Initial research into white balance: (19th December 2018)
White balance is the process of removing unrealistic colour casts, so that objects which appear white in person appear white in your photo. Our eyes are good with judging what is white under different lighting conditions and temperatures however cameras struggle with this and it ca often lead to your images having a strong colour hue to them.
This can be solved by the different white balance settings on the camera as they can eliminate and neutralise these hues when put on the correct white balance setting.
Colour temperature:
To understand white balance I first need to understand colour temperature.
Colour temperature is a characteristic of visible light, It provides a method of describing these characteristics and is measured in Kelvin (K).
* A light having a higher colour temperature will have a more blue light and larger Kelvin value.
* A light having a lower colour temperature will have a more yellow light and smaller Kelvin value.
It is important to know colour temperature as this is what helps you know what white balance to have your camera on.
Preset white balance modes on digital cameras:
*Auto White Balance - generally reliable in most situations, it should set the colour temperature correctly in all but the most complicated lighting situations.
*Daylight/Sunny - is used in 'normal' lighting conditions for example outdoors on a clear day, makes a cooler image. Many cameras do not have the Daylight mode.
*Cloudy - This mode is ideal for while shooting on a cloudy day. This is because it warms up the subject and surroundings and allows you to capture better shots.
*Shade - A shaded location generally produces cooler or bluer pictures, hence you need to warm up the surroundings while shooting shaded objects.
*Flash - designed to add warmth to the colours when using a flash.
*Tungsten -can be used indoors under incandescent light when the auto white balance has not removed the yellow or orange cast completely. The tungsten setting of the digital camera cools down the colour temperature in photos.
*Fluorescent - is useful in businesses that use fluorescent light when the auto white balance does not remove the blue or green cast completely. This mode is used for getting brighter and warmer shots while compensating for the cool shade of fluorescent light.
Symbols for preset white balances:
Practising shooting with different white balances:
These images demonstrate how white balance effects the colour tone of the images, and how important it is to use the right white balance setting when shooting in order to get a correctly coloured photograph. Out of the images above, the auto white balance is the right one for these lightning conditions as it produces the same colour tones that we see with our eyes. It also shows how you could use different white balances in order to achieve certain moods in your images. For example, the incandescent could arguably be used to create a more feminine mood as it creates a soft pink hue over the image which due to colour theory is a colour stereo typically linked to girls and youth. This demonstrates that white balance is a key, and versatile tool when using lighting and generally in photography as it needs to be adjusted depending on context in order to achieve a correctly lit and coloured image but it can also be used creatively to help convey themes and exaggerate moods within photographs.
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