White Balance explained
White balance is considered to be one of the most important settings of a dslr camera. Let’s say you want to capture a model with an overcast sky in the background. Well, if you don’t use the proper white balance setting of your camera, you may get a picture with colors different from the actual ones. Therefore, in order to create a beautifully exposed image with true to life colors, you must learn to effectively use the white balance setting of your camera.
Color Temperature
To understand the concept of White Balance, you need to first understand color temperature. Color temperature is a characteristic of visible light, It provides a method of describing these characteristics and is measured in Kelvin. A light having higher color temperature will have more blue light or larger Kelvin value as compared to lower light, which has a smaller Kelvin value.
How does light affect the color?
In the past, you probably noticed some photos that turn out with an orange/yellow cast if shot under tungsten lighting or a bluish cast if shot under fluorescent lights. This occurs because each source of light has a different color temperature. A dslr camera can measure the colors in the red, green, and blue light of the spectrum, as reflected in its sensors.
An image taken under a tungsten bulb without adjusting the digital camera for white balance produces the dull orange shade as it spreads the biased light. Similarly, an image taken under the fluorescent lighting produces a brighter bluish cast. However, it is possible to shift the color in the desirable direction, provided you have a good understanding of your camera and its settings.
Why Adjust White Balance?
Since different sources of light have different color hues, a picture taken with a normal white balance under artificial lighting conditions transmits the low heat to the camera’s sensor. This light touches the red bits of the spectrum, which results in dull yellow or orange shades in your image.
Though the human eye can automatically adjust to different light and color temperatures to produce the right color, a camera must be adjusted to different lights for accurate color reproduction. By adjusting the white balance setting of your camera, you can alter the required light or temperature to produce the most accurate colors in your image.
Conclusion
As long as you shoot in RAW, knowing the color temperature of different light sources is not that important. Simply understanding the basic concept of color temperature should be enough for most photographers. What is important is knowing how and when to adjust white balance, either in-camera before you capture an image or in post-processing after you create an image.
Once you get comfortable adjusting the white balance of your images, you can start to use white balance creatively, either warming them up or cooling them down to change the feel of the entire scene. If you are interested in learning more about the basics of photography or videography, please don’t hesitate to reach out! We’d love to hear from you. You can reach The Burnette Agency by email at info@theburnetteagency.com or give us a call at 404-850-2081.
