White Balance

M

Marc Lucas

Active member
Took a test shot at a grey card in Auto White Balance mode.
Then put the D800 in White Balnce (Pre) mode and shot the grey card under the same lighting conditions to get a custom WB.
Then took another shot of the grey card.

Question is should the Auto WB mode give the same results as the Pre results? I can't seem to get two shots the same WB colour. Is the Auto WB a good enough gauge of true white balance or is it my definition a quite fix when you need it.
 
I think with the Auto WB the camera does a database lookup and compares the current scene with what it has historically. With Pre WB you are actually asking the camera to manually read the color temperature of the card or whatever and use that as the white balance. But I could be incorrect as to how the camera selects Auto WB.
 
Sorry! Didn't finish the answer. The Pre WB will give you a more accurate WB as long as you set it up correctly when taking the read. The Auto WB can be fooled, given certain conditions.
 
Stephenh said:
Sorry! Didn't finish the answer. The Pre WB will give you a more accurate WB as long as you set it up correctly when taking the read. The Auto WB can be fooled, given certain conditions.
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+1
Pre WB will always be correct if you do it right. Auto can be thrown off if something of a single color fills up too much of the frame. Like if you do a close up of a red car, everything else will turn blue. It's safest to use either Pre WB or set a fixed color temp.
 
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