Dinner Event Photographs (White Balance question)

[manohartvs]

Hi All,

I had the opportunity to photograph at a small dinner event couple of days ago. I use a Nikon SB-700 and my plan was bounce the flash off the ceilings.

However, I was asked not to use flash for all images, which I did not mind. However, now when I am processing my images, my non-flash images seem a lot warmer than the flash images. I mean to say, how do I determine what flash range to use? Do I use a mid-point of some kind and apply that WB temp/tint to all images?


EDIT:
Non Flash image Temp/TInt is around 3000/17.
Flash Image Temp/Tint is around 5600/8

Cheers

[MissionMan]

Personally I would white balance the flash and non-flash independently but they may still require some individual adjustments depending on the light combinations in the room. I tend to use any colours I know in the images as a starting reference point for the white balance and then adjust manually from there if I need to. I.e. white shirts.

[arthurking83]

Whitebalance settings will be software specific .. that is, what one software does with a specific value, is usually a bit different to how another software will render the same WB values.

So as for a value, this is something you have to nut out for yourself.

But as per MissionMan's reply, you'll get totally different colours if you set the same WB value for images shot with flash and non flash. They need to be separately set.

Does your software have a WB dropper tool? If so, you can use this to 'visualise' a a good WB setting, which will depend heavily on your monitor being well calibrated.
Some software allows you to set a white point, or grey point with a dropper tool. This is usually what I do, looking for as MissionMan said once more .. something white in the image(or grey).
It can take a bit of trial and error, depending on the scene, and the way in which the cropper tool works, but is usually the easiest way to set WB on multiple images with the same lighting conditions.

[ameerat42]

Mano.
AK was talking about mixing light sources, ie, flash and "non-flash". (From the color temp, was it incandescent?)
However, I didn't read that you did mix light sources, did you? Well, I'll address your differing hues.

If you did not, then select a hue that looks good to you - say it's the flash-lit hue - and then adjust your other
images to approximate that. This is something you'd preferably do in the raw converter.

Am.
PS: a couple of samples would be good.