White Balance question

[tom beard]

I've ordered an 18% grey card to use with my D-90 for indoor lighting situations (halogen, fluorescent and incandescent mixed). I understand that part. I saw a post of baby photos shot outdoors with pretty even lighting (one source--sunlight, open shade) and a criticism said to adjust the WB so the face would appear more natural. On the other hand, my Blue Crane D-90 for beginners tutorial and other sources say that the auto white balance on that camera is pretty good, so just set it to auto WB (for out door shooting) and forget it. Can you enlighten me? Pun intended.
Thanks, as always. Tom Beard

 

[MGriff240]

Auto is eh. It's up in the air usually. With the right settings around it, you can make it work, but sometimes it's just a pain.

If you're outdoors and have good sunlight, use outdoor. It always seems to help in well-lit situations.

 

[LarryD]

The nice thing about digital photography is that white balance is simply an algorithm in the software....... It is nice if you can work with it initially and have the time...but auto WB is usually fine for most high-end cameras..

Most WB issues can be rectified in post processing......

 

[D-B-J]

me personally, i use "flash" white balance outdoors, and then postprocess in lightroom three. Ive found that gives me some beautifully warm colors. Although, you could just shoot in raw and edit the wb in pp

 

[Josh66]

Personally, I always use daylight. Most of the time, it's right anyway - but if not, I shoot RAW so it only takes a couple clicks to fix it.

Auto is OK most of the time, but it's those few times it isn't that make me not like it.
It will also fluctuate a little from shot to shot. With daylight, at least I know every shot will be exactly the same.

If I'm not sure, or if I know daylight will be wrong - I just shoot a gray card and fix it in PP.

 

[dak1b]

auto wb does work in many occasions, however you have those moments where you really just have to look at the picture and set wb accordingly.