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What is White Balance?

Posted by on May 7, 2012

White Balance in Photography:

Is a way to measure the temperature of “light.”  It is utilized to balance out the colors to get a photo that closely matches what your eye can see at hand.  

In other words, have you ever taken a photograph, and sometimes it comes back really yellow, or even super blue?

Perhaps like the one below:

You notice how the above photo has come out with a yellowish tone?

With the use of white balance, I have the ability to balance that picture out to make it closely resemble what I can see with my own eye.  Because of the lighting in this photo, the color balance already has very warm temperatures, so for me to even this photo out I would use either the tungsten or flurescent option on my camera to bring the “light” color temperature down.

Or even this one:

In the photo above there is a bluish tinge to the photo whereas if you changed the white balance to a warmer tempature (sunny, etc) the picture would take the bluish tinge out of the photo.

 

 

And, by adjusting the white balance in my photos I would come out with a photo that looked like the one below:

The picture looks more like the scene that was seen in front of me when I took the picture.

A lot of photographer’s nowadays adjust the white balance via photoshop or other photography software by having their pictures in the RAW format, but for people like me that love to know the interworkings behind the camera, I love white balance.

How do you FIND WHITE BALANCE on your camera?

I would love to tell you how with your own camera, but each camera is different.  The best way to find it is by looking through your manual.  It will walk you through it.  My Canon Point and Shoot I was able to find white balance options through the P (program) setting, and with my Canon T2i, I am able to find it on the dial menu in the back of my camera.  So make sure to look at manual to find where it’s located.

What are the WHITE Balance Options:

The typical White Balance Settings found on cameras are:

Auto White Balance:  This is where your camera will try to choose the best setting based on the light surrounding it.  However, it isn’t always accurate especially in more tricky lighting situations.

Sunny: This one is usually a warmer temperature setting, and is very close to normal white balance settings.  Not all cameras have this option.

Cloudy: This is best to utilize in cloudy situations, hence the name, but it warms up the photo a bit more than the daylight/sunny option.

Shade: When you shoot in the shade you tend to get a cooler temperature setting so when you utilize this option it warms up your photo just a little bit.

Tungsten: This setting is suppose to be utilized while indoors.  My favorite time to utilize this setting is at night when I’m surrounded by a ton of light.  It cools down the temperature of the photo so if you ever take a photo and it comes back with that yellowish tinge, this is a good setting to utilize to bring that photo to normal temperatures to balance it out.

Flurescent: If you are ever surrounded by a ton of flurescent lights while taking photos, this is a good setting to offset the lighting surrounding you.  It will help to warm up your shots.

Flash: With the use of flash in your photos it tends to be a cooler light, sometimes washing others out, so with this setting, it may just be the balance you need when utilizing your flash.  It will warm up your photos a bit offsetting the cool light coming from the flash.

White Balance is really fun to play around with on your camera, and I especially like it when I notice my photos are coming out a little too yellow, or a little too blue.  Now go on, go play with this function and let me know how it turns out!

 

 

 

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