Lesson learned or so I thought

[moriato]

41945 by moriato on ThePhotoForum: Film & Digital Photography Forum

Shibuya crossing
2019/02/02
Olympus E-M10
1/200 f8 iso100 14mm
Manual
WB=300K
14-42mm f3.5-5.6EZ lense

So, I went out to try manual exposure first time and was all the time wondering why everything looked so blueish. Only at home I recognized that I forgot to switch the white balance from indoors to outdoors. Lesson learned, I thought but when trying to fix the wb by posted it, I found that I actually prefer the blueish to the more 'realistic' one (it was very sunny as you can see here: Photo "41946" in the album "TestShots" by moriato).

So, while I aim to use the more close to actual lighting setting from now on (doing the manual wb I leave for later), I am also confused why the blueish 'wrong' color looks so good here. I guess the general cool colors of the surrounding match it, but wonder if I should now also test many different wb settings for various situations.

How do you handle the wb settings normally and what do you think about the coloring it creates in the image at the top?

 

[Braineack]

jpg problems.

 

[Designer]

How do you handle the wb settings normally and what do you think about the coloring it creates in the image at the top?

Normally I set the WB setting to the conditions at the time.

An odd colorcast can either enhance a shot or be a distraction. Don't be a distraction.

 

[Tropicalmemories]

Yes, doing things 'wrong' deliberately can produce some interesting results.

Shibuya has been photographed so often it needs a different approach, and the blue looks cool.

But for important shoots, using raw or raw plus jpeg is a good insurance plan.

 

[smoke665]

My routine is to leave the camera set to AWB, I shoot a WB target every time the light changes and save as raw file. In post the WB is adjusted to the target. However I will adjust the WB setting in camera if I'm trying to counteract a color temperature or for special effects. IE: Put a blue gel on a flash and adjust your White Balance setting to Cloudy, anything lit with the flash will appear neutral, while the rest of the scene will be warm. Or go the other way, gel a flash orange and set the white balance to Tungsten to cool down your scene will make an otherwise sunny day appear icy and cool?

As to the image the blue worked extremely well. Proof that the photographer's vision plays an important part in WB settings.

 

[Fujidave]

I always have AWB on both my cameras, if and when it comes out wrong then I just get it right in PP.
It is actually a nice image you took and I think it looks cool as is.

 

[moriato]

Thank you all for your comments!
Actually, I shot in raw and jpg but I did not know what are the benefits of the raw format.
After reading all your comments and advice, I checked in the internet and learnt about it.
So, next I will go back to the picture and try to adjust the wb in the raw version to see the differences.
What I am not sure about yet, is if the wb setting of the camera influences the taken raw file or if this is only an effect applied to the jpg the camera creates.
Checking this out in detail in combinations with other settings is the project for next weekend now.
Also, I will compare the results of the default settings with the wb-target method you mentioned @smoke665.
Thanks for all the hints and shared techniques and also your encouraging messages.
I am new to all this and whatever bit I find out about by action and reading here seems to open a huge wide field of new experiences!

 

[moriato]

jpg problems.

Took me a while to get this, first I thought you cannot see my uploaded pictures, haha.

 

[smoke665]

What I am not sure about yet, is if the wb setting of the camera influences the taken raw file or if this is only an effect applied to the jpg the camera creates

The white balance setting doesn't affect the image data in the RAW file, but the setting is recorded in the meta data in the file, so you can still use it to process the RAW image if you like.

If you saved a raw file, LR will show you not only what you set in camera but all the other options available. Adjusting White Balance in Lightroom

 

[D7K]

Solid advice from Smoke; For me this image does not benefit from SUCH a blue hue, but that's just me, I can certainly see the image "cooled down" a bit from the "as seen" light would work nicely but for me this is just a little too much. None-the-less I like the busyness of the image, people as you can see here, do not operate in similar ways to ants for example, a total scattergun approach to crossing the road..

 

[moriato]

Thanks again. I found the way to adjust the wb settings in the editing software for raw pictures now and will explore the software more.
@D7K: Indeed, my goal was to catch the busyness of the people. The randomness of the walking directions vs the ordered zebra crossing emphasize this well.

 

[mrca]

For precise white balance I include a color checker passport in the first shot then use it to give me a perfect color in post then I can start from correct to make any artistic decisions which for portraits is usually warming them one or 2 warming chips. The way to adjust white balance in post is to move the white balance sampler around watching the rgb values til you get them nearly equal and click.

 

[moriato]

Thank you. I am new to the post-editing and will play around with the ways to adjust the raw images and also see how to adjust wb matching to a reference shot.

 

[Designer]

Thank you. I am new to the post-editing and will play around with the ways to adjust the raw images and also see how to adjust wb matching to a reference shot.

If you would like to see what one of us would do with the shot, just change your settings to "Photos ok to edit".

 

[mrca]

If you are new to editing, I can't recommend Kelby One Training enough. When I intitally tried to learn photoshop, I took 2 runs at it and gave up each time. I took the free trial from Kelby and within 2 weeks was totally functional. They have unlimited free for 15 courses aimed at beginners. At $25 a month, it is better than buying books. I would now recommend Lightroom and it is much more user and photographer friendly. I print only out of LR.