White balance with a strobe and macro?

[Scotttyd]

This might be a dumb question for all of you experts, but I was thinking (which in of itself can be dangerous). Do I need to manually set my white blance if I am taking macro pix with a strobe? If I manually set it to something white with available light, but then use a strobe (which would lite my entire subject with macro) wouldn't the strobe be the equivalent of daylight, thus my color being off?

 

[fisheyeview]

Does your camera shoot RAW? If it does I would shoot in RAW and not worry about the white balance.

 

[Peter Guy]

OP -- A question I've asked myself and the answers I generally get are, IF you are getting your light from a strobe, don't worry about RAW or white balance since the strobe will be balanced.

I've never figured out HOW one would WB a strobe so I look forward to the responses.

 

[under water]

You normally white balance for the light conditions without a strobe.
If you then use a strobe after white balancing, the pix will be too red.
So make sure you white balance with the lighting that you intend to use.
Having said that, you really do not need to white balance with a strobe unless you are using some kind of filter. If you think about it, the strobe is already 'white balanced' as it should emulate pretty close to daylight color.
It is easy to experiment yourself.
White balance and see what you get.
You can go ahead and shoot RAW as well (I do) , but getting the correct exposure and color balance the first time is better than trying to fix it after.

 

[Scotttyd]

You normally white balance for the light conditions without a strobe.
If you then use a strobe after white balancing, the pix will be too red.
So make sure you white balance with the lighting that you intend to use.
Having said that, you really do not need to white balance with a strobe unless you are using some kind of filter. If you think about it, the strobe is already 'white balanced' as it should emulate pretty close to daylight color.
It is easy to experiment yourself.
White balance and see what you get.
You can go ahead and shoot RAW as well (I do) , but getting the correct exposure and color balance the first time is better than trying to fix it after.

that is what I was thinking, this is the first camera I have had you can manual adjust WB, but RAW not available.

I would think you cannot balance with a strobe, but also it would be unecessary, especially for macro where the strobe emulates natural sunlight.

 

[gert7to3]

Scotty D, which camera are you using? If it's a Canon there might be some work arounds available to make it capture RAW images. You may also have some alternatives to jpeg like TIFF as well. These would likely slow your camera down, but may offer an advantage under some particular circumstances.