Nikon D800 Flash White Balance

When RAW files (either NEF or DNG) taken with the setting Flash White Balance, they are imported into either Lightroom(4) or Photoshop(CS6) with a temperature of 6150K.  This does not coincide with the Nikon default of 5400K.  If the Nikon Software (View NX2) is used, the white balance shows that the Flash setting was used and the image appears identical when their 5400 default is applied.  In Lightroom, or in CS6, if the temperature number is changed to reflect the Nikon default number of 5400K, the color of the image dramatically changes.  If the temperature is left at 6150K, the image appears virtually identical to what Nikon calls 5400K. 
The issue, a minor one, seems to be that the Adobe products are applying an incorrect Kelving Temperature number to the files.  It is disconcerting to see the wrong temperature displayed in the software, but the number can be ignored without any negative effects; and the number can be modified to produce a more pleasing balance.
I am writing only because it took some experimentation and time to come to these conclusions.  I wasn't clear, at first whether the camera was at fault, or if the software was producing the issue.  It would be beneficial to have the issue addressed and corrected.
Incidentally, all the other White Balance settings from the camera seem to translate accurately into the Adobe Software.

Nikon's white balance numbers are confusing.  Nikon list Direct Sunlight as 5200 degrees and Flash as 5400 degrees - no values are listed for tint.  If you open an NEF file with Nikon Capture NX2 and select Direct Sunlight for the white balance it will list 5200 degrees with tint of 0 for the white balance, and if you select Flash it will list 5400 degrees and a tint of 0.  You can adjust these values with sliders, and if you adjust the Flash values to 5200 degrees with a tint of 0 you do not get the same colors in the image as you get with Direct Sunlight selected which has the identical temperature and tint values. 
I don't find any agreement between Nikon's white balance values and what you get with Adobe RAW processing software.  I don't find the presets in Adobe Software (Daylight, Flash, etc) very useful because they don't appear correct for the camera's I have.  I shot images (NEF Files) with every preset available in the camera selected and saved the white balance values as presets in Adobe Camera RAW.  I also find the Camera profiles more useful than Adobe Standard. 

Similar Messages

  • Raw Update 2.3 + Nikon D90 = Wrong White Balance Temperature

    Hi folks. Wonder if someone has had a similar issue and/or has any insights.
    Here's the background:
    - Aperture 2.1.2 on OS 10.4.11
    - Downloaded/installed Raw Update 2.3
    - Imported ~800 NEFs from a D90
    - On ~15-20 NEFs, pictures show up blue (white balance at ~2500)
    - The affected NEFs are semi-randomly distributed among the ~800
    Here's why it's weird:
    - NEF displays correctly in Nikon View (the thumbnail and full picture)
    - NEF displays correctly in the Finder (the thumbnail)
    - NEF displays correctly in the preview and thumbnail *in Aperture* but only until the preview and thumbnail processing completes at which point they turn blue (this is why it's especially weird)
    - Peeking into the Aperture package, the NEF thumbnail shows up correctly but the preview and thumbnail files show up blue.
    If I delete the NEFs from Aperture, close down, and repeat I get the exact same problem on the exact same NEFs. This leads me to believe that there's something specific to the NEFs but it must also be linked to Aperture and more specifically, it's thumbnail/preview process since they show up fine in Nikon View, the finder and Aperture before the thumbnail/preview processing takes place.
    Obviously I can't downgrade to Raw Converter 2.1 or 2.2 since my files are from a D90, and I shoot in raw (not raw + jpeg) only so have been limping along with Nikon's software.
    Any ideas out there?
    Thanks!
    Message was edited by: rbhansen57

    Hi,
    I simply can't see the NEFs.
    OS X 10.5.5
    Aperture 2.1.2
    Nikon D90
    Import runs fine, and the thumbs are there, but when opening a NEF a big thumb (7x4.5cm on the 24" screen) is displayed in the middle for a second, and then it turns into a dark red message "Unsupported Image Format".
    It's general - no NEFs work for me.
    I import directly into Aperture - do you import via the Nikon Software?
    Previously I had an Olympus E400 - the RAWs worked fine in Aperture (directly imported).
    My strange observations are:
    With the Olympus E400 (10MB) the size of the JPG files were 6-7MB and the RAW files (called .ORF) were 21MB.
    With the Nikon D90 (12.3MB) the size of the JPGs are around 6.5MB (4288x2848 pixels), but the size of the NEFs are just around 11MB (I did expect over 21MB) and the pixels are 256x170 (although the picture says 4288x2848 on the camera itself).
    I'm new to this support site - do Apple supporters take time to read our questions and join these discussions?

  • S110: what purpose does the Flash white balance setting serve?

    I assume if you're using the flash for a shot then the camera knows it, so why would you have to set it in the WB menu.  If you don't need to set it, what's it for?  When I shoot with flash and WB set to Auto, everything comes out fine (except when zooming; see a separate post ont hat nearby).  Thanks.
    Solved!
    Go to Solution.

    If you are shooting underexposed in order to kill all the ambient light, leaving only the flash light to show in the picture, then you need this. On AUTO WB the camera would have still been thinking the background/ambient light color is relevant so it would give you a bad color.
    That is something "strobists" in particular do a lot.
    Scott
    Canon 6D, Canon T3i, EF 70-200mm L f/2.8 IS mk2; EF 24-105 f/4 L; EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS; EF 85mm f/1.8; Sigma 35mm f/1.4 "Art"; EF 1.4x extender mk. 3; 3x Phottix Mitros+ speedlites
    Why do so many people say "fer-tographer"? Do they take "fertographs"?

  • Imported images are given "flash" as white balance

    Since I implemented LR3 and played around a.o. with some presets, all of my images (RAW) at import are transformed to the "flash" white balance, as shown in the Library right colomn and as can be seen in the image.
    The images come out of the camera with a wb-info as the one set to the camera when shooting the image, so no problem with the camera. So I suspected some initial preset, but couldn't find it. Then, I imported the files into Photoshop 4 and Elements, and exactly the same thing happens: they convert immediately to the flash WB. So, is there a settings file that is shared by all three programs?
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    Has anybody any idea how to get rid of this setting?
    Rob

    robijsselstein wrote:
    My surprise is that the other programs use the same defaults apparently
    The Default you set in LR is valid for ACR, no matter whether used under LR or under PS/PSE. Their values are also stored in the Camera Raw settings directory, not in the LR directory.
    Beat

  • D200 white balance presets problem or ACR problem?

    Last night I was playing around with my D200 and an SB800. The scene was just a sofa with a Gretag-Macbeth 24 Patch Color Checker. The object was to see what results I got with the SB800 with the D200 set to the various preset White balance values. (I should point out that the lighting was mixed, but that is not relevant to the results I see.)
    I set the D200 to each of the preset white balance values and then opened the NEF file in ACR. The preset temperature (from the D200 Manual) and the temperature/tint values reported as "As shot' by ACR are shown in the table below.
    D200 ACR 'as shot'
    preset temperature/tint
    tungsten 3000 2950 / 0
    fluorescent 4200 3950 / +31
    daylight 5200 4950 / -3
    flash 5400 6150 / -9
    cloudy 6000 5550 / -7
    shade 8000 7100 / +3
    First of all I don't care if the temperature reported by ACR agrees with the preset temperature quoted by Nikon. What puzzles me is the discontinuity in the values reported by ACR when going from 'flash' to 'cloudy'. Is this a problem with ACR or with the Nikon preset values for these two settings?

    >First of all I don't care if the temperature reported by ACR agrees with the preset temperature quoted by Nikon. What puzzles me is the discontinuity in the values reported by ACR when going from 'flash' to 'cloudy'. Is this a problem with ACR or with the Nikon preset values for these two settings?
    Bob,
    A full answer to your question would require a response by Thomas Knoll or some other ACR expert with knowledge of how Nikon records the white balance and the algorithm used to apply the white balance. However, I can bring up a few points which may shed some light on the matter.
    One should first consider what white balance information Nikon cameras write to the NEF file. The following table refers to the D70 and similar Nikon cameras before encryption of the WB.
    http://www.ozhiker.com/electronics/pjmt/jpeg_info/nikon_mn.html
    The settings of daylight, flash, tungsten, etc are written as descriptive strings, not actual degrees Kelvin. Nikon considers daylight to be 5200K, but Thom Hogan writes that this value often produces a blue result and 5400K might be better.
    The bias value refers to fine tuning between the above descriptive settings, approximately 100 Mired per increment. Finally, the red and blue coefficients are recorded (green would be redundant). Some raw converters such as DCRaw use these coefficients for the "as set" white balance. There is nothing corresponding to the ACR tint, which adjusts in the magenta green axis, whereas the color temperature slider adjusts in the yellow-blue axis. The degrees Kelvin figure specifies the white balance only for a black body radiator.
    Thus there several ways to interpret the WB data. Mr. Knoll has written previously that ACR attempts to produce a neutral white balance appearance rather than the WB numbers. An interesting experiment would be to determine which converter (ACR or Nikon Capture) gives a more neutral white balance on your color checker with the above settings.
    Bill
    http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx/.3bbc87b2/0

  • Elements 11 organizer shows correct wb in thumbnails but when increased to full screen or in slide show changes white balance to tungsten

    Elements 11 organizer shows correct white balance in thumbnails but when increased to full screen or in slide show changes white balance to tungsten.  Photos where shot in raw and in auto or flash white balance.  any suggestions out there?

    Figured it out, if the raw default setting has the wb on 3000 (or tungsten) the slide show uses adobe raw to convert so they all showed blue LOL

  • White balance values for NEF file

    Hello
    I'm using Ligthroom 1.2 with nikon raw files (NEF) taken with D80 camera (firmware 1.01).
    The white balance is most of the time set to 5300K on my camera. But in LR, it always shows 4950K, with tint set to -1.
    I know there is some compatibility problems between LR and NEF files, but does anyone know if there is a solution (except of course applying systematically the right temperature in LR during import.)?
    Thanks
    Erwann

    I believe the issue is actually that Nikon encrypts the white balance in NEF files of recent cameras. If you
    google for it you'll find lots of links to all the problems this caused. Adobe and other RAW software developers have had to reengineer the encryption of this value in order to get a reasonable value and in order to not break the DMCA (draconian US anti-piracy law). Apparently, for some cameras the algorithm is not so good. The alternative for Adobe would have been to use Nikon's RAW rendering library, which for obvious reasons will never happen. The only software I am aware of that correctly reads NEF white balance for cameras after the D2X without using Nikon's libraries is dcraw/ufraw, but they can get away with cracking the encryption. This really is one of the dumber things Nikon ever did.

  • LR4 White Balance Numbers Differ w/ Nikon D4 and D3s

    I've noticed that LR interprets the white balance settings differently for my raw .nef files coming from my Nikon D3s and D4 bodies; even when a specific kelvin temp is chosen in camera.
    Here's a few examples:
    D4 flash WB, LR shows as 6150, +2
    D3s flash WB, LR shows as 6400, +9
    D4 WB set to 5k, LR reads as 4750, +1
    D3s WB set to 5k, LR reads as 4900, +10
    Any thoughts on why this is happening, and what (if anything) I should do to get xxxx kelvin temp in camera to import as xxxx kelvin temp in LR?

    Eric Chan, senior designer of LR/ACR wrote:
    Quote: 
      The white balance readout in terms of temperature & tint depends on the camera profile (more specifically, the translation between so-called "camera neutral" values and temperature/tint values). Different raw converters use different profiles. This results in different readouts, even if image appearance is the same.
    The process of reporting white balance values is non-standardized. 
    http://www.luminous-landscape.com/fo...2#msg411522%29
    Raw converters, whether in the camera or in a computer, do not deal with color temperatures, they deal with multipliers applied to the red and blue channels. But because representing a WB as a pair of multiplier values would be mystifying for most users, the GUI translates those numbers into the corresponding color temperature that the WB will neutralize, a concept more familiar to most photograhers. When "As Shot" is set in the converter it reads from the image file metadata the mutipliers listed there and applies them. However, the WB multipliers are applied after the camera profile and since different converters use different profiles with differing renderings of the basic color values, the post-WB image values are different, even though the same multipliers are used, and the corresponding Kelvin temperature is different.
    Now, what happens when you dial a temperature into your camera? The firmware calculates what multipliers will be needed in combination with the Nikon profile in order to neutralize light of that color. Then it records the multipliers in the metadata and, if outputting a jpg, applies them. But if you output a Raw, LR reads the multipliers and does the reverse calculation, "What temperature will be neutralized if these multipliers are used with an Adobe profile?" and does not come back to the same temperature that you set in the camera.
    Different cameras = different profiles = different temperatures.

  • Bug report: Wrong As Shot White Balance for Nikon D50 NEF in Camera Raw 7, Lightroom 4

    For Nikon D50 cameras Adobe Creative Suite 6 does not read "As Shot" white balance data whether it's specified or not. It defaults to "Automatic". We have the problem only for Nikon D50 and only in Photoshop CS6, Adobe Camera Raw 7.3 and Photoshop Lightroom 4. (Not in CS5. Not for Nikon D5100 or D7000 or Canon S95) .
    There is a more detailed posting at photoshop.com.
    Lightroom 4.2 / ACR 7.2: WB "as shot" does not read the WB of Nikon D50 NEF, defaults to "automatic"
    http://phtshp.us/10utPuk
    phtshp.us/10utPuk

    Moving the discussion to PS Forums

  • Wrong white balance in NEF files (Nikon D70 RAW)

    Hi
    I have a problem with NEF files: I shoot them with white balance set to Cloudy (6500K), however, in lightroom the white balance is shown as 5450K.
    There is a color shift because of this:
    When I leave the white balance at "As shoot" the image appears OK, however, changing white balance to "cloudy" which is supposed to do nothing, makes the image warmer, obviously because Lightroom believes that the image is shot at 5450K and converts it to 6500K, e.g. makes it warmer, while the image is already 6500K. Changing the setting to, say, "shadow", makes it even warmer.
    Of course I may try to correct the WB "blindly", disregarding the temperature value, but that's annoying.
    The camera is Nikon D70, unpatched.
    Did anyone have the same symphtom?
    Is there any fix or a workaround?
    Thank you,
    Gennady

    When the camera was set to "Cloudy" (6500K) then switching to "daylight" (5200K) makes the picture cooler, switching to "Shadow" (7500K) makes the picture warmer. This is how the camera behaves and this is how Nikon's NEF convertor behaves. Obviously, when the camera was set to "Cloudy", then switching between "As shot" and "Cloudy" should make no change, because "As shot" means "Cloudy", because the camera was set to "Cloudy".
    Now, for some reason, Lightroom believes that the picture was shot with a manual settings of 5450K. I don't know why it believes so.
    And thus, switching from "As shot" to "Cloudy" makes the picture warmer (although it should leave it unchanged), and switching to "Shadow" makes it even more warmer, far warmer that it should be at "cloudy" setting.
    What I expect is that switching from "As shot" to "Cloudy" in the Lightroom would give the same colors as switching from "As shot" to "Cloudy" in Nikon's NEF convertor. And apparently it does not work this way.

  • Iphoto not recognizing my preset manual white balance setting on my Nikon D3100

    hi there.
    i've been using iPhoto to edit my photos uploaded as RAW, from my Nikon D3100.  While i've been very satisfied with the results, i've run across a small problem.  i've used various white balance settings on my camera:  incandescent, flourescent, auto white balance, and recently started using the manual white balance.  when uploading pictures to iphoto, the photo has indicated what white balance setting i have used, except when i use my manual white balance feature, the information shows up as AWB (automatic white balance).
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    Again, I shoot in RAW, and upload directly to iPhoto successfully, as RAW.

    I think this article will help explain this 
    and this one from Adobe
    — Raw files have not had while balance set. They are tagged with whatever the camera's setting was, (either that which was manually set or via auto-white-balance), but the actual data has not been changed. This allows one to set any colour temperature and white balance one wishes after the fact with no image degradation. It should be understood that once the file has been converted from the linear space and has had a gamma curve applied (such as in a JPG) white balance can no longer be properly done.
    So the displaed WB is simply a tag and has no effect on the image - it is simply information about the camera settings
    LN

  • Nikon D2X - DNG vs NEF White Balance Mismatch

    Folks, I was hoping someone might be able to help me with a frustrating White Balance issue. Specifically, I have found that my photos often have very different White Balance values -- for both Color Temperature as well as Tint -- when comparing the original NEF and a DNG created by Adobe DNG Converter. (And the images' appearance is reflected by the difference.) If I proceed to correct the White Balance values in the DNG, so that they exactly match the NEF, the images are identical.
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    Even the professionals are divided on this one, which is why I provided the link I did. It actually supports your statement.
    However, my _only_ point was that converting your lossy compressed NEF format photos to DNG will not recover those bits. They are gone forever as a result of the in-camera processing.
    Different post-production workflow issues are a completely different thing, and a good reason to switch to DNG (along with the arguments for long-term archival storage).
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    Unless, of course, you have a camera that offers lossless NEFs, in which case conversion and compression might save you quite a bit, as long as you did not save the original NEF inside the DNG.
    If you, like me, are stuck with a Nikon that only makes compressed NEFs, then you are stuck accepting lossy compressed NEFs -- NEFs that are quantized in-camera.

  • Nikon RAW NEF files have white balance blown out (iPhoto 7.1.4)

    I had no problems opening my Nikon D200 RAW NEF files in iPhoto until about a month ago. I think I downloaded a patch for compatibility of camera files? After that when ever I open A raw file, the colors and white balance are blown out.

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  • Nikon D700 White balance importing issues

    Hi Guys,
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  • Nikon NEF White Balance encryption

    Hi,
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    Hi Matt,
    I use the Nikon D70 and I just shot a bunch of
    pictures using Raw format (NEF). Yes, indeed the
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    You're talking about iphoto here, right? If iphoto can open the files, so could preview, for example.
    I guess your analogy is correct that
    iPhoto is able to read the picture information from
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    picture is much better than if you adjust a similar
    image shot in JPG. I'll go home and test this tonight.
    Yeah, I bet they are! That's a main reason I want a dslr. Sure there are some point and shooters that do some kind of RAW, but if I go 'advanced amateur' I'm gonna go all the way!
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