XTi: How many people shoot with AWB?

[josh_a2]

<p>How many people here shoot with Auto White Balance?<br>

I feel like every picture I take with it is orange and hotter than hades.<br>

Granted, I'm shooting under warm lights alot of the time, but it still always comes out very, very orange.<br>

What do you do?</p>

[sarah_fox]

<p>Never AWB! I usually select a pre-set WB, such as daylight or tungsten. I'm not compulsive enough about WB to use the custom WB any more than occasionally. However, most of what I photograph is oudoors in the daylight WB zone anyway.</p>

[joshroot]

<p>None of the Canon DSLR's I've had (and I'm up to I think 5-6 now) have been very good at AWB under tungston light sources. To be fair, it's a tough thing for many digital cameras to do. But the canon's really seem to have a problem with it.</p>

<p>Other than that, I have no issues with AWB and use it fairly often in average situations.</p>

[sattler123]

<p>I shoot RAW only and don't worry about WB until I process the RAW file.</p>

[josh_a2]

<p>Would tungsten be a good, all around setting to leave set all the time?<br /> It seems like this camera shoots really, really hot.<br>

Also, tungsten always seems to give the best color representation. I took two pictures, one under warm incandescent lightbulb and one under fluorescent lighting... in both instances on AWB... go into Shop and switch to tungsten and it instantly looked like real life.</p>

[a._j._jacobs]

<p>I use the XSI, I never shoot AWB, you can see the difference when it's AWB and you choose the WB that fits what lighting you are shooting in... :)</p>

[tdigi]

<p>I agree its best to shoot raw and not worry about the WB. </p>

[joshroot]

<blockquote>

<p>Would tungsten be a good, all around setting to leave set all the time?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Only if you like things really <strong>really</strong> blue tinted when you are anywhere but artificial light sources.</p>

[josh_a2]

<p>Josh, thanks for the reply.</p>

<p>So, is a good rule of thumb, perhaps, tungsten with artificial light sources and daylight outside? (Of course, adjusting when necessary but, rule of thumb)</p>

[josh_a2]

<p>Also, why would tungsten make things blue only when there aren't artificial light sources but regular when there are? (Sorry, I'm fresh meat.. go easy ;) )</p>

[danield]

<p>White balance is one of the major reasons I shoot RAW. I just can't be bothered to fiddle with the white balance all the time - I leave the camera on RAW and then choose a white balance later when I am in a controlled environment (i.e. at the PC screen) and I can actually see what the picture looks like.</p>

[gorasinski]

<p>Always AWB, but I shoot RAW, so no need to worry here.</p>

[starvy]

<p>tungsten is difficult for all the makes in awb mode. my only experiences have been with canon, olympus and sony. the only way to avoid this would be to shoot raw.</p>

[philip_wilson]

<p>I shoot the 5DII (not the XTI) but found the AWB to be rather poor. I often shoot skiing or ice hockey. I bought an Expodisk and this solved my problems (although I sometimes have to change lens as the disk is 77mm and the 16-35 f2.8 is 82mm and the 300 f2.8 is very large)</p>

<p> </p>

[tony_davis6]

<p>Like Lukask and Juergen I 98% of the time shoot RAW and not worry about it, really. Although I have made a DIY 'EXPODisk' where I do tend to use Custom WB when possible - helps in the end as it can get tweaky at times trying to make the photos look right. I have gotten into a table setup with a couple of 500W Tungsten/Halogen lights to light macro/still life work and just compensate with RAW even with the setting on TWB.</p>

<p>The only time I haven't shot RAW is for some Soccer League photos I have been taking for a friend as he coaches the team and the kids and parents love it, but Tungsten hasn't come into that so it does rather well on AWB.</p>

[ed_v.]

I'm always shooting RAW/AWB and fiddling with the color casts in DPP either by adjusting the color temp or clicking the "tune" button. In my experieces AWB has done the best job with the often strange lighting in high school gyms, where there could be multiple types of bulbs (tungsten, fluorescent, vapor) hanging from the same ceiling.

[lorne_hampel1]

<p>I shoot RAW with either AWB or custom. For my Real Estate Photoshoots I find custom shortens my workflow. ZAs I understand it, AWB is very poor for EOS in incandescent lighting.</p>

[nhut-nguyen]

<p>When I'm under tungsten lighting, I choose the Tungsten preset WB in the camera, I found it to be a lot closer than AWB. I use AWB a lot for everything else.</p>

[photos of hans koot]

<p>mostly, exept in artificial light. I always shoot in raw, and take care later most of the times.</p>

[stsva]

<p>Also, why would tungsten make things blue only when there aren't artificial light sources but regular when there are? (Sorry, I'm fresh meat.. go easy ;) )</p>

<p>Josh-<br>

The other Josh meant that the tungsten WB setting basically adds a lot of blue to the color balance in the image, so that if the light you're photographing isn't the equivalent of incandescent (tungsten) lighting, which has a strong yellow/red bias, you'll often end up with a rather bluish result. For example, the light outside on a cloudy day or in a shadowed area is already rather blue, so using the tungsten WB will make it really blue. Even bright sunlight is more "blue" than an incandescent light, so you still get more of a blue effect using the tungsten WB with sunlight than if you use the sunlight WB setting. Incidentally, you can reverse this effect to get a nice "warm" color tone by using the cloud or shade WB setting to add more of a yellow/red bias to a normally-lighted outdoor shot, simulating to some extent the golden light at sunset.</p>

[matthijs]

<p>I do. But I shoot JPG and RAW. When I don't like the result I choose a preset (like "Cloudy") or I use click-white balance until I like the result.</p>

[photo_dark]

<p>I find things only get fun when there's a mix of flourecent and tungsten. Everyone has these high efficiency bulbs now, which are just small flourecents.... nightmare for white balance.... even when I try to set a custom WB.</p>

<p>I shoot raw, however my best results are when I can nail down perfect WB on location using expodisc or just a pure white sheet of paper :)</p>

[dogbert]

<p>You can adjust the WB so it shoots a bit cooler all the time even in AWB mode.</p>

[mphoto gallery]

<p>AWB 90%. I shoot RAW. If I am in a gym or a room with mixed lights and I will be there a while, I will set up a custom white balance in my 40D.</p>

[rdavila]

<p>I do too. I agree the results are rather yelowish, however by shooting raw, do not care too much about it, correction is easy in ACR.</p>