).

To me, Auto is too cool, Daylight is getting better, Cloudy is maybe a bit warm, and Shade is way off. I think I like Daylight best, but Cloudy is close too. I think somewhere in between would be ideal.

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I go auto, whether RAW or jpeg. Mostly it works just fine. Indoors I'll usually shoot RAW and use auto also, and correct the WB afterwards. Often the indoor lighting is sufficiently odd as to require manual adjustment in PP.

AWB, then adjust while post processing. I don't fret too much even there. If it looks right then I'm happy.

One of the last three choices, depending on what I anticipate I'll need.
Remember, the "correct" WB isn't always the "right" WB for that image? Don't be afraid of fudging it a bit if you think the shot looks better.

Thanks guys!

PhotosGuy wrote in post #8757907
One of the last three choices, depending on what I anticipate I'll need.
Remember, the "correct" WB isn't always the "right" WB for that image? Don't be afraid of fudging it a bit if you think the shot looks better.

This sounds correct. I like the "Daylight" balance above the best, but I asked another photographer who immediately liked the "Shade" balance the best, which to me looked way too warm. I guess technically the "Shade" is too warm, but it helps relate a nice warm sunrise and could be applicable in some situations.

I set it to 5500K for out doors, seems to be a good general setting then adjust as needed in post processing, when you use the 5500k rather than AWB, you pick up the true lighting in the majetic first and last two hours instead of camera trying to correct in AWB. Note: not my idea, read it from another poster and it seems to work well.

Thanks DarenM, I may try that tomorrow.

Btw, is there any way to find out what K temp Canon uses for Daylight, Cloudy and Shade? RIT won't show this. I think there may be some tint adjustments too.

drisley wrote in post #8760439
Thanks DarenM, I may try that tomorrow.

Btw, is there any way to find out what K temp Canon uses for Daylight, Cloudy and Shade? RIT won't show this. I think there may be some tint adjustments too.

You can figure it out for yourself - shoot a gray card in each of those modes in raw, then in DPP adjust the color temp to get a match.

That's how I determined the K temp of my hardware store quartz-halogen floods.

-js

I voted,

Thanks guys. I do have a whi-bal, so I may give it a shot.

However, I've been playing around in RIT, and discoverd some settings that seem to work really well in almost all outdoor/natural light conditions. I'm thrilled with the result. I'm going to plug it in to my camera tomorrow and probably save as a preset for outdoor work. For indoor work, I'm loving the picture style PF2 that Pixmantra included with his 1D3 FlexNR action, and that will be my indoor go to setup.

For outdoors, this is what I'm liking.

WB: Auto
Tint: A2 (adds a bit of warmth)
Picture Style: Faithful
Contrast: 0 (Default)
Saturation: +2
Tone: +2

This seems to work extremely well in cloudy and clear weather, and the skin tones are so nice. No more blown reds either which is typical for Canon in Standard settings. I actually found some of these settings in a thread about 40D ooc settings, and it really helps me daylight stuff.

Soooo, if all goes well, I SHOULD be able to output the few hundred pics I plan on taking Monday and have them ready by Tuesday or Wednesday. Although, it looks like cloudy/rainy conditions

drisley wrote in post #8761275
Thanks guys. I do have a whi-bal, so I may give it a shot.

However, I've been playing around in RIT, and discoverd some settings that seem to work really well in almost all outdoor/natural light conditions. I'm thrilled with the result.

(snip)

This seems to work extremely well in cloudy and clear weather, and the skin tones are so nice. No more blown reds either which is typical for Canon in Standard settings.
(snip)

Soooo, if all goes well, I SHOULD be able to output the few hundred pics I plan on taking Monday and have them ready by Tuesday or Wednesday. Although, it looks like cloudy/rainy conditions

Awright! You've got results that look good.

Well done!

-js