Custom white balance, do you use this often and if so why?

[Nick Cliff]

William for personal photos granted I will experiment a great deal with the white balance however if I am asked to take a photo for instance of an insect for scientific ID purposes then colour accuracy really does matter as was the case with a newly found and possibly introduced insect in Queensland.
I was interested that sharpness can help with insect ID where I was advised sometimes the number of hairs on an insect can be useful information for the entomologists,

Cheers Nick

[Tannin]

if I am asked to take a photo for instance of an insect for scientific ID purposes then colour accuracy really does matter

^ A good point well made.

Colour accuracy matters to me too.

But it is a different sort of colour accuracy. For my purposes, I like to see the same colour I saw in real life. If the light is blueish because of fog or overcast, the scene is blueish, and the photograph should be too. Sure, that scene will be a different colour at midday when the sun comes out, and a different colour again when it sets. But it will also look different in the winter as the grasses green up, and different on a windy day when they ripple in the breeze, different when a different bird perches on a different branch. And those differences, the endless variety of nature, is the entire point of photography. (My sort of photography anyway. I recognise that there are other sorts as well.)

Do I stick religiously to these self-imposed colour-accuracy rules? No. I break them as and when I please, just as I break any other photographic rule whenever it seems like a good idea at the time. But mostly I stick to them because they produce a more accurate, more meaningful, more true-to-life picture.

Would my true-to-life white balance suit a scientific paper, or a field guide? Obviously not. This sort of task requires a known, standard white balance just as it requires standard measurements of length and mass. But if we are considering, for example, a book showcasing the natural world, one that is the next best thing to being there, then the natural variation of natural light is important, and one captures this by picking a standard white balance and sticking to it.

(Is it not curious that one produces standard, same-every-time colour by varying the white balance, and one produces varying, true-to-life colour by not varying the white balance.)

[Nick Cliff]

Tony I concur

[William W]

. . . a photo for instance of an insect for scientific ID purposes then colour accuracy really does matter as was the case with a newly found and possibly introduced insect in Queensland.

Absolutely. That's a forensic application.

WW