Does white balance automatically adjust for flash?

[Antithesis]

I'm still waiting to get an sb-600 so I'm just using the d80's onboard flash (yuck!) and I was curious if I still need to set the white balance or will the camera automatically adjust to the strobe?

I read an article about fine-tuning white balance for accurate color reproduction and it was talking about using a fill flash to automatically set the color temperature of a photograph. He said the color temp of a strobe is about 5500k, and I was curious: what setting this would be under nikon's different pre-settings?

Sorry if it's confusing, just hoping someone knows.

 

[Garbz]

Part of Nikon's iTTL metering is that the SB-600 and SB-800 units will inform the camera of their exact colour temperature based on the duration of the flash.

For this to work leave the camera in Auto white balance.

The flash whitebalance setting on Nikons is 5400k giving the image a slightest warm tinge, I typically use this more than the auto white balance because it gives a more appealing image.

 

[JerryPH]

Even then... automatic is just that... close, but not often spot on, not even on my D200 and SB-800. If I set WB to flash, its better, but setting it to around 5600K manually just makes the picture look its most natural to my eyes.

 

[Antithesis]

I need to find out how to adjust white balance on the d80 by temperature manually. I suppose I could just shoot in RAW too, but accurate color reproduction from the get-go would be nice.

 

[Garbz]

No chance. As I said Flash colour temperature depends on it's duration. So accurate single setting won't happen. If you need accurate colour temperture without post processing I suggest you get all your settings right using test photos including the strobes set manually to a certain power, then use a grey card along with the D80's Manual Pre-set white balance option.

 

[JerryPH]

I need to find out how to adjust white balance on the d80 by temperature manually. I suppose I could just shoot in RAW too, but accurate color reproduction from the get-go would be nice.

You could shoot 5-10 practice shoots and get it close, but as soon as someone turns on another light or you change position or camera settings... you can start over.

Shoot RAW and have zero worries. For that feature alone (and there are a few others), I do not shoot JPG. I don't think my D200 has output a JPG since I bought it over 5 months ago... lol.