White Balance: Cloudy

[akazoly]

Hi,
Bryan Peterson recommends the "cloudy" white balance all the time.
What do you think? It really provides more natural colors? Do you use it?
I love natural, more yellowish colors.
Thanks!

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3cggTohh4E[/ame]

 

[Scatterbrained]

It depends on the lighting situation. I would recommend setting it to match as closely as possible the light of the situation. Try using a cloudy white balance in an office full of florescent lights and see what I mean.
Peterson tries to use all natural light (i.e. sunlight or reflected sunlight) so for those instances it's ok. I would still recommend getting some sort of white balance tool to allow you to accurately set the white balance at the scene.

 

[DanFinePhotography]

I use cloudy often providing it is giving me satisfactory results, otherwise i will switch it to daylight if its a nice day

 

[Derrel]

Cloudy Minus 3 was Moose Peterson's suggestion for the old Nkon D1 and D1h models...different cameras have different white balance capabilities...on "new", modern d-slr cameras, I think cloudy is too warm a WB...I prefer Fine Weather most of the time, which is also known as Daylight white balance.

 

[Sw1tchFX]

whatever looks good is what I do. Sometimes that's 2500K sometimes it's 5500K, sometimes it's 7000K

 

[tirediron]

whatever looks good is what I do. Sometimes that's 2500K sometimes it's 5500K, sometimes it's 7000K

+1 ^^ Leave it in 'Auto' and correct to a known point in post.

 

[MohaimenK]

yeah cloudy gives a good version IMO. Although now I have the expodisc I need to start using that. I love his video!

 

[akazoly]

Cloudy Minus 3 was Moose Peterson's suggestion for the old Nkon D1 and D1h models...different cameras have different white balance capabilities...on "new", modern d-slr cameras, I think cloudy is too warm a WB...I prefer Fine Weather most of the time, which is also known as Daylight white balance.

I have a Nikon D40X. I don't know if it's a modern DSLR.

 

[kundalini]

I typically leave mine on Flash setting because typically a flash is involved. Although it's the same temperature as Daylight at 5500K, the Flash setting zeros the Tint. Daylight setting tends to swing tint towards magenta by a few marks. It really doesn't matter because I can easily synch WB on all shots in LR.

 

[icassell]

Are you shooting in JPEG or in RAW? If you're shooting in RAW, it shouldn't make a lot of difference unless you're shooting at very high ISO. For that reason, I leave it in AUTO and correct as needed in PP.

There's an interesting (and sometimes heated) discussion of WB in high ISO imaging here:
High ISO Avocet shot

 

[Steve01]

I shoot RAW and set the camera to Auto 99% of the time.

 

[Sw1tchFX]

whatever looks good is what I do. Sometimes that's 2500K sometimes it's 5500K, sometimes it's 7000K

+1 ^^ Leave it in 'Auto' and correct to a known point in post.

You got it toyota

 

[KmH]

Hi,
Bryan Peterson recommends the "cloudy" white balance all the time.

That isn't what he said. He said he likes it and uses it 98% of the time. He also only compared Cloudy to Auto and noted that if the light source was already warm, like at sunset, you couldn't use cloudy.

Try not to get stuck in absolutes.

When I do portraits outside at midday with my subject under a diffuser and lit with CTO corrected strobed light, I often set the WB to Tungsten which cools the background (makes it slightly blue) and really makes my subject pop.

So, certainly give Bryans method a try, but experiment and make your own decisions.

 

[flyingember]

I use auto except for in a few situations

cloudy works so much better when taking just flowers under clouds in my experience. auto is fine in the same situation when doing an all-around scene.

I use a whitebalance card and PRE when taking shots of people using my studio lights. I get a much better result this way requiring much less time in the computer.

light bulbs are too varied for the preset incandescent and florescent modes to be useful these days unless I'm doing it on purpose.