White balance: Manual or auto?

[JClishe]

I'm just curious, do the more experienced photographers always manually set their WB, or just leave it on auto? I've been getting into the habit of using the cloudy / shady preset whenever I'm in those situations, but just leave it on auto the rest of the time.

 

[PhotoXopher]

Auto almost all the time, the D90 is really good with it so I have no problems letting it decide.

 

[Blank]

I will use auto outdoors for the most part. I am so used to WB adjustments in Bridge before I send to CS3 that I do any corrections needed there. When I am indoor, I always custom WB off a gray card.

 

[Big Mike]

I usually use Auto but I shoot in RAW so it's easy to adjust afterward.

I almost never use the presets (sunny, cloudy, indoors etc). If I'm not going to use auto, it will be when I set a custom WB.

 

[tirediron]

Depends; if I'm working under conditions where I have the luxury of time and the light is not changing rapidly (ie alternating cloud and bright sun) then I'll 'Expodisc' it, but if not, or in changing light, I always leave WB on auto.

 

[farmerj]

Most conditions it stays in Auto.

Some times I will set a custom white balance with the WhiBal card.

 

[inTempus]

I leave my cameras set to AWB and shoot in RAW. I will stick a gray card out there for a set and shoot it which helps me to properly set the WB later in Lightroom.

 

[Sherman Banks]

I just learned how to manually set my white balance for a scene (not just rotating the dial but actually tuning it to the light), but I still use it on auto for the most part. I do use the flash setting when I'm using flash though and I mostly shoot RAW so it's easily adjustable in post if it's not quite right.

 

[Josh66]

I leave mine on Daylight all the time.

I find that I rarely have to change it, and if I suspect that daylight would not be right I take a picture of a WhiBal card.


I seem to get better, and more consistant results with Daylight than Auto.


(Of course, it helps that I mostly shoot with available light.)

 

[Phranquey]

I alternate between flash for indoors, and cloudy for outdoors. I use the cloudy setting even on sunny days since it gives a warmer tone. In unknown or mixed light situations, I will set it on auto, bracket the white balance, and pick the best one & correct in PP.

 

[musicaleCA]

I always use the presets to get close to the lighting conditions I'm expecting. Shooting RAW, I can go back and tweak things later, but I don't trust my camera to make such decisions for me (it's messed-up royally a few times). I find that having a bad WB the first time I look at a shot in LR throws off my creativity, and at best just means more work; I'd rather take the split second in the field to set the camera to the approximate WB I'm expecting. I also think shooting neutral all the time is over-rated. Hell, sometimes I've shot a grey card and used it to set a custom WB that I know is technically right...but it looks aweful, and I revert to the preset that I used in-camera.

 

[manaheim]

I usually use Auto but I shoot in RAW so it's easy to adjust afterward.

I almost never use the presets (sunny, cloudy, indoors etc). If I'm not going to use auto, it will be when I set a custom WB.

I do the same... Auto and RAW so I don't have to worry about if it's off. Though, occasionally I get extreme cases where using a specific white balance and raw would have been a better choice because the color spectrum is SO skewed that I likely lost some data... that's pretty rare though.

 

[tsaraleksi]

If I'm shooting jpeg then I'll take the time to set a custom a lot of the time, correcting WB is a pain w/o raw. Otherwise I'll usually let the camera figure it out and I'll fix it later.

 

[Baaaark]

I trust auto for pretty much anything OTHER THAN fluorescent and flash. If in one of the above settings, I go with the pre-programmed setting for each (my p&s has no custom WB).