CASTLEFORD CAMERA CLUB

WHITE BALANCE

White Balance – A definition

White balance is the measurement of light

in relation to its varying temperatures

WHITE BALANCEThe reason we adjust white balance is to get the colors

in our images as accurate as possible.

Fluorescent lighting adds a bluish cast to photos whereas tungsten (incandescent/bulbs) lights add a

yellowish tinge to photos

Cooler Temperature Warmer Temperature

THE VISUAL SPECTRUM

This scale gives an idea of how colours relate to one another.

Midday sun will shine roughly equally across this

whole range.

Other light sources will only emit some of these frequencies, or will be biased towards one end of

the spectrum or the other.

Our eyes are very good at adjusting automatically

THE WAY WHITE BALANCE WORKS

Cameras measure the amount of red, green and blue light that are reflected onto the sensor.

If the light source isn’t producing much at the blue end of the spectrum, then forcing a specific white

balance to account for this tells the camera to expect disproportionately low levels of blue light and then

bears this in mind when deciding what colours things should be.

WHITE BALANCE OPTIONS

AUTO WBWB PRE-SETSGREY CARDSMANUAL WBPOST PROCESSING

Most of the time you will want the colours of your scene to reflect as accurately as

possible.

So “why not use AUTO” you say?

Sometimes you will get a more impressive image by artificially warming up or cooling

down your scene.

AUTO WHITE BALANCE

Sunrise is a prime example – your camera’s auto white balance will often correct the rich, warm colours of

the scene, leaving you with a photo which doesn’t

reflect the colours you are trying to capture.

To warm up the look of a sunrise, increase the white

balance to achieve the effect you are after, This will

enhance the warm reds and oranges and subdue the cold

blues and greens

Auto white balance 2850

Manual white balance 5350

PRE-SETS

Although this scale is only approximate, it gives an idea of how the presets relate to

one another.

The ‘tungsten’ lightbulb correcting for very orange light (at the left) and the ’shade’

setting compensating for very blue light.

SOMETHING TO BEAR IN MIND

White Balance pre-sets are an average and still may not be truly accurate.

For example many cameras use 5500K as their daylight setting because the sun in the morning and afternoon is

cooler than 6500K

Manual – grey cards

Ascertaining the true colours can involve shooting a picture of a white (or, better still, neutral grey), object under the lighting you’re working under.

This teaches the camera how to balance the levels

of the red, green and blue information that it’s recording.

But Remember – you will need to do this every time the lighting conditions change.

Take a look at the following images:

This shot was taken in Auto White Balance. The light in the

room is from three standard light bulbs and as a result the image is quite warm or yellow

A piece of white paper was then held up to the

camera to tell it what color white is. Then a second shot was taken

using this setting

MANUALWHY TAKE TOTAL CONTROL?

There may be times when you want to be creative with light in

photography.

Setting the white balance manually will provide you with creative

freedom to produce images with impact.

MANUAL – TAKING CONTROL

White balance is often described in terms of colour temperatures, using a scale marked K – Kelvin

Colour Temperature Light Source

1000-2000K Candlelight

2500-3500K Tungsten Bulb

3000-4000K Sunrise/Sunset (clear sky)

4000-5000K Fluorescent Lamps

5000-5500K Electronic Flash

5000-6500K Daylight with Clear Sky (sun overhead)

6500-8000K Moderately overcast sky

9000-10000K Shade or Heavily Overcast Sky

POST PROCESSINGWhite balance can be altered later in computer

software such as Photoshop, Lightroom, Elements etc.

To get the best results using post processing use RAW format.

A JPEG image isn't as effective because the data the software needs is usually the data that has been removed in order to decrease the file size

in the first place

The centre image is incorrectly exposed and has been corrected both with JPEG and RAW.

The best thing you can do is get the shot as perfect as possible when you

press the shutter.