White Balance is probably one of the most under-used functions on a digital camera. Most beginners are happy to set the camera on auto and let the camera decide on all the settings. Understanding WB can really useful and help you to make adjustments according to variety of lighting conditions.
Adjusting the WB can help you to compensate for different lighting conditions and get the colours in your images as accurate as possible. The colours we see with our naked eyes before taking a picture is not always what we get when we print an image. We sometimes end up with images with a blue or yellow cast, this is because different light sources have different temperature.
Any object that has colour is due to the colour temperature of the light source illuminating the object. The variation in colour temperature is measured in degrees Kelvins.
The primary colours of red, green and blue in photography are used to achieve the desired results. As stated below an opposite colour is introduced to neutralise a colour cast on an image.
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| http://www.photography.ca/blog/2012/05/03/106-white-balance-in-photography/ |
I took the following images during a bright sunny afternoon when the sun was shining through the window. I placed the cups and saucers on a white card on the dining table. Selecting different white balance has helped me to produce some interesting results. Selecting the Auto WB has given a slightly cooler result, whereas the the daylight control has given a slightly more accurate representation of the colour temperature. Cloudy and Shady add too much warmth to the image and tungsten adds a blue cast on the image.
It's always worth trying out different WB to see what results you get but even more so because in my opinion Auto doesn't always accurately represent the colours. I think photography is all about experimenting and not always sticking to the rules - you could end up producing something wacky and wonderful!
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| Auto White Balance |
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| Daylight |
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| Cloudy |
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| Tungsten |
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| Shady |
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| Flash |
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| White Fluorescent |
Photographing the trees in my local park on a cloudy day I experimented with the white balance by selecting tungsten - it resulted in the image having a blue cast.
Similar image with a cloudy white balance gave me a more accurate representation of the light that day
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