White balance question: Not sure I understand the white balance. How does setting the white balance from sunny to cloudy or tungsten or whatever change your photo. This is something...

CWhite Loc: Riga, Mi

Not sure I understand the white balance. How does setting the white balance from sunny to cloudy or tungsten or whatever change your photo. This is something new to me with digital that I didn't deal with a whole lot with the SLR.

dspoon2 Loc: Rockwall TX

What is White Balance?

White balance is basically a way to measure the temperature of light and to balance out the colors of your photography for the desired results.
Ideally, the goal of a conventional photograph is to attain an ideal White Balance where the white color is as close to true, neutral white as possible and all of the colors in your image are true to life.
What is White Balance on your camera?

White Balance refers to how your camera reads and adjusts to the temperature of the light.
Every light source has a different color or temperature to them. Our eyes adjust to this fairly well, but digital cameras need a little help, hence the White Balance function.
If youve ever taken a photo and the colors of the image are not the same that you see, maybe everything looks blue or reddish-yellow, then you are seeing an incorrect White Balance.
Most digital cameras have functions for Auto White Balance, a group of preset White Balance (sunny, cloudy, shade, flash, fluorescent, etc), and a Custom Preset that you can set yourself.

OddJobber Loc: Portland, OR

Think of it as a digital version of what you used to do with color correction filters, e.g., fluorescent filter to remove green.

CWhite Loc: Riga, Mi

dspoon2 wrote:

What is White Balance? br br White balance is ba... (show quote)

Thanks dspoon2. That was a good, easy to understand explination of what white balance is in the digital camera.

Kestrel1029 Loc: Philadelphia, PA

You can perfrom a simple test yourself. Find a subject, something easy to photograph, say a doll. Take it outside, put it on a chair and take several pictures of it. Each time using a different white balance, make sure to note which white balance setting you used on each picture then review the pics on your computer screen or even have them printed out. You'll see a pretty significant difference.

CWhite Loc: Riga, Mi

Kestrel1029 wrote:

You can perfrom a simple test yourself. Find a subject, something easy to photograph, say a doll. Take it outside, put it on a chair and take several pictures of it. Each time using a different white balance, make sure to note which white balance setting you used on each picture then review the pics on your computer screen or even have them printed out. You'll see a pretty significant difference.

Great idea. I think I will, I will probably learn better from that than reading. I did the same thing with a bunch of filters I had.

bioteacher Loc: Brooklyn, NY

dspoon2 wrote:

What is White Balance? br br White balance is ba... (show quote)

I believe that white balance only affects the picture when shooting in jpeg, but has no effect when shooting RAW.

katbandit Loc: new york city

I set my camera up by shooting a few shots focusing on something close to a grayish color ..the auto setting then adjusts itself mostly..however I shoot in a RAW mode..if the balance is still off I can easily adjust it in Aperture 3.
Sometimes I use the filters that came with my SB flash when indoors..tungsten lighting needs the brownish one..and fluorescent needs the greenish one..I dont like to change it on the camera itself because when going indoors and out its too easy to forget to quickly change the WB.
I have the d7000 and it is really good in the auto mode for WB..

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

CWhite wrote:

Not sure I understand the white balance. How does setting the white balance from sunny to cloudy or tungsten or whatever change your photo. This is something new to me with digital that I didn't deal with a whole lot with the SLR.

Recently, someone posted about the Whibal card, and yesterday I saw it used in a lynda.com video.
http://www.amazon.com/GENUINE-WhiBal-Certified-Neutral-Balance/dp/B004G3NW5M/ref=sr_1_4?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1346413214&sr=1-4&keywords=white+balance+cards

GPappy Loc: Finally decided to plop down, Clover, S.C.

It helped me to understand wb by playing around with the custom setting and using different colors for the setting. Take a shot of something that completely fills the frame. Use white, grey, yellow, green whatever color that strikes your fancy. Use that shot and tell the camera "this is white". Then take a shot of anything. Look at the differences it makes. You will be amazed at how it effects the outcome. Just remember to clear the settings when your finished.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

GPappy wrote:

It helped me to understand wb by playing around with the custom setting and using different colors for the setting. Take a shot of something that completely fills the frame. Use white, grey, yellow, green whatever color that strikes your fancy. Use that shot and tell the camera "this is white". Then take a shot of anything. Look at the differences it makes. You will be amazed at how it effects the outcome. Just remember to clear the settings when your finished.

I got my D70s converted to infrared, and you have to set the WB using green grass.

photosarah Loc: East Sussex, UK

CWhite wrote:

Not sure I understand the white balance. How does setting the white balance from sunny to cloudy or tungsten or whatever change your photo. This is something new to me with digital that I didn't deal with a whole lot with the SLR.

You can use the pre-sets in the white balance range to good purpose. AWB will deal well with most pictures taken under "ordinary" daylight conditions. However, if for example, you are taking a sunset, then moving the white balance to Daylight, Shade or Cloudy will give you progressively warmer tones, thus making the sunset more colourful and eye-catching. Tungsten light is for what it says on the can: however, you can use it quite deliberately to give a blue tone to a photo if you use it during daylight hours or at night. I deliberately used tungsten WB to change the dynamics of this photo of a branch with a rose climbing it, as it was pretty boring as it was. Just play around with the different settings, you can have a lot of fun and strikingly enhance your photos in-camera :)

The first shoots, taken in early morning light t with Tungsten White Balance

DK Loc: SD

I did a program for photo club several years ago on white balance. I used photos taken with the different settings to show the difference. Many of the members didn't know anything about white balance and were looking at their cameras trying to find the settings. It was a good learning experience for them.

skydiverbob Loc: I retired in San Antonio

jerryc41 wrote:

quote=CWhite Not sure I understand the white bala... (show quote)

Yes, I posted that. To fully appreciate the Whibal card got to the following link. This will give you all the information that you desire. The Whibal card is one of the best things I ever bought for my camera bag. It assures accurate colors, consistently.
http://michaeltapesdesign.com/whibal.html

Bozsik Loc: Orangevale, California

[quote=bioteacher]

dspoon2 wrote:

I believe that white balance only affects the picture when shooting in jpeg, but has no effect when shooting RAW.

? Nope. Raw has nothing to do with it. It has to do with the color temp of the incident light.