well time is getting near and i'm still nervous and want to have all down... but never thought.. what does everyone set WB to for Churches? I usually dont mess around with wb... always use AUTO.

Auto is all we use. Once you get your w/b in you can sync it in Light Room or Bridge for all your shots.

That will depend on the church. There are some churches that have beautiful window lighting and very minor tungsten lighting, there are others that have stained glass windows and tungsten lighting, etc. Under different light sources, Auto WB will be a moving target based on your position and what you include in the frame, so leaving it in Auto and then trying to sync all the images won't get you a proper WB on all of them. For proper WB sync in post, set your WB to tungsten (or whatever it happens to be), or even better, set your camera to 3000K (tungsten temp) and shoot something with white in the frame, like the altar cloth. Then shoot the rest of the ceremony. Then in post, select the image with the altar cloth in it, set the WB based on it, then copy that WB setting to the rest of the images in the ceremony. But remember that even for this to work you'll have to pointing in the same general direction - ie. towards altar; if you shoot in a direction that introduces a different light source, your temperature will change.

Also remember, that if you decide to shoot Auto WB and use flash, the WB in the camera defaults to Flash WB, though you won't see that either in the camera or in the image EXIF. Something to be aware of. Best of luck.

+1 This is your best idea if you are not familiar with setting a white balance. Also the point he makes about flash is important because you will almost certainly use flash for the isle shots. Good luck! You are going to have soooo much fun!

Ramiro is spot on correct. Ive been trained to stay away from AWB. Try to match the settings with the correct light source. The next logical question is which light source. Especially as Ramiro says, many churches will have three sources of light, window, tungsten and your flash. Rule of thumb here....which ever light is the strongest, set WB to that. You do always have the post production option but the above is how I was trained.

PS....I do often forget the WB in AWB....

have fun?? I am losing sleep over it... I am dreaming of s/s etc...
CRAZY!!!
and this whole wb just confused me more...
I will not be using my flash if I dont have to, just too obtrusive...

Most people work whitebalance differently. If you shoot raw your whitebalance is easily fixable if you do something wrong. You could (in theory) leave it on cloudy no matter where you go and when you're doing your post processing that each lighting sitiuaiton will be off by the same amount. So you'd correct one then apply that to all images in the same lighting sitiuation.

A grey card is one of the best ways to get a solid reading right off the bat that you can use in post to fix it all around.

If you will not be using flash, then you are in great shape. Find your dominant light source, if it's a church with a lot of window light, set your WB to Shade and forget about it. If there are very few or no windows and mostly artificial lighting, it will more than likely be tungsten. If that is the case simply set your WB to 3000K, shoot something white, and then correct everything in post in one shot like I explained above. If you really want to be accurate, shoot the altar cloth from the center isle, the left isle, and the right isle. Then in post, select all images that you show from the left isle and WB to the image you shot of the altar from that direction. Repeat for the other locations and you are golden.

As a side note, as you do more weddings try to learn the different light sources and what color they look in the camera. Tungsten is very orange for the most part but sometimes it has a bit of yellow, fluorescent looks green and it's the worse to photograph in because it give skin tones an ugly green tint. But because fluorescent is not a constant light source (unless it's daylight balanced fluorescent), if fluctuates, it's temperature changes even in the same bulb, so it's a pain in the neck to get spot on WB in camera, sometimes even putting a gel on the flash.

Do you have a link to the church that may show a picture of the interior? If so, post it here and we could better suggest what kind of color temperature you'll be up against.

I believe you shoot jpeg right? If you shoot RAW it's a non-issue because you can reset it in post, but when I shot jpeg I tried to get as close as possible to an accurate WB. Churches will generally be close to a tungsten setting, but not always, once in a while you have to manually tweak it.

I would recommend doing some test shots and check the LCD to see if it looked close. If you're pretty close then you can still fix WB in post on jpegs so don't stress out too much.

But most of all, I'd recommend moving to RAW format. It takes the whole WB stress away.

huh? jpeg for first wedding... ? surely you will be shooting RAW right?

I only shoot jpg -- and yes I did jpg for my first wedding.

not trying to stir trouble up, but were you asking questions about WB ?

+1

If this is going to be your 1st wedding in a church, I wouldn't recommend shooting JPEG either.

What does WB and JPG/RAW have to do with anything? I use lightroom and can adjust either format with equal ease?

just in general, if your that unsure about WB and your about to do your first wedding, then maybe the best thing would be to shoot raw, period.

Well if you are telling a person to shoot raw and they have never shot raw before, you better tell them to get 4x the cards they have today.

i aint saying crapola.

pm sent. check your messages.
















(hehehehehe.)

I am like pictage -- don't expect a reply...

as if.




(but we all know you went and checked).....

I never check -- I wait for the pop-up.

i pop block ups.

I do too -- but it only filters yours.

good luck with your first wedding! Once you get there and you are shooting, you will have fun. I promise! I would go with auto wb for now, you can always fix it in LR

AWB in a very dark church can be a disaster even in RAW, you get orange images that affect the quality, even converting to B&W they can look horrid with noice, you cannot just change it in LR, A correct WB will get you almost another stop plus in color accuracy. Since I go from flash to non flash fairly quickly I do a custom white balance at the alter with a target or play with the Kelvin mode looking at the histogram and then store the setting, then I switch to auto with the use of flash. After the flash is off switch to my already stored WB setting and shoot away. Back to Auto and flash on right after the kiss.

The latitude in regard to RAW vs Jpg in LR is huge anyone who says otherwise doesn't have a clue, or is so good from a film background they never screwed up a shot. You can always do RAW when quality or tough lighting conditions are of great concern, cards are cheap these days.