What WB setting during golden hours?

[mars c]

Hi to all,

 

For the xt or 30d,

 

What do you think is more correct , auto WB or sunny WB? When shooting scenery

during golden hour moments.

 

Please dont tell me to shoot RAW,

 

I'm just wondering.... should we try to compensate for the yellowness of the

light from the sun during golden hours or should we let it be golden

(yellowish)? So, what then do you think the best WB setting to use?

 

Thanks and merry christmas to all!

[michael_ziegler2]

How about doing a custom white balance using a white sheet of paper as the target. It is quite easy to do, then you eliminate the guess work and probably will be spot on.

[lester_wareham]

Yes you could correct for it but then it would not be golden would it.

 

I would be inclined to suggest daylight as a starting point. I know lots of people use the colour temperature to push the colour even further rather than correct for it.

 

Unfortunatly that IS the advantage of RAW - it is so easy to change colour temperature. Just to be sure you can also take a shot of a grey card so you can exactly correct for the colour if you want to anyway.

[vrankin]

Daylight will give warmer results than auto, if that's what you are hoping to preserve.

[PuppyDigs]

Why would want to remove the

golden light? ISn't that the point of shooting at sunset?

 

Shoot RAW and try the various WB settings in DPP and decide what you like. Personally I

prefer daylight as it preserves the warmth of the sunset. If it's on the cold side, try shade,

cloudy or play with the temperature slider. Once you know, use the same settings in-camera.

[ramon_acosta]

Another advantage of RAW is that you can push saturation way beyond what you can in a

jpeg. Also you have more leeway in the exposure in case you didnt nail it spot on. Seriusly.

Try raw out for a spin, the extra work is well worth the time.

Happy Holidays.<div></div>

[mars c]

Thanks alot for your responses :-)

[mars c]

BTW, nice picture. Thanks.

[ted_marcus1]

I know you don't want me to tell you to shoot raw, but light that deviates from the average sunny day/flash is exactly what raw is for. You can adjust the color to get exactly what you want without the risk of banding or distortion from the missing data that JPEG throws away.

 

That said, I'd suggest a daylight setting. Automatic white balance (or anything else) would try to cool off the warm light, ruining the effect that you presumably want. The daylight setting should record the warmth most accurately. Mind you, I'm speaking theoretically because I leave my XT set on Auto WB and never worry about white balance settings because I always shoot raw.

[awindsor]

As Ted mentions you should use the Daylight setting if you want to capture the golden glow. Actually I often use the Shade white balance in the same way I would have used a warming filter. The Shade white balance anticipates the blue light of open shade on a clear day and "warms" the shot to compensate. For even more control use can use a custom Kelvin WB setting.

 

I shoot RAW so of course I can adjust the WB afterwards if necessary. More importantly I can adjust contrast and saturation both of which I leave at a low setting (if you shoot RAW then I advocate setting contrast to minimum to get the most out of your histogram).

 

As a rough rule of thumb use "Daylight" if you would have shot film without filtration. I certainly never used blue cooling filters for shooting during the "golden" hours but I have been known to use 81A, and 81B warming filters during the day.

 

The other problem you often find as you get closer to sunset is that the sky is much brighter than the ground. If you want detail then use need to use a graduated neutral density filter or blend exposures.

 

Here is a shot where I could let the ground be reduced to a silhouette

 

http://www.photo.net/photo/4535962

 

and here is a poor example of what I mean by trying to retain detail

 

http://www.photo.net/photo/5371482

 

I should have another go at this shot to try and bring out more of the sunset colours. In a straight capture either you loose the details in the trees or blow out the buildings. This one was shot on Auto WB.

[mars c]

Thanks for the tips guys,

 

The reason I dont like to shoot raw, Is that I always do snapshots as well as landscapes while on a trip, and I dont want the hassle for those snapshots if I shot them all raw.

 

But I'll take your advice, You are right, I should have shot raw, but switch to jpeg for the snap shots.

 

Canon cameras should have dedicated raw button, like the pentax k10d.

 

Thanks and Have a Happy New Year!