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DPChallenge Forums >> Tips, Tricks, and Q&A >> White Balance in long exposures
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Showing posts 1 - 13 of 13, (reverse)
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 10/04/2006 04:36:56 PM · #1
what WB would you suggest for an outside long exposure of the night sky?
Anywhere from 30 seconds to one hour?
Also, what about shooting a waterfall for 5 to 30 seconds in the early morning?
What WB would be suitable?

Thanks.
 10/04/2006 04:38:34 PM · #2
I like using raw for nighttime, but for a water fall just do a custom white balance and you will be fine
 10/05/2006 09:24:27 AM · #3
Originally posted by Emenresu:
I like using raw for nighttime, but for a water fall just do a custom white balance and you will be fine


I've never really used RAW (it scares me!!!!)
What about if i was just shooting good old fashioned JPEG's?
 10/05/2006 10:01:02 AM · #4
Start out by shooting RAW+JPG for a while, 'til you get comfortable. Your camera has that option. There's nothing scary about RAW at all, though. Basically all it means is that you set all the parameters AFTER the shot. There's nothing mysterious about it, it is just more flexible by an order of magnitude. It allows you to play with color saturation, contrast, WB, and such AFTER making the exposure, instead of dialing in a single, fixed set of parameters beforehand, as you have to do with JPG.

I usually shoot night shots in daylight WB, sometimes in tungsten if I want a very blue mood. Be sure you turn OFF "auto noise reduction" for really long exposures; that function does a whole, second exposure of the same length as the first one without actually opening the shutter, so if you had a 30-minute exposure then ANR would tack a 2nd 30 minutes on top of that for a total of one hour, a real bummer.

R.
 10/05/2006 11:18:07 AM · #5
Thanks Robert, maybe I'll shoot some of both until I get used to it!
I'll be in the mountains for a few days, so I'll have a chance to do both.
 10/05/2006 11:26:32 AM · #6
and one more question....
If I'm shooting RAW, does it then matter what the white balance is set to?
 10/05/2006 01:35:10 PM · #7
The noise reduction might double the exposure, but it reduces the noise a LOT, so it's worth it IMO.
 10/05/2006 02:03:34 PM · #8
Originally posted by UNCLEBRO:
and one more question....
If I'm shooting RAW, does it then matter what the white balance is set to?

Not really. But, if it's not set right, you can fix it. Unlike jpg's.
 10/05/2006 02:17:53 PM · #9
thanks for your collective helps.
 10/05/2006 02:38:07 PM · #10
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
Start out by shooting RAW+JPG for a while, 'til you get comfortable. Your camera has that option. There's nothing scary about RAW at all, though. Basically all it means is that you set all the parameters AFTER the shot. There's nothing mysterious about it, it is just more flexible by an order of magnitude. It allows you to play with color saturation, contrast, WB, and such AFTER making the exposure, instead of dialing in a single, fixed set of parameters beforehand, as you have to do with JPG.

I usually shoot night shots in daylight WB, sometimes in tungsten if I want a very blue mood. Be sure you turn OFF "auto noise reduction" for really long exposures; that function does a whole, second exposure of the same length as the first one without actually opening the shutter, so if you had a 30-minute exposure then ANR would tack a 2nd 30 minutes on top of that for a total of one hour, a real bummer.

R.



Robert, When would you use the auto noise reduction? I had the experience you just referred to happen to me while shooting 2-3 minute exposures early morning in yosemite. Fumbling around in the dark trying to figure it out was frustrating. I thought this feature was specifically for long exposures but my experience with it was not positive. I couldn't tell if it actually reduced noise. In fact, i'm not sure i could even identify which exposure was which. Even at iso 200 my pics were BAD!(noisy) and they were relatively short duration compared to 30+min. They were also extremely blue and i was unable to correct during RAW processing.

Maybe i should read my manual ;)



To the original OP. I have used AWB with good results. I have tried to warm up the tones by specifying a warmer setting but with little success. Need to experiment more.
 10/05/2006 03:06:06 PM · #11
Originally posted by UNCLEBRO:

I've never really used RAW (it scares me!!!!)


thats like getting your permit and never driving on highways. youll realize its the easier way to go (=


10/05/2006 03:29:44 PM · #12
Originally posted by ThatsFresh:
Originally posted by UNCLEBRO:

I've never really used RAW (it scares me!!!!)


thats like getting your permit and never driving on highways. youll realize its the easier way to go (=


Yep, I know it's true.
Although I've never seen the need to do it yet.
I guess I'm happy drive on the side roads?
BUt I probably should get onto the main road sometime!

Incidentally, what is the little .THM file that accompanies each RAW file?
Is it important?
Should I keep it?
 10/05/2006 03:45:16 PM · #13
Originally posted by Bear_Music:

Be sure you turn OFF "auto noise reduction" for really long exposures; that function does a whole, second exposure of the same length as the first one without actually opening the shutter, so if you had a 30-minute exposure then ANR would tack a 2nd 30 minutes on top of that for a total of one hour, a real bummer.

R.

I had this whole argument against what Bear was saying about not using noise reduction as I always use it for my night shots. With rare exception, this shot had a low battery and after the long exposure the NR didn't turn on to save battery power. The jpeg was full of hot pixels so I had assumed the raw file was too. I think the raw file is too, but software cleans it up for you, which I didn't realize until about 5 min ago, lol. I pulled up the raw file and they were gone. Here is a shot of the two photos side by side. In the jpeg(bottom) I did destaurate the reds with Hue saturation. And a curve to darken the sky. The raw(top) is simply converted from raw and I did nothing. You can see all the hot pixels in the bottom photo, another reason for raw I think if you don't use NR. If I use NR even the jpegs don't have hot pixels. Once again Bear was right... I don't know how I doubted him. :)

Another tip for night shots, bring a strong flashlight if you want to focus on anything other than the stars it REALLY helps to find some where to focus. I couldn't find one for this shot and the trees are OOF and so are the stars :|. hope this helps some, it definitely helped me.
EDIT: I think this is my longest post with out a spelling error!

Message edited by author 2006-10-05 15:48:20.
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