D300 AWB in studio

[Guy Mancuso]

Shot some of my daughters friends as they dressed up to take her for her 18th BD . So i shot these in the garage real quick 3x4 softbox with grid and than rim light. Shot at 5.6 with the ZEISS 85mm 1.4 lens. i like this lens. Anyway
on AWB it came in at 4050 Kelvin. Than after WB of her teeth it jumped to 4550. Than the third one WB off grey background it went to 4950 Kelvin. Pretty interesting . i will play around later but this is straight out of the can

 

[Guy Mancuso]

WB off her teeth seems to hit it pretty good so looks like 500 kelvin to the warmth is the difference it is off.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

These are in LR . Like to try this in C1

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Real quick C1 came in at 4300. Which maybe dead on

 

[Terry]

So let me understand both processors picked a different as shot WB? Then when you white balanced they also picked different temps? I thought as shot is as shot and the RAW wasn't altered. Now it would be interesting to see what capture NX does.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

LR came in at 4050 In C1 came in at 4300. But in both programs the other images varied / So AWB moved around on different shots. Not a bad thing but setting it to flash at a constant temp would have been better . But this is real easy find the sweet spot than apply to all. Beauty of Raw but I want to look into this more.

 

[Terry]

LR came in at 4050 In C1 came in at 4300. But in both programs the other images varied / So AWB moved around on different shots. Not a bad thing but setting it to flash at a constant temp would have been better . But this is real easy find the sweet spot than apply to all. Beauty of Raw but I want to look into this more.

But am I understanding this correctly? The same shot/NEF file brought into LR gives a different temp than C1? Or is it past my bedtime and my brain cells are fried?

 

[Guy Mancuso]

I can't figure out what color temp in NX

 

[etrigan63]

Want me to try it in Aperture 2? I will send the results back to you for posting.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Yes Carlos that would be nice. Trying to use you send it to post a link. My brain is a little fried at the moment but I want to try this again

 

[etrigan63]

Not to worry. I have my own ftp server. I will set up an account for you and e-mail the information to you. This will be completely private.

 

[gogopix]

I wouldn't be too hard on the AWB in this camera (ok,ok so I AM warming to it. Guy should sell patent medicine: he can convince you of a product from 2,000 miles away! :ROTFL:

My Phase backs have all had issues in some scenes. One of the trickiest is studio background . Except for 'studio grey' which INST! large areas of non grey and black won't balance. AWB makes assumptions, and frankly I am surprised they do as well as they do. THe more large areas of same color, the less better the AWB. THis is known in math as a 'spikey' distribution and it is difficult compared to a nice smooth, many color distribution. It is further confised by sorce (except I assume strobes are whatever.

Since the background DOES look a bit blue, the balance wants to make warmer, maybe overassumed, made buer etc etc.

Anyway, also need to juggle the color balnce as well as the green/magenta.

Since everybody uses whitenong toothpaste these days we have a really 'white balance' point

Victor

 

[Ocean]

Guy,

In Nikon Capture NX, you can use the "1. Basic Adjustments" on the right-hand-side side of the manual windows. Under the "1. Basic Adjustments," select "Raw Adjustments," then "White Balance." The "White Balance" selection will open a separate window box. Go to "New WB," and make changes. You can change color temp in the "Fine Adjustment" bar.

Hope this helps!

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Thanks that is great Ocean. Victor your absolutely right AWB will just guess at whatever makes it feel good. So I don't want to make a big deal of these but i do want to see what these convertors are doing to skin tones and the rest of the tones. NX drives me crazy , C1 is a good program, LR i like for workflow and Aperture i did like also. What I don't want is two programs , would like one that does my M8's and My Nikons. Also i have to wait to see what the D3 files will do and how they are different. My biggest issue is just getting everything under control and that just takes some time.

Yes and white teeth is a good WB point. LOL

 

[PeterA]

I must be missing something here..

if you are using auto WB then your in camera choice of metering ( spot/matrix/etc etc) plays a part in the cameras 'guessing game' if you use a picker in raw processor then you are being the 'meter'...I am not surprised that different progs deliver different 'guesses' about WB - thats why they have controls to change the guess to what you want ...

on my Leaf ( for example) I get different look from processing files in various raw processors - all from same 'canned' profiles..the variable ( apart from raw processor) is of course the actual shot and content.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Girls will be girls and there just having some fun at the cost of my daughter , i though this one was funny so did my wife.

Anyway little different approach. I just went in and WB of the same spot in each program just to see what happens. There a little different. We have to be careful too these kids spend time in tanning booths and obviously have tans. The only adjustment I made was crop and exposure to match

LR
C1
Nx

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Notice the contrast difference LR has the most, than C1 than NX

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Tough call but to me C1 is the better of the programs on these. Look at specular highlights and tone . C1 seems the smoothest, Than NX . Frankly I wonder what the big hoopla is on NX , it is as clumsy as it gets to work with and no better than C1 in my mind. I am going to get another download of Aperture But for me NX is out , one horse pony does not cut it in my workflow. This will come down to the best tools in each program. I like LR for this and I did like Aperture's tools. c1 i still like the old pro version as a workflow tool. Okay i need to pack for carmel today but i will have to keep trying my top three out LR,C1 and Aperture.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

BTW On screen there wonderful . The D300 is doing a nice job and no lack of detail anywhere. Nikon took a giant leap up in my book. Can't wait to get my D3.

BTW this was shot with the 17-35 . i see no reason at ALL to replace this lens with the new ones. This is a awesome lens folks and used for under 1k and the smaller size , it's a gimme. Not to say the new ones may not be better still but the 17-35 is a Nikon classic and it is outstanding.

 

[LJL]

Guy,
I agree with what Victor and you are suggesting. The WB can be all over the place, and heavily influenced by its surroundings. In your case, the strong black and gray background on the first shot looks like it did cause a shift. Nikon has always imparted a bit of a "cooler" look to things, so your first rendering with LR does not surprise me. I think C1 "ignores" the in camera settings for RAW, and makes some of its own calculations, unless there was a Custom WB that you did. Cannot speak to NX, as I have not used it, but I agree that it is not looking as good as C1. Aperture can be all over the place also, in my experience with it, but once you dial in what you like, it looks very good, and I like the conversions it yields over the ACR/LR versions for my Canon files. Your Nikon files may be different.

That D300 and 17-35 is delivering a nice look and plenty of detail for sure. That second batch of shots look a bit overexposed on the NX version and maybe a bit on the C1 version also. (The blacks just do not look black enough or something.) The skin tones look good, so you should be happy there, especially being able to pick out the various subtle shades of pink in the lipsticks and stuff. That has always been tougher for my shooting when using ACR, but Aperture and C1 seem to deliver better there.

Great stuff.

LJ