Beginners Questions and Answers

[Don Hoey]

Following a thought from Christine I will start this thread as a single point that newcomers to photography can post questions for answers by the experts.

Don

[Christine]

Don ,a question.Does one need to alter the white balance ,or is it best left to the camera with it's auto settings.I ask this as Paul Hackett,who is a well known digiscoping expert,was giving me some tips as to setting up the cam etc,and pointed out to me that the white balance settings were there to be used.As he quite rightly pointed out,one does not always take photos on a bright sunny day.So when it was overcast,I changed the white balance to it's cloudy setting.Both SLR and digiscoping cam.But the pics had a sepia look to them,and I was not really sure if I had was correct in changing from the auto setting.Do other people change their white balance settings when needed?.

[Don Hoey]

I leave mine on auto normally and no problems yet. If the lighting is tricky I shoot in raw then adjust white balance on the PC.

Don

[Christine]

Thanks,Don,question answered,will leave on Auto .

[robski]

I leave mind on auto 99.9% of the time - It tends to cause more of a problem when I forget to put it back. Auto seems to cope mainly with most daylight situations. It is only in extreme daylight conditions do I change it. e.g taking shots of blue bells in a shaded wood. The other time I will change is under artificial light, flash, fluorescent or tungsten.

With Auto you can get a colour shift which is difficult to fix in PS with a red flowers against green grass. I find you can't get a natural looking green.

If I know it is likely that the colours maybe wrong I carry a sheet of white paper so I can do a custom balance.

Or it will be one of the few times I shoot raw. I tend to save that for the nasty shots.

[yelvertoft]

Leave mine on auto 99.9% of time, unless I suspect it's going to get confused by artificial light. I usually swap to RAW for these situations rather than try to guess the correct WB at the time.

[Christine]

Thanks everyone,yes ,I guess I have been doing the correct thing by leaving on auto,as the only time I did change things did not look right.
Now RAW,that is another story,I have 2 cams which both shoot in RAW,but I am very wary .Need to read up some more info,but would love to have a go and see the result.