Talking about color characteristics of different lenses got me thinking about white balance and exposure. I really like the Photovision target I have. Better than the actual target is the DVD tutorial that comes with it.
Shoot RAW, adjust the colour balance to remove any colour banding around highlights and then correct the overal colour balance in Photoshop with curves.
I shoot JPEG with manual color setting, then finalize in post. As Ben says, there is no "correct" CB, firstly because mood is an artistic decision and, secondly, most scenes have multiple light sources of differing color temp. Even in studio, balancing K between lights is a bitch.
I shoot RAW. If I'm shooting skin tones and want the color balance accurate (sometimes warmer tones
look better than strictly accurate color balance) I shoot with a WhiBal (gray) card in the shot and
it's then trivial to balance the color in DPP. Photoshop can do decently in JPEG with the same approach.
rico wrote:
As Ben says, there is no "correct" CB, firstly because mood is an artistic decision and, secondly, most scenes have multiple light sources of differing color temp. Even in studio, balancing K between lights is a bitch.
+1
I try to leave CB at daylight whenever possible because slightly warm or cool tones are more attractive than absolute neutral. If I don't like the result with daylight, I can always select something else with DPP. I also find that my Contax lenses produce the best colors with daylight setting. If I'm shooting art reproduction, I use a macbeth mini colorchecker.
