White Balance

Many people, especially those who are used to depending on auto mode for all their shots don’t use, understand, or even want to use White Balance (WB). The human eye does not really notice different lighting conditions because they adjust automatically, and though cameras do this to a certain degree on auto (AWB) setting, using the different WB presets fine tunes the image.

The main reason to use WB is to get the colour temperature as accurate as possible.

WB is used to change colour temperature to give a cool, warm or neutral effect.The camera does this with different amounts of coloured photons (light). When there is ”excess” red light, it adds blue light and vice versa.

 Auto this automatically changes the lighting and colour tempreatures.

Daylight this is not found on all cameras, it is ‘normal’

Flourescent for shooting under fluorescent light, or making images that warm cool conditions by adding more red light.

Flourescence H add to this effect, and makes the shot even warmer

Tungsten/Incandescent, When shooting under tungsten lighting, it is necessary to add lots of blue light to create a normal balance.So, this setting has a cool effect.

Shade Shade is often cool, and so this warms up the shot a little

Flash Flash can be cool, so flash WB warms up the shot.

Cloudy This warms things up a bit more than cloudy

 It is well worth adjusting the white balance manually, you can do all sorts of effects to it to make it have a different ‘feel’.

Sunsets should be taken with cloudy or shade WB because otherwise thge camera ‘sees’ a colour cast and ‘corrects’ it, making the image appear pale and washed out.

The pictures show the same light taken with different settings to give it a cool, warm, red or neutral effect.