How Do I Use The White Balance Setting On My Digital Camera?
If you’ve been taking pictures with your digital camera, then you know the importance of white balance! White balance gets its name from the color of light that it is designed to control. It basically adjusts the color temperature in your photographs so that they appear correctly lit across a variety of different lighting conditions. But how do you use the white balance setting on your camera? We’ve put together this post to help answer that question!
Different types of lighting will cause colors in your photos to either cool (blue) or warm (yellow). Cooler lights can be used for photography indoors or during dawn and dusk, while warmer lights are best for outdoor scenes during midday. White balance will adjust the colors in your photos so that they look natural under either sunlight or artificial lighting.
You can use white balance to make things like skin tones look more natural, as well as to fix problems with color casts. For example, a scene lit by flash will cause the colors of our eyes to alter in a way that makes them look redder than they should be under normal daylight conditions.
So what does white balance on digital cameras do? Let’s take a closer look!
The blue-white LEDs commonly used in most digital cameras are not very efficient at picking up and reflecting many wavelengths of light, especially at lower intensities. They also tend to emit a lot of infrared radiation.
The result is that many digital camera sensors are very sensitive to the color blue. If you add up all of the different wavelengths in sunlight, even a relatively narrow band of blues will cause most digital cameras to overcompensate by making your photos too warm. This is commonly referred to as a “yellow” cast or color cast.
Most professional photographers will use external lighting and special colored filters so that they can control the color temperature of their indoor photography sessions. But what about the rest of us? If you don’t want to buy a bunch of filters, you can use white balance when taking your photos.
Many digital cameras have an option called “White Balance (WB)”. The process basically works by referencing a white or neutral object in the scene and comparing it with the actual color of the light that is illuminating the scene. It then adjusts each photo so that it appears correctly lit under that particular type of light.
Most digital cameras will display an icon in your viewfinder or on your LCD screen to indicate which type of lighting conditions are currently being used for white balance. These are usually the letters “T” or “F” to indicate using either a tungsten bulb or fluorescent lighting, respectively.
Like most things, it helps to get some practice in before using it on a real photo shoot. To start, simply set your white balance manually each time you take a photo. Then go back and look at the results. Next time you photograph that same scene, try changing your white balance setting to match the light source. If you use an external flash, try different settings to see how they affect your photos.
Digital cameras that don’t have an external white balance setting will often be able to make minor adjustments in-camera based on the color of the scene. These cameras will “read” the color of the light and then alter the white balance based on that value. Digital cameras without this feature can’t control the color of indoor lighting.
If you are shooting indoors, you may find that using a neutral colored background or reflector to help reduce any yellow or blue color casts that appear in your photos. Many photographers will also take one or two flash photos with a standard exposure and white balance. They will then use digital image editing software like Photoshop to combine these two photos into a single image that has better overall lighting conditions.
If you do this, you will want to use a tripod so that both photos are taken from the same angle and with the same camera settings. You’ll also want to make sure that nothing moves between photos because this could cause your image software to interpret the photo incorrectly.
You should also pay attention to your white balance if you are photographing subjects with blue or purple light sources like neon signs or aquariums. These can cause the color of your subject’s skin to look unnatural if you don’t adjust for it.
So the next time you’re out taking photos, try using the white balance setting on your camera. You can then use this same setting for outdoor scenes or in indoor lighting as needed.
I hope that this post has given you some useful information about the white balance setting on your digital camera. You can find more helpful tips like this one by checking out the links below:
To learn more about white balance, check out our article White Balance Basics for Digital Photographers from around the web.
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Conclusion
Thanks for taking the time to read this article. I hope you found it useful and informative!
Until next time, have a great day and take some great photographs!
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