How blue is blue

kansalliskala · Expire: 2016-12-30

Tried to capture the "blue moment". But which one is the right blue? Now I understand the neccessity to calibrate white balance on site sometimes.

4500

5500

6500

7500

EDIT: really bad jpeg compression on the last two .. file size only 32k though Smile

tobbsman · Joined: 25 Jul 2008 Posts: 2578 Location: Austria

6500 looks quite natural for my taste ...

Cheers
Tobias

Prometheus · Joined: 27 Feb 2008 Posts: 878 Location: Garphyttan, Sweden

If you want to portrait the feeling rather then documentation, then there is no right or correct one. I would go for: 4500 or 5500

Orio · Expire: 2012-12-04

larsr · Joined: 25 Jun 2009 Posts: 272 Location: Helsinki, Finland

I'm also inclined to say there is no right or wrong blue moment color. Add to this the climate difference in Finland between summer and winter, and you have two different "blue moments" anyway (well, actually four, one for each season).

I like to think that photography isn't about a set or rules or standards, it's a medium for conveying feelings. beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as they say - and the photographer is his worst judge :)

PaulC · Joined: 23 Dec 2008 Posts: 2318

You can't calibrate on site for this because it will turn your blue moment grey.

Perhaps it is better to think about this in terms of film rather than digital. If you were shooting film you would get your "blue moment" from a daylight WB recording medium, so if you want to replicate what people used to do with film then you need to use Orio's first method and set the WB for normal daylight.

Arkku · Joined: 28 Feb 2007 Posts: 1416 Location: Helsinki, Finland

I mostly agree with Orio's post above. I, too, prefer to approximate the “daylight balanced film” by erring towards 5200-5500K when in doubt, instead of trying to match the greys.

However, you could also combine multiple WB settings into the same photo. For example, the car probably appears quite white (not blue) in reality despite the blue moment, because you “know” that it's white, so you could blend the lower part from the 6500K with the sky from the 4500K.

William · Joined: 26 Nov 2009 Posts: 489 Location: London

In the examples I would go somewhere between 5000 and 7000 although having not experienced the scene it's hard to know how blue it felt.

I shoot on AWB and when processing nearly always change the white balance but make sure to start doing this when the light is fresh in my mind. It is often initially quite out though. Orio's method sounds interesting though and I shall try it and agree that the WB of a scene is subjective. Emotional state changes things like sunlight feeling particularly vivid or coloured and it may be necessary to reflect this in the photo by not going entirely for accuracy.