Canon 7DMk2: AWB Automatic White Balance

I don’t like Canon’s Auto White Balance. I’m not saying that it’s wrong, I’m saying that I don’t like it. I usually like the light balance to be warmer.

1. There’s never an exact right white balance. Even when using a color meter, like the old Minolta or now Kenko’s.
2. White balance is the reading of the white color and adjusting everything around it. The problem is what’s the right white? An 87% white, a 92% white, or the 18% grey card?
3. CCD and CMOS sensors react differently by model and brand to the white balance. My Canon 7D is cooler than what I’m used to.
4. I know about the various contraptions for getting the “right” white balance like ExpoDisk…

Color Temp	Light Source
1000k	Candles
2000k	Twilight before sunrise
2500k - 3000k	Household incandescent lights
3000k - 4000k	Clear sunrise / sunset
4000k - 5000k	Fluorescent bulbs, cool white - “daylight”
5000k - 5500k	Small flash
5500k - 6000k	Studio flash
6000k - 7000k	Bright sunlight
7000k - 9000k	Overcast
9000k - 11000k	Rain… clear day in mountains
11000k - 20000k	Overcast… snow in the mountains

I set my white balance to Daylight and that’s it! The colours are usually a little warmer and I will adjust if necessary in Lightroom, much less than ½ of the time. I don’t mess around with the white balance. RAW files are only affected by:

1. ISO
2. Shutter Speed
3. Aperture

And that’s it!. Nothing else. The white balance is just a flag to indicate to the processing software, in my case Lightroom, how it should process it.