(User’s Manual – D300S page 125; D300 page 123)
You can also do WB bracketing similar to how you would do flash or exposure bracketing. If you want to bracket your camera’s white balance, you must set Custom setting e5 to WB bracketing. Flash or exposure bracketing will not work during the time that e5 is set to WB bracketing.
Personally, I prefer to use NEF (RAW) mode when shooting and then make minor or major adjustments in the computer post-processing stage. However, you may want to use WB bracketing, so let’s consider it. WB bracketing does not work when your camera is in RAW mode.
Figure 10-12 to Figure 10-14 show the menus and controls used to select WB bracketing.
Here are the steps to set up WB Bracketing:
Set Custom setting e5 to WB bracketing (see Figure 10-12).
Use the controls shown in Figure 10-13 to control the WB brackting process. Please note that you must have previously assigned the Fn (Func) button + dials to Auto bracketing (BKT) with Custom setting F5 (D300S) or Custom setting f4 (D300). If you assigned a different button to WB bracketing, use it instead.
Choose the number of shots in the bracket (up to nine shots total) by pressing and holding the Fn (FUNC.) button while turning the Main command dial left or right (Figure 10-13, images 1 and 2). See Figure 10-14 as a reference for the values you will set with these controls. Here is a table of values that you can select in the position shown as 3F in Figure 10-14. These values are the number of shots and bracketed color shift increments. For instance, if you bracket for 7F, you’ll have one normal exposure, three with increasing amounts of blue and three with increasing amounts of amber:
Table of Values
oF - No bracketing selected
b3F - Three shots – normal exposure and two blue exposures
A3F - Three shots – normal exposure and two amber exposures
b2F - Two shots – normal exposure and one blue exposure
A2F - Two shots – normal exposure and one amber exposure
3F - Three shots – normal exposure, one blue and one amber exposure
5F - Five shots – normal exposure, two blue and two amber exposures
7F - Seven shots – normal exposure, three blue and three amber exposures
9F - Nine shots – normal exposure, four blue and four amber exposures
Look for the WB-BKT symbols to appear on the Control panel, along with lines below the +/- scale to show the number of shots you’ve selected (see Figure 10-14). The number of lines hanging below the +/- scale will reflect the number of shots from the table of values above.
Select the WB color temperature increment (amount of color shift) by pressing and holding the Fn (FUNC.) button while rotating the Sub-command dial (Figure 10-13, images 1 and 3). Choose 1, 2, or 3 (1 = 5 mired, 2=10 mired, 3 = 15 mired). I have selected a value of 2, or 10 mired, in Figure 10-14 (top-right value). The D300(S) will expose the sequence of shots according to what you’ve selected in step # 2. You can only adjust the bracket along the blue (b) to amber (A) values (cool to warm). The shots on the + side are toward blue and on the - side toward amber.
Take the WB bracketed picture series with only one Shutter-release button press (see note below).
Note: There is no need to press the shutter-release more than once to get the bracketed sequence of images. The highly-intelligent D300(S) knows the number of images you want in the bracketed sequence and takes them all with one press of the Shutter-release button. If you have the WB bracket set to 3F, the camera actually only takes a single picture and then saves it to the memory card into three separate images, each with a different white balance. If you had 20 pictures on your card, when you press the shutter button once, you will then have 23 pictures on the card. Three pictures in one shutter press!
Be sure to set your D300(S) back to normal bracketing in Custom setting e5 when you’re done, unless you use WB bracketing frequently.
My Recommendation: Personally, I prefer to shoot in NEF (RAW) mode and make minor or major WB adjustments in the computer post-processing stage of the image’s preparation. However, others want to use WB bracketing or Nikon wouldn’t have given it to us.