In digital photography, we can change white balance from one exposure to the next, selecting the one that we think will render the best result. We can also let the camera decide.
I tend to leave the camera on auto white balance, and not think about it much. It’s on auto and I shoot raw so I can fix it in editing. And I often change the white balance when editing, that’s true.
But Sean Tucker suggests for me a novel approach, that he always (!) keep the white balance setting on his cameras to the exact same setting, and never changes it.
And that is daylight white balance.
What do you think about that?
His point is that shooting at daylight white balance means that the exposure you get is more accurate compared to how you saw the scene. In effect, your eyes white balance to daylight.
“So in my mind that means, so if 5500k is around what my eyes see, where warm light is warm, and cool light is cool, that’s what my camera needs to be at if I want it to see the way I see.”
That doesn’t mean that Tucker does not adjust the white balance in editing at all, but it does mean he doesn’t change it when taking pictures.
The picture at the top does have a connection to this white balance issue. It’s clearly shot in one of our churches and the camera was on auto white balance. In editing I used the eye dropper tool to set the white balance, which produced a rather cool tone. Shot as the camera saw it, it was warmer.
Now, churches are among the most difficult environments to get right in terms of white balance, because there are multiple sources of light inside the church, and maybe also light from the outside. So you have to settle on one white balance that produces what you see as the best result.
I might just test Tucker’s approach next time.
