If you haven’t played around with your camera’s settings very much, chances are you have some basic defaults set “on” that are holding you back from creating some amazing images.
Today I’m going to introduce you to a whole new world of colour – available with a simple twist of a button – as long as you know how to use it!
Everyone wants beautiful colour in their images!
Let’s assume your lighting is good, and you’ve nailed your focus. Why do some people seem to create images that have beautiful, warm,….almost perfect skin tones and yet your images….well, they kind of look cold, flat, maybe a bit blue?
What’s the difference?
The photographs with amazing tone and colour have a proper white balance set. This means their colour is accurate and reflects the true colours from the original scene.
What is white balance?
White balance is all about the colour of light. Yes, light has a colour. Our eyes automatically adjust for this colour so we never notice that we see it. We almost always see white as white. But the colour of light ranges from cool blue tones to warm yellow tones to hot red tones. It is actually referred to as the temperature of light and it is measured in degrees Kelvin. (Remember that term from high school science class?)
The thing is, your camera cannot adjust for the different temperatures of light like your eyes can. We most often notice this difference when we look at something in an image that we know should be white, but it’s not.
Most dSLRs have a white balance setting called “AWB” which stands for “Auto White Balance.” (This is the default setting on your camera!) Your camera guesses what the temperature of light is and automatically sets a white balance for the current scene. Most of the time it does a pretty good job – however, YOU are not in control, your camera is, and your camera can guess wrong.
You are smarter than your camera. You need to tell it what the temperature of light is.
This can get infinitely complicated, with endless possibilities and customizations but today I’m just explaining the basics.
Simply set your white balance in your camera – take it off “AWB.”
There are typically between 6 and 8 defaults that are common across all camera makes and models. They are just different temperatures along the Kelvin scale.
Tungsten, Fluorescent, Daylight, Cloudy, Shade, Flash and Custom.
Tungsten is simply your typical incandescent light bulb, such as you would find in a reading lamp. Daylight, Cloudy and Shade have increasingly warmer temperatures and they are best used in the lighting conditions each of them describe. Pretty darn simple.
Check out this fantastic infographic from Digital Camera World that really explains each of the white balance settings and how they relate to the temperature of light:
Clik here to view.
Infographic Image Credit: http://www.digitalcameraworld.com
How do I know which setting is correct? I cheat. I look at the picture on the back of my camera. I do photograph in RAW so I can always adjust and tweak it later (which is sometimes necessary).
Personally, when I don’t set a custom white balance (which I rarely do anymore), I have my camera set to daylight or cloudy, regardless of where I am (unless I’m indoors with no natural light – then it’s usually set to Tungsten).
The correct way to do it is to set a custom white balance every time your lighting changes in your scene. Easy to do for studio set ups – not so easy to do when you’re chasing around two year olds in an open field.
I’m a big proponent of getting it right IN the camera because it saves time (less editing later on) and it means you are photographing with understanding and with purpose. YOU are in control, not your camera.
Here’s a real life example of the different standard settings:
Don’t mind the goofy poses from Wesley. He’s apparently practicing his “smoldery eyes” look. The settings are all identical, except the white balance. The only other difference is that the sun had just set and, although these images are maybe 3 minutes apart, it does get progressively darker quite quickly. (We’re in Maui right now, what can I say??) Wes is (mostly) facing the direction of light.
Clik here to view.
Like this one? The camera chose the settings here.
Clik here to view.
This is what I would have photographed using the cloudy White Balance Setting.
Clik here to view.
Daylight White Balance setting used here. Notice how it’s not as warm as the cloudy setting?
Clik here to view.
This is the fluorescent setting, which has a low Kelvin value – too cool for this warm sunset image. Yuck!
Clik here to view.
The shade White Balance setting is definitely too warm here.
Clik here to view.
Again, the tungsten setting compensates for images taken under incandescent lighting. It has a very low Kelvin value and results in a very blue, cool image.
AWB does a pretty good job in the above examples.
I would have used “daylight” most likely in this situation and then tweaked it later to adjust the tint of the photograph (tint varies from green to red tones). When I look at the AWB data settings, it’s almost bang on with the standard “daylight” white balance setting.
Need some real world practice?
Do exactly what I did above and take a picture of your kid(s) in the same outdoor lighting conditions but changing the white balance setting each time. Then go indoors to a room without much natural light (like a bathroom in the evening!) and do the same thing again!
Now I want to hear from you! Have I convinced you venture off AWB? Did it make a difference?
(And if you have any questions – ask away in the comments! That’s what I’m here for!)