Saturday, August 29, 2009

White Balance

I seldom take my photo in Raw format but there are occassions where it is good to have it in raw. The main reason why I don't want raw is because of the file size and also, I don't really see the needs of it. We can argue about this but again, what is the point? I am too busy to tweak photos. I prefer the final result coming from the camera rather than the digital darkroom. So, one area I have to ensure proper setting is the white balance.
Looking at the following two photos, it is a little difficult to decide which is a nicer photo.
With raw format, I can always tweak it if I change my mind. But I don't bother. This photo, I set it to "Auto" white balance.
This one, the white balance is set to "cloudy". See, one is bright red and another is more bluish. Which one is nicer? I know that there is a difference in opinion. No one is right.
I heard one pro who said that he can't understand why we paid for advance technology and yet we want to perform manual adjustment/setting. Just set everything to "Auto" but you do need to ensure that the correct "Auto" is selected.