White balancing

[ajmall]

just curious as to how many of you use the pre select white balance on your DSLRs or use one of the programmed settings? I generally tend to use the programmed options because i can't always find something white to set.

I know the basics about white balancing as a principle so what's the best way to set it in a low light environment? will carrying a white piece of card suffice?

 

[Big Mike]

I almost always leave it on Auto WB.

 

[danalec99]

^^ same here

 

[Hertz van Rental]

I've had problems with auto white with several cameras - quite often the dominant colour of a scene can fool it. It's best to use pre-programmed WB settings - or programme your own.
White balance is to do with the colour temp of the dominant light source and isn't affected by the illumination level - see my bit on WB here:
http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3028&page=8

With digital you have the facility to alter the WB after you have taken the shot.

 

[amoki]

RAW. Using RAW you can adjust your colour balance later Pre-selected WB only gets you so close to your WB, and Auto WB sometimes can be terrible (after all, the machine is using mathematic stuff to get to it, isn't it? )

 

[Hertz van Rental]

Well if you want it accurate then invest in a colour temperature meter.
If you think about what you are doing then pre-sets are near enough. I doubt very much if you would notice if it was off by even 10 Mireds.

 

[ajmall]

hmm, i think i might actually shoot RAW more often. thanks for the link

 

[afghanjohn]

For my video work I always manually set the white balance every time. I carry a white sheet of paper with me, and that seems to do the trick. But for the stills I have used the auto setting. I think it would be better, however, to set the white balance manually for each situation. For whatever reason, the still camera seems better at guessing the correct white balance than the video camera.