White Balance with constantly changing light

[brewercm]

I'll be taking pictures this Saturday at a dance recital for some people (including me since my daughter is in it). The part I was curious about is if I want to set the WB on anything other than auto what would I choose.
The reason I ask is there is no flash allowed and the lighting changes from number to number.
I'm half tempted to just keep the WB in auto as it hasn't done a terrible job in the past but was curious if there are any other choices to look at.

[Tom]

Just because the lighting changes, doesn't mean the temp of the light changes - which is what WB adjusts. It would be impossible to say exactly what the WB would need to be set at without being there or getting a reading.

[iCe]

If you shoot RAW format then you'll have an extra level of flexibility. Shoot something in the environment that you will normally shoot in with the camera set to AWB. See what the camera chose for WB. Look at the image. If it looks good then set the WB to that setting. If it's cool warm it up. If it's warm cool it off. Fine tune in ACR or whatever your software of choice is.

[dmcantrell]

Good suggestions so far, the only thing I'd add is the use of a grey card if you have one. In the end, the WB setting doesn't really matter as long as you shoot in raw.

[iCe]

I'm wondering what kind of light you're going to be shooting in. I should have asked that first. My answer was contingent on the lighting being what is typically in a gym or other school venue. If you fix the white balance under that kind of lighting the camera doesn't have to work as hard to calculate the WB required.

[carrbowl]

Absolutely don't keep it on auto, because it will make you edit each photo individually. If you put it on something else, flourescent, flash, etc. it will be on one consistent temp. So once you change the first photo, you can change all the rest to match. You might still adjust some a little, but it won't be huge adjustments. If you keep it on auto, the temp will change on each photo. Hope that makes sense!!

[shutterfire]

Here is a link to a great article about controling WB in Kelvin on your camera. If you set your camera in the upper range on the scale you may have to tweak it a bit in PP. I tried this last weekend and it was a great help.

http://www.memphiscameraclub.org/newsletters/May09.pdf

[bryanlindsey]

You're not going to have time (and probably not the inclination) to nail WB in-camera for EACH number. Or even one specific dance number for that matter.

Auto WB, shoot in RAW, have fun, deal with WB later. The intensity of the orange/green/magenta/cyan stage lights will decide how much post work you have to do.

[shutterfire]

Just because the lighting changes, doesn't mean the temp of the light changes - which is what WB adjusts. It would be impossible to say exactly what the WB would need to be set at without being there or getting a reading.

+1 Thomas

the gel colors are just that gel colors.


It just depends on the type of light that is used. Tungsten vs flouresent are good examples. the color temp will remain consistant depending on type of light. the intensity will change and you will have to adjust your f-stops for that. It will save you PP work if the WB is correct.

[brewercm]

I'll definitely be shooting in raw. The lighting is standard stage type lights that depending on the routine they change which lights are being used. This will be done at the auditorium at Texas Luthercan University. Unfortunately unlike a gymnasium where I have been able to set the WB to the kelvin rating that was best suited for every shot, or when shooting macros in my aquarium where I know the actual K rating without having to guess.

In the past I've just set it on Auto WB and let the camera attempt to decide and worked on them later. It's done a decent job at getting each one close and some almost dead on. Like someone mentioned before I know I won't have the time to be changing it constantly. I usually have the ISO set to around 1200 and leave it there because there are some numbers that have plenty of light while others don't and need the bump. Then I set the apperture high enough to keep most everything in focus and just have to deal with shutter speed at that point.

BTW, the lenses I'll be using will be my Nikon 50mm 1.8, and dependent on where I can get to photo possibly my Nikon 105mm 2.8 VR. This is where I think it would be great to also get an 85mm 1.8 or 1.4(maybe out of my price range right now).

Thanks for all the responses.

[CaptainG]

I faced this same problem Tuesday night shooting a dress rehearsal for the opera Rigoletto. I went to friend Roland Gomez for advice. He said, the lighting is all incandescent regardless of the gels used to color it. He recommended that I set the WB at 3200K for the incandescent and the rest should take care of itself. He was dead on. Thanks, Rolando!



Michael Wade Lee in Rigoletto

[3n-Out]

The only time I have ever been concerned about white balance or color temp changes is when I'm shooting outdoors in the morning hours as the sun comes up. The color temp changes quite fast, so normally when I shoot in the morning I'm adjuster my WB about every 15 min for the first hour or so of light or until it rises above the horizon. Of course like other said you really don't need to worry about it much if you are shooting RAW. I just don't want to have to fart with the WB in Post. For the most part I use my expodisk and it does a fairly good job for me.

[brewercm]

Thanks again for all the great input. I'll give that 3200K and see how that works out. That was kind of my thougts also since the lights are all the same and really nothing other than gels to get the color they are using.

John,
I get you on the light temp thing but I've had to deal with it quite a bit dealing with reef aquariums as everybody tends to have a different k rating they like for their tank. Taking pics of several different ones at a time can be challenging and require changing WB often to get the tank/corals to look like they do to the eye.

[3n-Out]

I have shot a lot out at the aquarium at Sea World here in SA. I can tell ya from experience that if you are shooting a tank with sunlight shining in it light does some weird things coming through water. It can reflect in a million different directions at any one time if there are waves at the surface. Good luck!

[brewercm]

That's what's nice about home aquariums is we already know the spectrum of our lights. It can get tricky if there are different types of bulbs which is common now so a white coffee lid into the tank always does the trick for setting custom WB if needed or at least get it very close.

Aquariums at Sea World are also very hard to nail down. We actually have several pieces of corals from several members of the club out there. Not to mention that monster clam in the one reef was donated from one of the members to them.

Off subject but we got to do a behind the scenes tour there once and it's very interesting to see it all from the back. I knew they were using 20K radium bulbs for their larger tanks before but didn't realize they can also adjust how much natural daylight they have going into there also. On average at the suns brightest the rating is around 6.6K at surface and the K value begins to increase the deeper you get. Maybe a little insight for any under water photogs but they probably already knew that anyways.