James Conrad , Oct 05, 2005; 02:18 a.m.
I figured that when I left the D70s white balance on auto and
attached the SB-800 to the hotshoe, that the camera would detect the
flash and automatically adjust white balance to flash. After all, if
it doesn't then what's the point of auto? But as it turns out, it
does NOT adjust the white balance & my photos turn out blueish
unless i make a point of manually setting flash WB. Does this lack
of automation strike anyone else as underfeatured?
Eric Friedemann , Oct 05, 2005; 07:51 a.m.
Walter Burton , Oct 05, 2005; 08:27 a.m.
Huh. Auto WB does a great job on my D70. Even when my SB-600 fires. I'm pretty sure the camera's on-board computer calculates the optimum WB after the image is recorded. Which makes sense. I wouldn't want it effectively fixed at the "Flash" temperature just because I have a flash unit attached. I may be shooting fill flash outdoors or something.
Do you shoot RAW? It'd be interesting to see what temperature the Auto WB is coming up with under different conditions. Maybe it's sort of "stuck" on the same setting.
Rick Beets , Oct 05, 2005; 09:11 a.m.
I have noticed the same phenomanon with my D2X. In fact, in the studio, with studio flash
units, I have to change the WB to flash or I will get the blues! This ussually happens when I
am shooting seniors outdoors and then move into the studio and forget to change the WB.
Here are 2 examples, thank God for the preview!
blue file
Rick Beets , Oct 05, 2005; 09:12 a.m.
Here is the correct WB flash setting
Rick Beets , Oct 05, 2005; 09:14 a.m.
Eric Friedemann , Oct 05, 2005; 09:28 a.m.
Studio flash and TTL shoe-mount flash are different animals. With a studio flash, the camera doesn't necessarily have any way of knowing that a flash will be made to make an exposure. With a TTL shoe-mount flash, the camera does know that a flash will be used.
Also, as between the D2X and the D70s, I could see Nikon making different assumptions. With the D2X, it may be assumed that the professional or prosumer user is always cognizant of the WB selected.
The D70s is an ametuer camera and I at least would expect that when an SB-800 is used in-shoe, the camera would default to the flash's WB setting. This would be similar to the way the newer Nikon cameras default to a safe shutter speed when a TTL flash is used.
Lex (perpendicularity consultant) Jenkins 
, Oct 05, 2005; 09:54 a.m.
Does the D70s offer a way to tweak the white balance for each setting? The D2H allows tweaking plus or minus three notches for each standard setting: flash, sunlight, fluorescent, etc. It helps.
Which RAW converter are you using? I just started trying Pixmantec's RawShooter and while it is gawdawful slow on a 3GHz P4 with only 512MB RAM, the results are excellent. With Capture I was getting too much blue from NEFs when I'd used flash.
Todd ~ , Oct 05, 2005; 10:02 a.m.
Well, you could be in a room full of tungsten lights or outside and just be adding fill flash. If your camera automatically set your WB to flash when you were adding fill flash outside, your WB would be way off. Unfortunately it's not that simple. If it were, the engineers would have designed it that way.
Lukas Kisiel , Oct 05, 2005; 10:08 a.m.
It doesn't make sense for a camera to set WB to Flash when SB800 is attached. What if you're bouncing the flash and the amount of light from the flash is only a small portion of the light that creates the exposure? In such mixed lighting conditions Auto will try to balance SB800 with whatever ambient light there is. If you get blue or red, well, then Auto WB didn't do a good job even if it tried.
Remember, you're always in control, if you want to have Flash BW set it yourself. Same goes for studio lighting - there is no way camera can figure out flash strobe WB automatigically before it fires. You can set Custom WB for strobes easily, though (see manual). Again, you're in control, not the camera! That's the way we want it, right? Right.
