White balance

[englishpremier]

People always seem to recommend taking shots during the 'golden hour' where possible, and where it's not then using a warmer colour temperate either manually or using the 'cloudy setting' in lightroom or on the camera itself.

What's so special about it?

Perhaps it's just me, but I hate the yellowish golden hour like tinge to photographs, and overly warm colour temperatures.

 

[Janesy B]

What makes me laugh is people that tell you where, when and how you should take a shot, so what freedom do you actually have? People like this treat the rule of thirds as if it's an actual rule. Anyway, yes, I agree and it's retarded.

 

[Nexus]

White Balance isn't a hard and fast rule that it has to be correct. Being able to adjust it in post can save a photo where the white balance is totally wrong, or help where the skin tones aren't right on a person.

Ultimately though, the correct white balance can totally change the look of a photo, so its not always best. Its entirely up to you as the Photographer how you want your image to look.

The 'Golden Hour's isn't just about the colour temperature though, its also about getting great light and the fact that the sun is low in the sky, creating better shadows and far more interesting pictures. There is no reason you can't use the light available and adjust the colour to give a different feel.

 

[D.P.]

The "rules" of photography is short for "rules of thumb", i..e heuristics that you might consider in order to create pleasing compositions and captures. They are just observations by artists over the last thousand years that you might find helpful in some situations. If Van Gough thought something led to a pleasing image then it might be worth you considering it as well form time to time.

But you wont be arrested for doing what you want, you can take photos with your lens cap on if you want!



As for the golden hour, it is not so much about the white balance but the lighting. You will typically find less harsh highlights or shadows, deeper, richer colours and saturation, better tones, less haze, less specular highlights, better contrast. It is like someone put a giant polarizer over the world. Most people find this is more pleasing, and heck, people tend to like sunsets. IF you don't like that then then you don't have to shoot it! The white balance can be adjusted in post so you don't have to have the warm tones but can still benefit from the better light.


There are other benefits as well. Early in the morning the atmosphere is cooler and there is less distortion and haze form the heat which is important for landscape work. Also animals are more more prevalent at dawn and dusk so it is much easier to find them (they hide in the shade in the day). Also in many places the weather is often bad during the day, starting clear early but before clouding over early in the morning, raining all afternoon before the clouds part at sunset. Other weather phenomena can also come into play, in some places string winds pickup in the day time due to the solar heating, this can blow up lots of dust into the air educing contrast and saturation during the day. Similarly in the Serengeti the animals kick up a lot of dust in the day but early morning you can get clearer images. You also get less tourists that might get in the way.


But there are times when midday shooting is desired. When photographing deep canyons it is often the only way. For macro work then a cloudy sky in the the middle of the day leads to the best lighting etc.

 

[GTRacer]

Set the white balance to whatever you want, just make sure it's consistent between shots in sets of photos taken in the same place.

 

[theheyes]

Shoot RAW and worry about it later. Colour is more important when dealing with skin tones and you should have a decent awareness of mixed lighting situations. Aside from that, go nuts.

 

[mrk]

Not worried about in camera WB myself since discovering RAW. As above really.

It's only of concern when shooting video.

 

[D.P.]

Shoot RAW and worry about it later. Colour is more important when dealing with skin tones and you should have a decent awareness of mixed lighting situations. Aside from that, go nuts.

In general this is true but WB does affect the histograms so if you are being careful in landscape type work and trying to get the most DR out of the scene it is useful to have a WB close to your intended output. It also makes post processing quciker if you shot a whole set of photos all with the correct WB etc.

But yeah, you shouldn't worry too much about the WB. There are also lots of other parameters, e.g. when you print the photo and hang it up the lighting will affect the perceived WB. Hang a neutral WB photo next to an open log fire and it will look very cold.

 

[King Damager]

Rules are made to be broken.

I've never been a big fan of massively warm images anyway. There's always quite an obvious line in my book when editing a photo, and fiddling the WB as to where becomes 'to warm'

kd

 

[englishpremier]

Cool.

I was just playing with the WB on my shots from a recent trip which is what got me asking. I fiddled about with it, but preferred a more neutral setting.

 

[no_sleep_til]

have you tried using a grey card for wb consistence? be able to pick one up for about £5 on the 'bay

 

[D.P.]

Cool.

I was just playing with the WB on my shots from a recent trip which is what got me asking. I fiddled about with it, but preferred a more neutral setting.

For the most part your WB should be neutral, white should be white. This is not the same question as shooting at the golden hour though.


As no_sleep_til says, if you are having difficulties with WB then you can get a gray card and calibrate int the field - you can either calibrate the WB setting on your camera or simply take a photo of the gray card and when you ae doing PP on those photos use that gray card as the reference WB.

A cheap but workable solution is simply to carry a pringles lid with you , it is close enough to neutral.