Wednesday 19 December 2012

White Balance...

"Method used for accurately recording the correct colour in different light sources"- John Freeman, Digital SLR Handbook.

Different light sources have different colour temperatures and WB takes this into account to ensure what is white APPEARS to be white in the photograph. DSLR cameras cannot adjust to different light sources automatically (unless you select the Auto WB option, but I find sometimes it's not very accurate). z takes this into account to ensure what is white APPEARS to be white in the photograph.Light is made up of a spectrum of invisible waves and the proportions of these different 'coloured' waves are different in each light source. So if there is an abundance of say... infra red waves, the photograph may end up with a red cast. This can be avoided by adjusting the WB.


Notice how the photograph drastically changes when different WB settings are used. The {daylight} photograph is obviously too 'warm', hence the yellow cast. On the other end of the spectrum is the {tungsten} which appears to have a blue cast, suggesting that the WB is now too cool. Somewhere in-between is the fluorescent setting which works quite well.

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