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How much do you use Auto White Balance?

How much do you use Auto White Balance?

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Tom Axford

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In the light of a recent thread discussing AWB, I thought it would be interesting to know how often people here use it, either as a camera setting, or in processing the image themselves.
 
For me, AWB in-camera seems to work well enough, as I always shoot JPG+RAW. The shots worth sharing are always edited afterwards using a raw-editor.
 
Tom Axford said:
In the light of a recent thread discussing AWB, I thought it would be interesting to know how often people here use it, either as a camera setting, or in processing the image themselves.
Click to expand...
I always use auto as a start point and If I like it I keep it, if not I adjust it

The second thing I do is reduce highlights to ZERO
 
Tom Axford said:
In the light of a recent thread discussing AWB, I thought it would be interesting to know how often people here use it, either as a camera setting, or in processing the image themselves.
Click to expand...
But the question can be a bit confusing for those of us that shoot RAW.

I use it in the camera because I can then get a decent look at the preview in camera jpeg.

But then I always change it in post processing.

So which do you want to know - in camera ? final post processed shot ?

If you want to know both, then set up the poll for both. I would be 100% and 0

But I answered the poll with 100
 
Jim B (MSP) said:
Tom Axford said:
In the light of a recent thread discussing AWB, I thought it would be interesting to know how often people here use it, either as a camera setting, or in processing the image themselves.
Click to expand...
But the question can be a bit confusing for those of us that shoot RAW.

I use it in the camera because I can then get a decent look at the preview in camera jpeg.

But then I always change it in post processing.

So which do you want to know - in camera ? final post processed shot ?

If you want to know both, then set up the poll for both. I would be 100% and 0

But I answered the poll with 100
Click to expand...
Thanks for your reply.

By the way, I think that every poll I have started has always found at least one person for whom the poll was worded ambiguously! In any event, it is interesting to hear why you found it insufficiently well defined.

Personally, I normally have my camera set to daylight WB and then I set the WB manually when processing the raw images.

Each to their own, but it is good to hear what other people are doing!
 
Jim B (MSP) said:
Tom Axford said:
In the light of a recent thread discussing AWB, I thought it would be interesting to know how often people here use it, either as a camera setting, or in processing the image themselves.
Click to expand...
But the question can be a bit confusing for those of us that shoot RAW.

I use it in the camera because I can then get a decent look at the preview in camera jpeg.

But then I always change it in post processing.

So which do you want to know - in camera ? final post processed shot ?

If you want to know both, then set up the poll for both. I would be 100% and 0

But I answered the poll with 100
Click to expand...
Yep, same here
 
AWB is always on, but as I shoot raw, this means that it isn't "baked in", and I can fiddle with it in Camera Raw on the odd occasion that the camera doesn't get it right.
 
[No message]
 
I use UniWB, so AutoWB is my default setting when I open a raw file in my converters... then I decide what to do
 
Tom Axford said:
Jim B (MSP) said:
Tom Axford said:
In the light of a recent thread discussing AWB, I thought it would be interesting to know how often people here use it, either as a camera setting, or in processing the image themselves.
Click to expand...
But the question can be a bit confusing for those of us that shoot RAW.

I use it in the camera because I can then get a decent look at the preview in camera jpeg.

But then I always change it in post processing.

So which do you want to know - in camera ? final post processed shot ?

If you want to know both, then set up the poll for both. I would be 100% and 0

But I answered the poll with 100
Click to expand...
Thanks for your reply.

By the way, I think that every poll I have started has always found at least one person for whom the poll was worded ambiguously! In any event, it is interesting to hear why you found it insufficiently well defined.

Personally, I normally have my camera set to daylight WB
Click to expand...
Waaay off topic Tom, sorry, but have you tried auto WB in-camera? I was just wondering because I used to use daylight all the time too, but when dusk would roll around the images would look terrible when I chimped - to the point of not being able to judge color whatsoever, or decide if I even liked the image. Auto WB has come a long ways with the modern cameras too.
Tom Axford said:
and then I set the WB manually when processing the raw images.

Each to their own, but it is good to hear what other people are doing!
Click to expand...
--
Ernie Misner
http://www.flickr.com/photos/erniemisner/
The first digital image was made in the late '60's for NASA, as a way to record images of Mars. Each "square" was represented by three numbers, corresponding to the red, green, and blue hue on a scale of 0 to 255. This eliminated the need to ship film back to Earth.
 
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Ernie Misner said:
Waaay off topic Tom, sorry, but have you tried auto WB in-camera? I was just wondering because I used to use daylight all the time too, but when dusk would roll around the images would look terrible when I chimped - to the point of not being able to judge color whatsoever, or decide if I even liked the image. Auto WB has come a long ways with the modern cameras too.
Click to expand...
Hi Ernie, I know what you mean. I do occasionally move my camera from daylight WB to some other setting to make the in-camera image look more acceptable. That setting may be auto, but it make be one of the other settings that is suitable for the scene in question.

One of the reasons I like daylight WB is that the image then shows the colour of the light hitting the sensor (assuming that the viewing screen is white-balanced for daylight also). Any white (or grey) objects in the scene show the colour of the ambient light and I find it quite interesting/useful to know the ambient light colour. AWB gets rid of any such colour cast. My preference is to do that myself when processing the raw image.

Regards,

Tom
 
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I shoot raw almost exclusively. Pretty much never use AWB in post, but often use it in camera. Except when using flash, then I set it to flash white balance.
 
100% of the time. BUT, for all artificial light photos I find a bit that should be white and hit it with the LR adjustment arrow. Bottom line - fixing a RAW image in post is a lot easier than getting the WB correct on the fly.
 
Depends what I’m up to. I set it to cloudy for woodland photography as I find AWB often looks so bad that it puts me off. I’ll then move it about in post.
 
I normally set Auto WB in my camera or if I am a situation where the lighting is consistent I would choose a specific setting like daylight. My camera is consistent and since I am shooting in raw it is easy to adjust.

This allows we to concentrate on exposure, focus, composure and the like.

--
Denis de Gannes
 
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I use AWB 100% of the time like 99% of the people.

But I do pull out my WhiBal card occasionally so I can change the WB in post processing.
 
When I shoot raw I have the camera set to Auto WB all the time. Then when I bring the raw into Lightroom I have the camera selected WB as a reference along with all the other choices Lightroom offers in the WB dropdown menu (including the Lightroom Auto WB option). I almost never use any of these settings for temperature and tint though because I usually tweak them further myself. Usually the camera's choice is the best starting point though. And when I tweak them it isn't usually to get "correct" WB, it is to get pleasing WB and make the photo look the way I want.

Also, using camera Auto WB makes the EVF/rear screen display better most of the time.

--
Henry Richardson
http://www.bakubo.com
 
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