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 Subject: Photo Tip of the Week!
 
Author: Papa bear
Date:   4/24/2007 9:16 pm EDT
White Balance and why would my whites be out of balance?

White balance is a great tool for the digital camera world including Video and Still cameras. Most people who pick up and use their digital camera never even think about WB. They point and shoot or maybe even controlling Shutter or F-Stop setting up a manual shot! Most people don’t even think about WB while setting up their camera.

It all goes back to that value thing I have discussed before. Digital cameras do not know what white is. So they per-set it at the factory with one or more WB pre-sets. These tell the camera program what value to give to white. Now again what is white? For us guys when the wife asks you to paint the hall white, you know you always bring home the wrong color! There is more than one white. So how does the camera know? In the digital world all things are numbers and in the camera world they are from 0 to 255 for each one of three primary colors. Red, Green, and Blue with each one of these colors having a value between 0 and 255. This means that the numbers of variations is 255 cubed that gives you 16.6 million color variations! All based on what value you give white. The digital value of white is R255, G255, B255 because white is all the colors!

Now find a white piece of paper, notice that even paper is different colors of white, take it and if it is daytime outside in the Sun and look at it. Now move to a shady area and then inside under a fluorescent light and an incandescent light then shade it under those conditions. You will see for yourself that there are many shades of white, therefore many values of white.

So what does this have to do with my camera? If you set your camera to pre-set or auto WB the camera will decide what white is for you. If you set it for sunset, shade, or cloudy day it will adjust the values to reflect the factory settings dictating white! Some cameras have a setting called Manual WB and that works by pointing the lens at what you want to tell it is white and having the camera balance all values to that. So if you are at 60ft and your flash goes on the fritz you can point your camera at your white slate that you know is white on the surface and use your manual WB to set that value at 60ft to be white. You will be amazed at what the camera can do without a flash with ambient light. If you have an automatic camera like the Reef Master DC500 or DC600 you can set the camera for a cloudy day which will simulate being at 40ft to 70ft depending on Visibility of the water. It will help make your pictures pop by increasing saturation and contrast based on WB. Play with this and find what works for you.

The temperature of light is measured in degrees Kelvin or K the Sun is about 5500 degrees K. Your flash will want to be about the same at peak output and that is how I get some of the eye popping colors that you see in my photos by setting the camera on Cloudy Day. Now if you are shooting in raw you can adjust the temperature, after the fact to get the outcome you want, and produce the desired outcome.

There are many uses for using white balance to adjust your camera. Many cameras allow you to preset different scenarios in the menu so that all you have to do is pick one based on the conditions. But remember if you have your slate you can get a true setting at depth. Remember also that if you have good flash that recreate the right temperature make sure your WB is set accordingly.


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