Does the 5D3 has WB problems?

[dan_south]

<p>The other great thing about auto white balance is that even when it's wrong, it gives you an interpretation of the scene that you probably wouldn't have come up with on your own.</p>

<p>Sometimes a slightly incorrect white balance (too warm, too cool, not exactly the right tint) is creatively more interesting than a clinically perfect setting. (No one shoots correctly balanced sunsets, for example. You'd lose all of the color!) If you shoot raw you can always overwrite the results of the AWB, but I like to have it as a creative option.</p>

<p>I got the idea to use AWB most of the time when John Shaw said that's how he sets his cameras. I've learned over the years to trust Mr. Shaw's advice.</p>

[steve_wagner1]

<p>What if you have thousands of photos to edit not all from the same shoot Dan. Some people work out in the field. Not everyone works in a studio and takes thousands of photos of the same thing. You can't copy paste develop settings on different scenes like that.</p>

[john_a5]

<p>Steve, what you describe is what people did for years with film. Most only carried daylight film and then maybe a few filters that they "guessed" seemed appropriate for the scene. You could adjust the color on each one, as desired, when the print was made.</p>

[sarah_fox]

<p>Correct me if I'm wrong, but can't you just click the AWB setting (with a RAW image) in DPP if that's what you want? So let's say your camera was in fluorescent mode as you shot pics of a daylight scene. No problem! Just hit the AWB, and the image is autocorrected, just as it would have been in the camera. Done. If there are a thousand pics, each shot at a different place, with a different type of lighting, just select them all and click the AWB setting. Done. It might not be a one-click operation for such a large number of photos, but perhaps a few clicks will get you there -- far fewer than the number of clicks and taps undertaken by any of the contributors to this thread.</p>

<p>This all begs the question of whether a particular camera's AWB can really be messed up, compared to its peers. All the camera does is to apply an algorithm to what comes off the sensor -- probably substantially the same algoritm that every other camera uses and that DPP also uses. When I see someone complaining about color balance as it relates to fluorescent lighting and other spectrally weird light sources, I'm always rather skeptical.</p>

[steve_wagner1]

<p>John I'm saying that the idea you can simply copy-paste wb in Lightroom across a range of images does not hold up if they are of different scenes. When I shoot in tropical rainforests for several months, every image must be evaluated separately for white balance. There are rarely more than two or three shots from each setup, and hundreds of setups.<br /> <br /> Sarah, in Lightroom at least, "as shot" (which could likely have been the auto setting on the camera) is different than "auto" in the software. If you shoot the scene in fluorescent for example, then click auto in Lightroom, the result is not the same as if you had chosen auto wb on the camera at the time of shooting, and then left it on "as shot" in Lightroom. That's why you can use auto all day in camera, then if you choose "auto" in Lightroom (as opposed to leaving it on "as shot"), it changes. In other words auto in the camera and auto in Lightroom are not the same thing.<br /> <br />I agree with others, AWB is a no-brainer. I always use it and it always gets me 90% of the way, in widely mixed light. Messing with wb is a great way to miss meaningful opportunities, at least with documentary and photojournalistic work.</p>

[sarah_fox]

<p>But Steve, that's in Adobe's Lightroom. Adobe and Canon would probably not share algorithms. If you select AWB in Canon's bundled Digital Photo Professional (DPP), don't you end up with the same thing as AWB in the Canon camera, again assuming the image is in RAW format? If so, then you can apply the AWB setting to zillions of photos with just a few clicks and be 90% of the way there, as you put it.</p>

[john_a5]

<p>Sarah, but I do think what Steve is saying is that even that would be an extra step if you just set the AWB in camera. I haven't tried DPP's algorithm, but I know that ACR's AWB does not generate something I would expect from the camera setting or something I would ever use, at least that is my experience. The other issue is that even if DPP worked as well as the camera setting does, I don't know many who use it except in rare cases.</p>

<p>But, except when one shoots certain types of things for a client, you don't need to correct WB on every image anyway, you correct the one the client picks. In fact, if you are shooting for yourself, you only need to correct it for those that are <em><strong>worthy</strong></em> of working on. </p>

[yakim_peled1]

<p>I use RAW+AWB as well and am fine with it (1D, 40D, 7D). If necessary I change it in DPP if needed but most of the time it works just fine. The question is, does 5D3 users have any particular problems with this procedure?</p>

<p>Happy shooting,<br>

Yakim. </p>

[steve_wagner1]

<p>Sarah, I don't use DPP so I don't know about that, but that's not how Lightroom works. In any case it would be easy to find out. Just shoot a scene on AWB, then the same exact scene on fluorescent or whatever, bring both into DPP, change the non-AWB capture to auto in software, and if the resulting wb is identical to the other capture, then DPP works that way.</p>

[sarah_fox]

<p>You're singing to the choir, John. I don't really worry about WB until post, and AWB is simply something I've never found reason to use. If I do ever want the AWB interpretation then, I can get it in post. In fact when I click the eyedropper in DPP to correct the WB for gray points, the application automatically applies the AWB setting as a starting point, until I then select gray points within the image. In DPP I can also choose any WB camera setting I want, including auto. I would have a hard time believing that this "auto" is different from the camera's "auto." As far as I'm aware, there's no difference in any of my cameras, but perhaps the 5DIII is different. (I doubt it.)</p>

[john_a5]

<p>Sarah, it might be worth the experiment as Steve suggested. The problem with interpolating the results using the specific light settings and AWB in the RAW processor is that the latter is evaluative based on the image whereas all of the others are fixed, specific numbers. I would have to assume that those specific light settings in DPP do match Canon camera settings and thus the results would be the same--I have experimented with this in ACR, setting the camera to different specific light settings than normalizing them all in ACR--they all look the same. (That said, ACR's specific settings do not match the in-camera settings (at least for Canon) in this regard--generally neither color temp nor the green-magenta slider.)</p>

<p>While I was bracketing a shot in AWB in a desert landscape that had nearly equal cool shadows and warm sunlight, I noticed a massive shift in color balance when I exposed for a darker version of the scene--noticeable on the back of the camera let alone on the computer. The image went very blue. When I saw this, I went back and forth between more open and darker exposures to see if it was an anomaly or not--it wasn't. So, I don't know how well DPP would do with a file in auto compared to the camera setting when shot. ACR is generally pretty far off in my experience.</p>

[Marcus Ian]

<p>Actually, LR is particularly helpful in one respect, hitting the 'W' brings up the 'white balance selector', just click on what should be white, and it sets your WB to an appropriate value. <br>

If you are shooting one scene/color light, you can batch apply that value, but if you need to do it to individual pictures (such as in a dynamic lighting environment - aka everything BUT the studio), it takes about a half second per picture, W then click.</p>

<p>But then, unlike DPP, LR is designed from the ground up with us in mind.</p>