How Tos
One question I seem to get at every workshop revolves around white balance and its use and proper setting so I thought I would make that the subject of this newsletter. Before we begin a discussion about white balance though, it is necessary to understand a bit about the color of light.
One doesn’t have to be involved in photography for very long to realize that there are a huge variety of colors of light. Imagine the warm hues of a sunrise or sunset and contrast that with the cooler hues of a clear sky at midday. If you will imagine holding a white piece of paper in the warm light of a setting sun, or during midday and then again indoors under ordinary household lighting (tungsten) and florescent lighting you will notice that the paper always looks white. Your eyes and brain have the amazing ability to recognize the color of light available and compensate for it in such a way that the colors we see are always what we expect (i.e. the white paper always looks white). When we shoot film we are not so fortunate. The overwhelming majority of film is manufactured to give good color under outdoor midday daylight conditions. When shot indoors under tungsten light we get a reddish orange colorcast and, when shot under florescent lights the colorcast is green. For years, film photographers have had to carry filters to compensate for this shift.
White balance is the ability of a digital camera to be “tuned” or adjusted to render proper color under the lighting conditions present. All digital cameras have at the very least an “auto” white balance setting where the camera will decide what the conditions are and adjust itself accordingly. Most digital cameras and all DSLRs have a number of settings beyond auto to fine-tune color even further. These are often defined in broad terms such as daylight, fluorescent, tungsten, cloudy, and shade among others. Each setting has it’s own icon instead of spelling it out to save room on your camera’s display. The higher end DSLRs also add the ability to set the actual Kelvin temperature and this offers the greatest flexibility to tweak the color as well as adding some other effects that we’ll discuss in a moment. Often, just taking the time to take the camera out of the auto setting and choose one more appropriate to the conditions you are shooting under will result in an improvement in picture quality.
However, with some DSLRs it can go much further then this. Many cameras allow the photographer to set a specific color temperature using the Kelvin scale. For years, as a film photographer, I carried and used a series of warming filters (81a, 81b, c, d, etc). I would add these filters to warm up a scene when shooting animals or scenery lit by early morning or late afternoon sun. I also used them to punch up the color when shooting under overcast conditions (overcast light is generally cooler than direct sunlight). Now that I shoot digital I find these filters to be nearly obsolete. I now simply adjust the camera to a higher K temperature to achieve the same result I got with the filters. This allows even finer control because the camera can be adjusted in 100-degree increments and the filters are 200 to 500 degrees apart.
Notice I said set the camera to a higher temperature. Remember that the camera thinks it’s being set to the same temp as the light source. If the camera is set to a higher (cooler) setting than is present the result will be warmer color in the final image. As an example, assume you are shooting under midday sunlight (5500K). If the camera is set to 5500K then the color will be normal or natural. If, however, the camera is set to a higher value (6000K for example) the result will be warmer colors in the final image. It may sound backwards but try it because it works. The opposite is true if you want cooler colors (snow or ice scenes). Set the camera to a lower value (5000K instead of 5500K) and the result will be cooler (bluer) colors. If your camera does not allow setting a specific color temp, then a little control can be achieved by switching to a different preset temp. For instance, using the cloudy setting under daylight conditions will result in warmer colors.
One doesn’t have to be involved in photography for very long to realize that there are a huge variety of colors of light. Imagine the warm hues of a sunrise or sunset and contrast that with the cooler hues of a clear sky at midday. If you will imagine holding a white piece of paper in the warm light of a setting sun, or during midday and then again indoors under ordinary household lighting (tungsten) and florescent lighting you will notice that the paper always looks white. Your eyes and brain have the amazing ability to recognize the color of light available and compensate for it in such a way that the colors we see are always what we expect (i.e. the white paper always looks white). When we shoot film we are not so fortunate. The overwhelming majority of film is manufactured to give good color under outdoor midday daylight conditions. When shot indoors under tungsten light we get a reddish orange colorcast and, when shot under florescent lights the colorcast is green. For years, film photographers have had to carry filters to compensate for this shift.
White balance is the ability of a digital camera to be “tuned” or adjusted to render proper color under the lighting conditions present. All digital cameras have at the very least an “auto” white balance setting where the camera will decide what the conditions are and adjust itself accordingly. Most digital cameras and all DSLRs have a number of settings beyond auto to fine-tune color even further. These are often defined in broad terms such as daylight, fluorescent, tungsten, cloudy, and shade among others. Each setting has it’s own icon instead of spelling it out to save room on your camera’s display. The higher end DSLRs also add the ability to set the actual Kelvin temperature and this offers the greatest flexibility to tweak the color as well as adding some other effects that we’ll discuss in a moment. Often, just taking the time to take the camera out of the auto setting and choose one more appropriate to the conditions you are shooting under will result in an improvement in picture quality.
However, with some DSLRs it can go much further then this. Many cameras allow the photographer to set a specific color temperature using the Kelvin scale. For years, as a film photographer, I carried and used a series of warming filters (81a, 81b, c, d, etc). I would add these filters to warm up a scene when shooting animals or scenery lit by early morning or late afternoon sun. I also used them to punch up the color when shooting under overcast conditions (overcast light is generally cooler than direct sunlight). Now that I shoot digital I find these filters to be nearly obsolete. I now simply adjust the camera to a higher K temperature to achieve the same result I got with the filters. This allows even finer control because the camera can be adjusted in 100-degree increments and the filters are 200 to 500 degrees apart.
Notice I said set the camera to a higher temperature. Remember that the camera thinks it’s being set to the same temp as the light source. If the camera is set to a higher (cooler) setting than is present the result will be warmer color in the final image. As an example, assume you are shooting under midday sunlight (5500K). If the camera is set to 5500K then the color will be normal or natural. If, however, the camera is set to a higher value (6000K for example) the result will be warmer colors in the final image. It may sound backwards but try it because it works. The opposite is true if you want cooler colors (snow or ice scenes). Set the camera to a lower value (5000K instead of 5500K) and the result will be cooler (bluer) colors. If your camera does not allow setting a specific color temp, then a little control can be achieved by switching to a different preset temp. For instance, using the cloudy setting under daylight conditions will result in warmer colors.
