White Balance gear vs. RAW?

[Carol]

I'm going through my hiking photos and I'm finding some White Balance issues with several of them. Part of that is because of my inexperience, and part is Murphy's Law.....the spots with the the better light are not always a safe/comfortable spot to stand and take pictures.

I skimmed through white balance cards and meters on Amazon and...yikes....some of that stuff would run me almost as much as what I paid for the camera.

Some photographers are saying that a better way to deal with white balance issues is to have the camera capture the RAW file and then set the white balance in post processing. My camera does support RAW files, and I have . large memory card (16 GB), so this seems very doable.

The idea of capturing the RAW format and then futzing around with software is a lot more appealing to me than futzing around with extra equipment on the trail.

Have any of you folks worked with WB this way? Is it a good approach?

Inquiring minds want to know

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Have any of you folks worked with WB this way? Is it a good approach?

Inquiring minds want to know

Yes, I have (and do). Yes, it is a good approach.

Some advocate only shooting in RAW ever. I don't agree that it is always the way to go, because RAW takes more space and more time to write the file out, and every file will have to be 'touched' post-processing before you can use it. When conditions are good (lighting, etc) and I want or need more photos per card or faster shot-to-shot photos, I go with JPEG. But as your friends pointed out, you lose some ability to set WB later.

I use an Expo-Disc to set WB in camera while shooting under wonky lights, which usually does the trick for me. It's not too expensive, and there are eBay clones that are very cheap (don't know how well they work, but they claim they work as well as the 'real' expo disc).

White balance cards should not be expensive! They're just colored cardboard or plastic after all. The trick to using them is you have to take a photo of your scene with them in it - you use the card later in post-processing to tell your software that 'this is white, use it' and point at the white card (or grey card if you're doing grey balance). Kind of a pain for me, so I don't bother.

The biggest trouble for me using RAW to set WB post-processing is that I'm color-blind. Not always sure if what I think is white is what others will think is white. You can experiment with the temp slider until the colors look right for you, if you're not color-blind like me, it should be fine.

So yes, RAW is good. Gives you many more options post-processing. Also remember you will have to do sharpening (unsharp mask) post-processing too. RAW stores the image the way it was recorded, and due to the nature of the anti-moire mask used over the sensor, that's a bit fuzzy. JPG in-camera always applies some sharpening. If you use the RAW file, that sharpening will be missing and you'll have to supply it.

Good luck!

 

[Carol]

Thanks Bill!

The cards I saw were $30.00, which seems like a lot for pieces of plastic.

The meters I saw were in the $200 - 300 range, which seemed like a lot of money for a camera that was under $500. It also seems like a lot for something that might get banged around a bit. I know Best Buy will at least replace my camera if I accidentally smash it up on the trail.

I don't think purposefully smashing it up in frustration is covered, though....LOL

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Color temperature meters are probably way overkill for your needs - they sure are for mine.

My camera is generally pretty good at setting WB automagically, but when I'm shooting indoors or under wonky lighting conditions, it can get confused. You can set the WB manually from a small selection of presets (cloudy, bright sun, incandescent lights, etc), but I often find that's just not cutting it.

Using my expo disc, I tell the camera I want to set a custom WB. Then I put the disc over the lens, point it at my subject, and snap a photo, which sets the WB. Unless the light or conditions change, I'm done. I can either shoot in RAW or JPG with that method. If I shoot in RAW, the 'camera WB' is one of the choices I can select in post-processing, and that's my custom WB value. I could choose to reject it if I don't agree with the value it chose. If I shoot in JPG, then hopefully it did the job well, because I'm more or less stuck with it.

I shot these with my expo disc, and glad I did, because the gym lighting is about as wonky as it gets. Metal halide overheads are funky.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wigwam/sets/72157622465472996/

I still had some problems, as I'm sure you can see, due to the reflection from the floor. However, I could have shot RAW pretty well, since most of the photos have someone in them wearing a white gi, and that would have been my WB point to adjust each one.