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WHITE BALANCE
Our eyes are good at adjusting for different lighting conditions. Whether it’s sunny, or cloudy, or we are under fluorescent lights, we can tell that a white sheet of paper is white. Cameras however, aren’t always as good. Telling your camera what white looks like in the conditions you are shooting in will give your camera the ability to get colours right.
KEY
TAKE-AWAYS
White balance, AWB, colour temperature, using and manipulating white balance settings and presets.
COLOUR TEMPERATURE?
What is
Though you probably don't think much about it, you have certainly seen and experienced variances in colour temperatures, but because our eyes are good at compensating for these differences, you may not have noticed the subtleties. You have probably heard of cool light and warm light. If you visit the lighting section of the hardware store you'll see a range of light bulbs casting light across a spectrum that goes from blue-ish to orange-ish. Even the sun can vary in its colour temperature depending on time of day, or whether it's a cloudy day or not. What causes these differences in colour?
White light is made up of a spectrum of colours that have different wavelengths. Consider candlelight compared to an LED flashlight. Candlelight is orange-ish, or warm. An LED flashlight is blue-ish or cool. The spectrum that makes up each of these light sources is different. Candlelight is comprised of more light from the warm (orange/red) end of the spectrum, while the flashlight is made up of light from the cooler (blue/green) end. We can label these with a number using the Kelvin scale. 3000K is warm light, like a candle. 9000K is cool light, like an LED flashlight. Daylight (on a clear day) is around 5-6000K - neutral, but leaning toward the cooler end.
IMG
Board notes
White balance
| WB preset Kelvin values
SETTINGS
Camera
and considerations
Ok. So what?
Generally, so nothing. In most cases, your camera is going to do all the work for you. Cameras have a built in system that will automatically adjust your colours appropriately. This system is called Auto-White Balance (AWB) and it's pretty good. More often than not you're going to use the auto white balance settings and you will get accurate, predictable colours. Even if your photos do have a slight cast one way or the other, your camera has presets that can adjust your photos as needed. These presets are based on a variety of typical lighting conditions and remove the need to remember Kelvin values or colour temperatures. Depending on the make of your camera, the labels may be different, but essentially there are settings for lighting conditions including sunny, cloudy, artificial light, and more. Each of these will shift the colours in your photos along the spectrum by adding more warm colours or more cool colours as needed.
There is more available control if you want it. You can specify an exact colour temperature (in Kelvin) or you can measure existing light conditions with the camera to get very precise results. These are more than we will typically need but we will discuss and try this in class.
Want to see how? Here's an article.
In practice:
WHITE BALANCE
C/T
For this activity find a number of different lighting scenarios to see how differently the camera can see the same light. In each location you will take one photo with the correct white balance, one using AWB and one with an incorrect white balance setting.
In total, you will take 12 photos in 4 different locations.
Photos 1-3
Location 1: outdoors (scouted location)
(same subject in all 3 photos)
Photos 7-9
Location 3: indoor @FJR campus
(same subject in all 3 photos)
Photos 4-6
Location 2: indoors @ your home
(same subject in all 3 photos)
Photos 10-12
Location 4: outdoors @FJR campus
(same subject in all 3 photos)
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Upload to Flickr as usual
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Name your images and album (e.g. 'Photo 1: correct WB, cloudy'. 'Photo 2: AWB' )
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Add a link to the Flickr discussion
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Submit your link to Brightspace
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