Відео

Sean, we are so privileged to get such an education in photography from you!

"Cameras have a lot of latitude" - they do, but I am not sure how is this relevant to WB. WB isn't "baked in" at all, you could literally shoot at any value and set any value afterwards, you are not losing one bit of quality of the file generally and in terms of color. I understand why you shoot like this but it could be misleading for others to think that they need to be in the ballpark of the final image or otherwise they are sacrificing quality. They're not. Bad exposure will sacrifice quality, but WB settings will not.

I want to counter this concept by explaining how white balance works when shooting in RAW. When you shoot in RAW with AWB enabled, the in-camera white balance temperature (as well as the calculated tint shift value) are stored inside the RAW file as METADATA. The individual pixel data is not modified by the white balance before being written into the RAW file. This means that, no matter what white balance value you set in-camera, when shooting RAW the pixel data will be EXACTLY THE SAME. Now, the downside of setting a specific white balance value is that only your custom white balance value will be stored in the metadata of your RAW files. This means that you are LOSING an important reference value (two, actually, when you consider the tint shift) that you might later want to either use or at least reference when editing your photos. So, if you shoot with AWB on in RAW format, not only do you preserve the camera’s in-moment interpretation of the light (WB and Tint), but you can modify the white balance to literally ANY value in post, and the result would be exactly the same as having shot in RAW with the same white balance value explicitly set. TL;DR you lose nothing shooting RAW with AWB, but you lose useful reference values when shooting RAW with a specific white balance specified! Finally, remember that you can always batch-set your WB to 5500 when importing your photos into your processing software of choice! You don’t have just a “broad range of flexibility” when changing the white balance on a RAW… You have TOTAL flexibility! Additional: It IS a great idea to batch-set your RAW photos on import into your editing software to a WB of 5500K. You still preserve the metadata value for AWB and tint shift in the RAW (and you can compare the calculated with 5500K if you want to, as well). I just strongly disagree that you should explicitly set your camera to shoot everything at 5500K. Sorry, but that is wholly unnecessary and you're sacrificing genuinely-important in-moment calculated information that absolutely can make a huge difference in post. To give you an example: when shooting in an environment with multiple light sources with different colour temps, it's extremely useful to know what bias and/or balance your camera calculated for that shot so that you can calculate your own WB when post-processing the image (or even do masked WB adjustments to different parts of an image depending on the calculated colour tone of that light source)

Bro

I think I've just discovered a kindred spirit and a good teacher. Subbed 🫡

These are some great tips! I started doing street photography not just for the pictures but also because of the level of exercise it also provides. Shot light and you will shoot better!

Thanks Sean for opening my eyes to white balance. It makes total sense to what your saying. I've been doing photography for over 40 years and never really put much thought into it after things went digital. Thanks again.

As a wedding photographer, I subscribed when you said wedding photographers may not have time to fiddle with settings. I’ve shot a thousand+ weddings, and white balance isn’t something I need to get perfect on the day of, but it is something that constantly occupies 10% of my brainpower. Sometimes setting WB to auto allows me to put 100% of my creative energy into posing, composition, finding the perfect moment. It’s a RAW file anyway, and our editors will ALWAYS edit for proper skin tones. Great video!

Best vid on white balance! There is no perfect or even "true" white balance, at least its irrelevant, unless product shooting, given the colour balance/theory our eyes and emotions are used to. I've given up on even trying to reproduce reality with photography in the first place. Boring

Great informative video Sean, what are the covers from Amazon for the bulbs ?

I can't thank you enough for your exposé of Frank Meadow Sutcliffe. I've been lucky to acquire 2 books published by the Sutcliffe Gallery in the 70s. My copies are 80s reprints and I treasure them. Bill Egon Shaw's introductions are superb. Sutcliffe's work is incredible and there is a lot to learn from him.

Wow I watch a lot of your content and I didn't expect this one to hit me this hard. Some of the best advice in photography I have received is in this video.

Remarkably good body of work for some 18 months in - real eye and talent.

Batch editing is 10x easier if you manually set white balance vs. Auto, IMHO

Thank you Sean, I saw the video with the guy that You have both shot in London, I fo not remember his name but I have seen quite a good amount of his content as well. Since almost 2 months I have syarted a daily photo challenge with my 1 inch gx7 mark 2 canon, 8 year old, I love of it the priority selection and the +-3 compensation dial to set the camera even before using the digital screen. I feel like you, I am taking photos that normally I would take only in my time off. In this way I love to have jeans-pocket size camera that is always with me. I believe as well that with a compact camera people are not that irritable. I like that in my camera there is a built in nd so I can set for example 1/15 sec in the shadows of a bright day, and I can also have a bokekceith max aperture in full day light. Among the things that I love there is also the tilt screen that allows me to shoot really low or height and to do hip shots. If you wanted to do hipshots with your camera how would you do? You just do chest shots as you said? Which anyway is a good suggestion on my point of view. I really like to be able to carry something in the pocket of my jeans without needing a bag or a jacket. What do you think about yhe lastest leica 4/3, about the similar 1 inch sony and about the 2 versions of lens ricoh? Which ones do you think it may match more my needs? Thank you again, Max

The ones you like are the ones I watch.

I think one needs an interesting street, first of all? There are millions of "so what" pictures with nothing to give or say. Too many street photographers, not all of them with a good pair of eyes.

The French hate people taking photographs. This must be why their greats went abroad to shoot.

Horrible soundtrack. Mute!

An absolute revelation, resetting my almost subconscious and incorrect approach to white balance.

I subscribed on this one

Pretty noisy than other vids

I am 2:53 in and I am loving this. So far, this is an amazing story! I don’t like seeing art galleries close, but without that happening, this chance to deliver his works to to the world, in this way, may not have happened.

6 yeras later and this still so helpful

I miss seeing your videos more often and honestly I love your portrait videos! Please more!

Thank you

Awesome explanation and totally agree. I often want the images to reflect what I see.

Fabulous, I'm going to try this. It seems like something potentially transformational for my editing process.

Fantastic video, Sean. Thank you. Many of the points you make occurred to me over the last couple of weeks/months. It’s great to hear themvocabularised so thoughtfully. It’s like a note to myself with the benefit of knowing I’m not alone with these thoughts because it comes from you. Thank you for sharing this. :)

Yes, definitely the shot on the right 😊

For "zero-drop" shoes (flat profile) try Waldviertler, hand-made here in Austria.

Great video, Shaun; it complies with my vision and thinking about photography. This advices is so helpful and valuable, not only for beginners but also for advanced photographer. I enjoy watching it for these minutes. 👌👌👌

Thank you

Excellent video

I didn't even understand white balance until now, and I'm just going to do the same as you. I also have no idea why you'd set it to anything else

The only video which clearly explain what a preset does and how. Great!

Whats a tungsten light? They are almost extinct now as LED has taken over and 99% of the time im dealing with fluorescents or LEDs and tungsten is very rare

It really hit me when he mentioned that he played music during shoots. I was doing an engagement shoot a few weeks ago and began playing music and ask the couple to dance and have fun to it. he thing is, even after the dancing bit I decided to leave music playing. It changed the entire vibe of the shoot, the couple became more relaxed, fun, and themselves. Music is now going to be a key aspect of what I do.

I do a similar thing and and for me this method isn't just about accuracy. I want a picture to convey the feeling I had seeing the scene, and oftentimes a perfectly accurate picture (WB, saturation, even human eye equivalent focal length) does not convey the same feelings as when I see it in person. For example, the "overly" warm light in the fish and chips shot conveys a sense of inviting in from the dark night that the "correct" white balance picture just doesn't convey. That's my take on it at least.

I came to photography after 25 years of fine art background. One thing that always stood out, was how blown away most other photographers here were to find out I had only been shooting a couple of years when I first started. The reason was my understanding of lighting, composition, and emotion from that art background. My approach to gear has been heavily shaped by this: If you believe the gear will make you a photographer, then you'll be replaced when that gear becomes obsolete. But if you are the artist that creates, and the camera is just the tool, then no new gear can replace you. People have never asked what camera those photos were shot with when they see my work....they ask who the photographer was. For that reason. Create, and always grow. You'll be irreplaceable.

Great video, Sean. Thanks! Love your points at the end! Sutcliffe's misty backgrounds are kind of like the original bokeh.

Great video

Thank you Sean

Thank You

Thanks for the advice!

I am kicking myself that I never considered this before. I had all the required information in my head, I just never put it all together. I even find myself checking the time my photos were taken and adjusting the WB in post to an approximation of the what I recall the scene looking like at that time of day. Basically, doing this the difficult and inaccurate way 🤣 Definitely going to give this a try, it makes so much sense!

Its videos like this I wish I could give two thumbs-up. Great video

Hi, quite interesting approach, I will certainly give a go. Actually, thought about getting a bunch of images and switch them to daylight on Lightroom (I only shoot in RAW) and see where my editing goes from there. I believe the color we see actually is formed in our brains, and they are a wonderful machine. They do understand that that sheet of paper is white and color correct it, but, at the same time, they understand that the environment is warm and feel it warm (when you are, say, in a restaurant). Quite hard to simulate exactly that in a photo, but today we have so much control with masks we can color correct each part of the frame individually. But, the starting point is important, because I might be processing an image I took a while ago and dont remember what it was like, so thanks for the insight.

I love - and feel - this so very much. Nothing but respect for Margaret and her story. And what a lovely portrait you've made of her with this video, Sean.

This was revealing to say the least. I wouldn't call your approach odd at all. On the contary, thinking about WB this way makes a lot more of sense to me. Set it once, forget about it. Then, edit relative to what your eye saw when taking the shot. Super simple really. Thanks a lot for this!