Hello ou812 - I like your question; never thought about it myself. I am currently using, or experimenting with Custom WB 6500K, which I find in the winter snows to reproduce realistic white representing the snow.Phantom 4 Advanced - Does anyone know the actual color temperatures DJI uses for the white balance presets, particularly Sunny and Cloudy? For example, what manually set temperature is the exact same as the "Sunny" preset? 5000k? Same with "Cloudy" - is it 6500k? Many thanks.
Andy9 - Thanks for your input. Not knowing much about Custom WB, I simply have been trying to find the correct 'whites', using Kelvin temperature, for the season. In fact, the more I read about it - some say use an 18% gray card to set the WB; others say to use the presets for Daylight, Sunny, etc. but none of these during the winter months with snow on the ground give realistic white snow. Even WB/Kelvin temperature charts do not agree or give ranges.6500 is rather bluish but for snow it is OK bacause it better reproduces the cold. For other environments I would rather use 5000 or less. But everything depends of the taste.
Thank you Andy9 for the new info. Currently, I am looking for realism; then will proceed to enhancement such as HDR.The most important for the art photography is wether you like it or no.
The light is continously changing during the day and an exact value is hard to preset. For the snow scenes it is important not to underexpose the picture. Autoexpose function generally tends to underexpose the snow. Put exp to one or one and half step up for the snow and it'll be OK.
Thank you Andy.Nowadays when almost everything can be done in post, I think that grey cards are a bit out of date.
It may be useful in a studio environment. On the field is not practical.
I’m in the middle. I also find 6500 or even 6000 too warm and usually set my WB at 5700 for sunny days. That’s with my P4P v26500 is rather bluish but for snow it is OK bacause it better reproduces the cold. For other environments I would rather use 5000 or less. But everything depends of the taste.
Looks like the posted replies drifted away from your original question. The "adjust in post" response is also a path to finding your answer. Go shoot in the different WB settings, then read the EXIF data on the photos. If your image editing software won't show you the whole slate of exif data, download the free executable "exiftool(-k)". Drag/drop any photo or video onto the icon for the executable file, and it'll open up a ton of data recorded by the camera for that image, including the color temperature used plus a whole bunch of other exciting stuff like your gps coordinates, altitude, heading, camera pitch, time, etcPhantom 4 Advanced - Does anyone know the actual color temperatures DJI uses for the white balance presets, particularly Sunny and Cloudy? For example, what manually set temperature is the exact same as the "Sunny" preset? 5000k? Same with "Cloudy" - is it 6500k? Many thanks.
Many thanks, Bob. Yes, the replies drifted off-topic so I hadn't even checked my post in a while. I looked at some recent images from my P4A with white balance set to the "Sunny". When I view the EXIF data in XnView it only lists the white balance as "Manual(1)" and not a temperature. I tried downloading exiftool (several variations) but couldn't get it to show any info so I'll have to keep working on that program to see what I'm doing wrong. I might try to see if there are any other EXIF programs that will give a different result. Thanks again!Looks like the posted replies drifted away from your original question. The "adjust in post" response is also a path to finding your answer. Go shoot in the different WB settings, then read the EXIF data on the photos. If your image editing software won't show you the whole slate of exif data, download the free executable "exiftool(-k)". Drag/drop any photo or video onto the icon for the executable file, and it'll open up a ton of data recorded by the camera for that image, including the color temperature used plus a whole bunch of other exciting stuff like your gps coordinates, altitude, heading, camera pitch, time, etc
Do you process your files in Lightroom or Photoshop?Many thanks, Bob. Yes, the replies drifted off-topic so I hadn't even checked my post in a while. I looked at some recent images from my P4A with white balance set to the "Sunny". When I view the EXIF data in XnView it only lists the white balance as "Manual(1)" and not a temperature. I tried downloading exiftool (several variations) but couldn't get it to show any info so I'll have to keep working on that program to see what I'm doing wrong. I might try to see if there are any other EXIF programs that will give a different result. Thanks again!