I do something that no other photographer does (that I know of), and why
This topic is white balance, the process of making the colors in the final print look the way they should. For example, a white wedding dress should look white and not orange or green. That process is called white balance adjustment by the camera manufacturers. Each SLR camera has a number of settings to resolve this, as cameras will just “see” a white dress based on the light color bounced off of it. If it fluorescent light, it will be recorded as green, if a light bulb, orange. The cameras make a valiant attempt to fix this problem by using a setting known as automatic white balance. The computer circuitry makes a best effort and usually is fairly close to what the colors should be. It will also have a variety of settings such as sunshine, cloudy, incandescent, fluorescent and so on. For example, if you’re shooting under clouds, the light is a little blueish. By changing the setting to cloudy, you’ll get a closer result by making a slight blueish cast become white; or you can leave as auto and you’ll likely get a similar result.
The problem is this, one that I’ve never read anybody commenting about. When a photographer leaves the settings on auto, the camera continually makes guesses from photo to photo to fine tune the white balance adjustment. That wouldn’t really matter if you only shoot a dozen shots (especially in RAW, see adjacent post) as the actual white setting can be adjusted in post production software. Here’s the problem… when I shoot a wedding it’s between 1-2,000 images so can you imagine trying a individually tweak the settings of 2,000 photographs after the fact to get consistent results in similar surroundings? It a horrendous task.
So what I do if to switch from auto to sunshine, cloudy or whatever and leave it there. Although the RAW files may have be off (sometimes way off) by having a distinct color caste, by shooting in RAW I can adjust that out for the entire session in a matter of seconds. And without a loss of quality. Whites looks exactly the same in the same settings.
If given time, I photograph a special card with white, gray and black panels. Not only does it let me set the white balance exactly for those lighting conditions, it also is very useful for setting the correct exposure. With a few button clicks, the custom white balance is set and the photography begins. The more you get it right in camera, the less work in post production. If you multiply 2,000 images by just 1 minute each, you get over 33 hours of non-stop work after the wedding. That’s why thinking ahead saves a huge amount of time.
Related posts:
- White balance and why your white wedding dress should look white
- What I don't know, and why
- Wireless flash triggers
- A photographer’s photographer
- The f-stops here
Tags: Atlanta wedding photography, bridal, low cost, photo journalism, quality, videography, Wedding photography