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[OM] Re: white balance madness

Subject: [OM] Re: white balance madness
From: Chuck Norcutt <chucknorcutt@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 08 Nov 2006 12:11:29 -0500
I think it's something a lot of people don't understand but, for you, 
the light has finally dawned.  If you want an outdoor scene to look kind 
of like you see it shoot it with a daylight setting.  You'll get the 
same kind of color results as you got with daylight film.  Sunrises, 
sunsets, rain and clouds and foggy scenes and lots of other things are 
not to be color balanced if you want them to look like what you see. 
Who wants to turn the setting sun into noon time?  Yecchh!

The same "I don't want to balance this" situation may prevail in lots of 
other instances as well.  But shooting the bride in her white dress 
under incandescent lights and not having the dress come out white is a 
no-no.  You have to be the judge.

This is the beauty of raw.  You can defer the decision until you get a 
chance to see the final result.  And you're not even confined to one 
result.  You can have an many as you like... and it gives you a fighting 
chance to adjust the exposure downward to fix the blown spots on the 
dress as well :-)

Chuck Norcutt

Richard Lovison wrote:

> I have to admit that white balance adjustment in a digital camera, in my
> case the E-1, has always been a bit confusing.  I think I finally have an
> understanding of it and I thought I'd share my thoughts with the rest of you
> and hopefully someone will indicate whether I'm on the correct path.
> 
> Color temperature never posed a problem... the lower the temperature in
> degrees Kelvin, the warmer or more red and yellow the light.  The higher the
> temperature, the more blue the light source.  High school chemistry.
> 
> Setting the correct white balance in the camera caused me many headaches.
> For example, sunrises and sunsets have very warm colors as we all know and
> thus have a color temperature, at least at sea level, at around 3000 to 4000
> degrees Kelvin.  That makes sense. Let's say 4000 degrees for example.  Now
> if I'm shooting a sunrise I certainly wouldn't want to set my camera's WB to
> 4000 degrees as it would appear too blue.  I used to scratch my head at this
> but then I just learned to ignore it though I always wondered why it
> shouldn't be set to 4000, the color temperature of the scene.  Now I think
> the light bulb has finally lit and I understand.  I need to think of my E-1
> as being a film camera loaded with 5500K daylight film.  If I shot a sunrise
> with 5500K film or a 5500K WB in a digital camera it is going to appear very
> warm in color balance, close to what it appears to the human eye though a
> bit too warm.  If I set the WB to 4000K, I would essentially be telling the
> camera that I want that red and yellow light to be shown as white noon-type
> 5500K daylight.  Don't want that.  As another thought, daylight scenes with
> this setting would be bluish.  In reality, a WB setting of around 4800-5000
> would produce a sunrise image closer to what I would want.  Is this
> something that has been obvious to other digital photographers in the list
> while producing brain numbness in me?  :)
> 
> Richard L
> 
> 
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