custom white balance at a wedding?

<p>Hi everyone,<br>

I have been reading your forum lately. Everyone has very good advice. So I decided to throw out a question of my own.<br>

I am a portrait photographer - I photograph a lot of babies and kids in my home studio and outside. I have been talked into shooting my cousin's wedding (isn't this how everyone starts - ha). No - I'm really excited, but just trying to do all of my research.<br>

So my question is - I normally do a custom white balance, but is this realistic at a wedding? Or does lighting change so much at a wedding that auto WB would be better?<br>

Thank you for your advice.<br>

Courtney</p>

<p>I don't rely on auto white balance, therefore I'm changing the white balance settings a lot during weddings. Some people shoot RAW with auto white balance and adjust for the color using one of the photoshop programs. I shoot RAW but prefer setting the white balance as needed.</p>

<p>Courtney -</p>

<p>What do you feel most comfortable doing? Don't change your workflow for a wedding - especially your first. </p>

<p>Me personally - I use auto, but shoot in RAW and for the formals I have someone hold a WB card for me for a shot or two so I know I've got white, black, grey... Because a "Black" tux usually isn't nor is a "White" dress always white.</p>

<p>Dave</p>

 

<p>Use RAW and ignore camera white balance. White balance setting is not used by the camera in RAW (except for the on-camera display) and is only used as a starting point for the RAW processor. Photograph a digital target when doing the formals so that you have a reference point for RAW processing white balance. For the other photographs (prep, procession, reception, etc.) close is good enough. Weddings are relatively easy in that regard as the dress (usually) is white and that has to be correct. If the dress is not white just match it to the formal photographs.</p>

<p>Courtney, I think one thing that will help you is to consider adding color gels to your flashes when shooting in (and capturing) the ambient lighting, mostly with tungsten lights. I keep some 1/4 CTO and other similar shades (1/8 CTO, straw, bastard amber, etc.) in my camera kit and stick them on my flash units with a small strip of velcro. If I'm shooting formals in a church, or shooting reception shots, my flash color temp more closely matches the tungsten color temp of the surrounding lights. That way, there isn't such a variance between the color temp between the light falling on the subject and the ambient background. Without this, you can get the color right on your subjects, but the background will go very amber from the warmer tungsten lights, or bluish from daylight coming in windows. Or green coming from flourescents (ugh).</p>

<p>I use the presets, usually sun, cloud, shade, incandescent.<br>

Hopefully your screen gives you a reasonable approximation of what you will see.<br>

If this is your first, your biggest problem is with knowing when various things will happen. Work with the planner, whether a pro or the mom or the bride.<br>

Shoot two cameras for the formals if you don't have a 2nd shooter.</p>

<p>I also use the Nikon flash balance setting.</p>

<p>Thank you for all of your response. I normally shoot jpeg - fine with a custom white balance. I have not used gels before for my flashes. I will probably do custom white balance then. Bob, what do you bring to a wedding to use to custom white balance.<br>

I do have a second shooter. So when you have a second shooter do both of you usually shoot the formals?<br>

Thanks,<br>

Courtney i</p>

<p>Shoot RAW. WB later. If you must, shoot a WB target with each new lighting scenario to use as a group WB correction later.</p>

<p>I have my second shooter (if I can find them) get one of each set up from the formal groups, with natural light as a backup to my shooting. Not perfect, but works ok. He/she usually shoots "over my shoulder".</p>

<p>For most wedding situations, doing a custom white balance is realistic. There may be times where you simply don't have time to do one, in which case, I'd revert to the closest pre set. This is all if you are shooting JPEG. If I were to do a custom white balance, I'd use a gray card, but many people like the Expo Disk or Color Rite and other similar products. I'd research, select one and test it out, if you can.</p>

<p>I don't normally have a second shooter, but when I do, I don't have them cover the formals. Unless there is some reason you are not comfortable with the responsibility of shooting them, I'd let the second shooter look around for candids around the area. But up to you. You can have the second cover formals, but lighting might be an issue, and unless you turn over control to the second for every set up, his or her results won't be optimum--people won't be looking at the camera, etc. You don't normally have much time for formals, so efficiency is the key.</p>

<p>I recently started using the closet preset (sun,shade,tungsten,etc) for pretty much everything except Formals and Romantics, where I custom white balance since the lighting doesn't usually change that much for me.<br>

This has been working out very well for me. It gives me accuracy and saves me editing time. Since I shoot formals in manual mode (both camera and flash) It's usually a matter of getting one image exactly how I want and auto syncing the rest of the formals to match.<br>

I haven't done it yet, but it's usually so close I'd feel comfortable shooting everything in JPG.</p>

<p>what everyone else said, shoot in raw and adjust later.</p>

<p>Come to think of it, I think you should try doing a custom balance as you shift from location to location, and see how much correction you have to do to get good skin tone. <br>

Personally, I think shooting raw without thinking about white balance is sloppy.<br>

And report back, please :-)</p>

<p><em>"Bob, what do you bring to a wedding to use to custom white balance."</em><br>

<em></em><br>

I often use a <strong>color</strong> meter, not to be confused with a <strong>light</strong> meter. I did a search for you and found this. It's the same one I use. Until you are able to get your hands on one your camera settings are pretty close, such as flash, shade, fluorescent, and tungston; much better than auto white balance.<br>

<br /><a href="http://www.keh.com/OnLineStore/ProductDetail.aspx?groupsku=GM709990262490&brandcategoryname=Accessories&Mode=searchproducts&item=0&ActivateTOC2=false&ID=&BC=GM&BCC=12&CC=70&CCC=7&BCL=&GBC=&GCC=&KW=color%20meter">KEH Camera: Light Meters - Meters - MINOLTA COLOR METER II (ALL COLOR TEMP) WITH CASE LIGHT METER</a></p>

 

<p>I use a piece of Rosco Tough Frost- white diffusion material for custom balance- just hold it over the lens. I think it runs slightly cool so I'm thinking about adding a 1/8 blue to it.</p>

<p>Thank you everyone. I appreciate the advice. It really helps.<br>

I'm sure I'll have more questions the closer I get to the wedding.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>Steve scribed: "Personally, I think shooting raw without thinking about white balance is sloppy."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I cannot disagree because it is a personal choice. But I take a different approach to the problem. You are in the process of capturing the images. To stop, put on an expodisk or have someone hold a digital target, for every lighting situation is distracting and annoying. Having to remember to do a white balance in every situation is just one less thing that I would rather not worry about.</p>

<p>I can balance the color later when there are no time constraints and do it on a calibrated monitor. Even with white balance set in the camera and JPG I will still have some minor tweaks so the work load is the same. I did that at one time and abandoned in favor of RAW for increase exposure latitude and removing the setting of custom white balances.</p>

<p>The important issue is to find what works for you. If you are successful setting custom white balances and using JPG then there is no compelling reason to change. I personally like RAW, ignore the white balance when photographing, and just concentrate on the event and capturing the event.</p>

<p>Eyes can't see color that well. For example if you are shooting in a fluorscant setting there is no way your auto white balance will correct the green tones that will dominate the image. Then if you go outside the auto white balance again will get fooled. When a photo has a lot of green in it, it will take a lot of time bringing back the natural colors. So if you have 3 seconds of time to select fluorscent light on your camera and then when you are outside, selecting shade or sunny will surely increase your image quality and perhaps save several hours of photoshop post processing.</p>

<p>Hear is a color sheet to show how much color correction would be needed, depending on your lighting situation. Using just the sun, your Kalvin range can vary from 3000 to 8000.</p><div></div>

<p>I will definately be keeping this little kelvin chart in my camera bag I choose to shoot kelvin degrees other white balance accessories thankyou</p>

<p>Along with RAW, you might want to look at the SkinTune tool- make a note about the bride's skin tone and use that to adjust the pictures.</p>