Posts Tagged ‘White balance’

In the fourth part of this series on what to look for when choosing a speedlight flash, we'll cover color temperature, flash duration, and included accessories. We'll look at why these may be very important features you should carefully consider, or why they might not matter at all, depending on the type of photography you practice.

Auto bracketing is a feature found on most cameras that allows you to take multiple photos in quick succession with a single parameter changed between each shot. Normally auto bracketing refers to exposure bracketing, but it can also be used for white balance bracketing.

In this article we'll look at both exposure bracketing and white balance, what they do, and when they can be useful.

Different light sources produce light with different colors. For example, fluorescent lighting often has a green tinge, while tungsten lighting is a warm amber. Our eyes don't tend to notice the color of light too much, as they automatically correct for any color casts to a certain degree.

But a camera records what it sees, and this is where setting the correct white balance becomes important. If your camera is set to daylight color white balance, then you shoot under tungsten lighting, you'll find the resulting images have a strong orange color cast.

Photo lit with a standard indoor energy saving CFL bulb and white balance set to daylight

When you set the correct white balance setting on the camera, it modifies the camera's color response. It works in much the same way as using the curves tool in Photoshop to adjust color. The white balance setting determines the overall balance of colors in an image, to result in an image with a neutral color cast.