Timeline for If shooting RAW, is the white balance selected in camera irrelevant for exposure?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
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| Nov 17, 2012 at 20:24 | comment | added | jrista | @mattdm: Interesting. I'd done tests in the past, and I was only ever forced to reduce exposure compensation in scenes with a lot of DR. I only noticed this out in the field when photographing birds a few months ago, and I never actually paid attention to exact shutter speeds...only that I was sometimes forced to reduce EC when I changed WB. In scenes with less DR where there was some exposure latitude left, the camera usually had room to maneuver and avoid overexposing on its own. It may simply be due to differences in Canon vs. Pentax metering, though. | |
| Nov 17, 2012 at 18:11 | comment | added | mattdm | Note that in my test, there is an extremely small dynamic range in the scene, and it still has an impact on metering. | |
| Nov 17, 2012 at 16:27 | history | edited | jrista | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Nov 17, 2012 at 0:11 | comment | added | jrista | I am talking about modern color-sensitive in-camera meters. Most Nikon cameras use an RGB meter. Newer Canon cameras also use color-sensitive metering, such as the 7D and 5D III which use a two-layer color-sensitive meter, and the 1D X which uses full RGB metering. Those meters use a dedicated processor, which factors in a wide variety of variables to produce a more accurate result, and avoid clipping. | |
| Nov 16, 2012 at 19:47 | comment | added | Joanne C | I think people are conflating spot metering with exposure. Use an incident meter and the equation changes, it measures the amount of light falling and not the reflecting capability of the subject under certain temperatures of light. | |
| Nov 14, 2012 at 18:10 | comment | added | jrista | Now, I could have used AWB. That would have taken care of the before- to after- sunset WB problem. But the light was changing fairly frequently before sunset, and in the past when I've used AWB in that situation, trying to adjust my photos so they appeared consistent in post was an extremely tedious job, and one that usually results in failure. Using a fixed "daylight" setting before sunset, and a "shade" setting or custom setting after, usually results in far more consistent results when processing in post. The catch is you have to have the presence of mind to change WB as the light changes. | |
| Nov 14, 2012 at 18:07 | comment | added | jrista | I recently ran into this problem about a week ago. I was photographing some bucks around sunset. Before sunset, the sun was sliding behind patchy clouds, and I was using daylight WB. I was at ISO 3200, and I was pretty sure none of the shots would be anything I could use outside of at 750x500 web size...no printing. As the sun actually set, the sky lit up like red fire, but I forgot to change my WB setting. At a 5200K WB, the scene ended up VERY red and slightly magenta, and the meter caused my shots to underexpose enough that none of the post-sunset shots were usable AT ALL. | |
| Nov 14, 2012 at 18:03 | comment | added | jrista | It depends on what your goal is. Auto WB is more likely to maximize your exposure latitude, however it may not produce the best results. AWB can cause slight differences in balance from shot to shot, and if you need white balance consistency, AWB sometimes leads to a nightmare in post. I wouldn't say using 5000K "every time" is right either...you need to use the right white balance for the lighting in your scene. That may be daylight, or shadow, or tungsten, or perhaps a custom WB setting would be best. If you need consistency, though, using a fixed WB setting rather than AWB is better. | |
| Nov 14, 2012 at 4:51 | comment | added | dpollitt | So if this is the case, I would think Auto WB which can do fairly decent these days- would be adequate to at least get within the general range of a correct WB. At least close enough to prevent improper exposure I would think. Do you agree? One person recommended to me to shoot at 5000K every time, as this was somehow "safer" than Auto WB. | |
| Nov 14, 2012 at 4:41 | history | answered | jrista | CC BY-SA 3.0 |