[photoprofx]

(02-21-2012, 02:32 AM)williamting Wrote:

(02-20-2012, 07:43 PM)photoprofx Wrote: White balance usually is set in the camera. NOW, that being said shooting on Full Auto is on setting on my camera that I never use and I mean never! IF you want to get perfect white balance EVERY time you can use a 18% gray card, available online for a few bucks.
The other alternative is, if you are using PS or Lightroom then get the white balance eye dropper and look for a light patch of gray in the photo, that will put you in the ballpark. Warm it up a little if you
want some great ideas and want to look at photographers from all over the planet check out 500PX.com. this latter suggestion shows you some of the most creative uses of the camera you will ever see AND it gives you, most of the time, the camera settings.
Photography is an expensive hobby, sorry it just is, and you need to get the knowlege to leverage the equipment you buy. It is NOT in the owners manuel.
White balance is the VERY first step in any processing of ANY photo to get it right, from there you can do most anything.
Good Luck
PhotoProFX

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Thanks for your pointers. Surely I will pay them a visit. I am learning new thing everyday!
In certain situation, I am using manual mode to shoot all my picture. I can't leave important assignment to the auto mode.
Do you agree if I say that a gray card is a gray card? They are all made (almost) equal and there is no point to pay more for a perceived advantage (due to brand or whatever).
Photography is an extremely expensive hobby. I found that out when I was only 14 years old!

There are gray cards for RAW and Jpeg photos depending on what file format you are shooting. Me, I shoot almost exclusivly in RAW, move it to Canon Cameara RAW in Lightroom process it then move it to PS if I need to use it for a component in compositing.
In manuel I use this for studio photography only... set the shutter to 125th/sec ISO at 100, I use a 70 - 200 F2.8 L for my portraits because it does wonderful things for the subject. The sweet spot for the glass is around f5 to f9. (Sekonic Metering)

I think the most important thing, besides good white balance, is the rule of thirds because it gives you room for excellent composition. The light is... well before anything you have to have light and good studio strobes are pretty much necessary to accomplish what you need to get accomplished from an artistic point of view.
By the way, jumping back to gray cards, when you are in RAW processing, say in Bridge or Lightroom, the gray card is a very nice thing to have invested in because you can batch process your photos using a single frame to set your white balance for all the photos you select at once. Then it is a matter of processing the photos from there and saving the versions or snapshots to a photo drive.

PhotoProFx