RAW Question

[Donb10]

If your are shooting in raw, does it really matter what in camera white balance setting you use?

Not long ago, I took two identical photos within a few seconds of the other. They were taken in bright daylight, one was taken with Auto White Balance and the other set to Daylight. The one taken using Auto White Balance appeared to be closer to what I liked in the photo even though I had to change it also.

[AndrewCCM]

No.. WB will be set in post.

However, your RAW converter may try and use the WB setting embedded to initially render the preview. I still find getting WB correct while shooting to be preferable since it helps speed things up later...

[Duffy Pratt]

You can always change white balance later if you shoot RAW. So in that sense, it doesn't matter.

But in ACR, the presets include Auto and As Shot. The first is ACRs best guess on the white balance, and the As Shot applies the camera's white balance setting. I sometimes find it useful to go through these pre-sets to get a "second opinion," especially on shots that don't have any clearly neutral areas.

Duffy

[Donb10]

Thanks for the replies. I have just been using the AWB setting. I think I'll try the normal settings ( daylight, cloudy, shade, flash) in whatever situation I find myself and see how that works.

Thanks again

[MarkBarbieri]

While it generally doesn't matter what white balance you use when shooting RAW, there is one little caveat. The histogram displays the levels for the photo based on a jpg conversion using your current settings. Significant white balance adjustments can affect your exposure level. If your white balance was way off, your histogram could be misleading.

[AndrewCCM]

Originally Posted by MarkBarbieri

While it generally doesn't matter what white balance you use when shooting RAW, there is one little caveat. The histogram displays the levels for the photo based on a jpg conversion using your current settings. Significant white balance adjustments can affect your exposure level. If your white balance was way off, your histogram could be misleading.

This is a very good point.