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I have a Nikon D5000 and have never found a good white balance setting for street lite shots can any one give me advice on how best to use the white balence

What sort of lights do you typically have in your streets? Neon, halogenide, ...
It would also help to see a photo to judge the coloration of the scene (preferably with the main lights in sight).

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Thomas (beware: Nikon-fanboy and moderator!) My Lens Reviews, My Pictures, My Photography Blog
D800+assorted lenses

Hi contrast,

If a scene is lit by a broad spectrum of colours or, at the very least, some red, green and blue, then it should be possible to correct the colour balance of an image to achieve a natural looking result. The trouble with most street lights these days is that they produce much, if not all, of their light in just a few narrow bands. If a street light doesn't produce any blue light then any camera or post-processing software is going to have issues as, to take an extreme example, a blue object will appear black in such lighting and no amount of processing will be able to reconstruct the object's natural colour.

Photography in conditions such as you've described is something I virtually never do but, if advice from someone who is just about as poorly qualified to give it as can be imagined is of any use, why not try to work with the lighting to produce a distinctive look rather than trying to make the scene look like it was shot in daylight. The only example I can offer was one I did back in 2010 where I used the nearby yellow sodium lighting (actually it wasn't that near as the exposure was 84 seconds, ISO 800 and f/5.6) and shifted the colour during post-processing - the image was called "Tree on Fire".

Not much help possibly but it's the best I can suggest.

Bob.

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Monochrome is one workable cure.

Mixed lighting is a challenge, indeed. I am reading this topic to try to learn something. Bob's image shows a truly beautiful and interesting solution, though I cannot use that with my work photos. (I shoot evidentiary images, primarily at night, in an urban area, which must be submitted as unedited JPEGs.)

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My personal solution in those situations: Take a shot with every possible white balance and choose which one looks the best. If you can't tell what's the best on the screen in strange lighting the solution is called RAW.

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With the D90 and D7000 I use a manual white balance (colour temperature set at random but a reasonable guess) and then "bracket" it (bit tedious but I'm usually shooting static subjects). I'm a bit lazy in not setting white balance with the "shoot a white object" facility, but I find it useful to have the information on colour temperature in the EXIF file - though I haven't checked the Nikon software to see if the WB value is in there, even if the photo is taken on auto WB.

Another difficulty is that the Nikon LCD is not as accurate with colour rendition as I would like (not that it's bad). So judgement can be a bit out.

Wou could consider bracketing on auto WB, and it might hit the mark for you.

The D90 has a slightly biased colour rendition (which might or might not apply to your D5000) but the D7000 is much better - at least this is true for my examples of each camera.

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HCC
Nikon DSLRs, film cameras from Leica to Linhof

Taking the shot in RAW (as previously mentioned) allows you to modify the white point in post processing which will let you have more control over the effect you create in your final image.

As with most techniques the best is to get some general advice from books, internet etc and then experiment to see what works for you. You may even discover a new technique that gives the results you require.

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http://keystrokesukimages.com

Tried that and none looked good.SOMETIMES the custom WB give just what i want but mostly not.but im going to try again tonight

The lights are argon arc gold color or mercury vapor to night ill try both and mixed

RAW is still a mystery i press very button move all the slides and never get a result i want

there is some good stuff in the Landscape e book, white balance is covered amongst others things.

http://www.cameralabs.com/photography_b ... otography/

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Hey contrast,
You may want to start carrying a small gray card. You photograph the gray in the light you have to work in and later, tell your post processing application 'this is gray.' WB is then corrected in post.
Some good notes here.

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