White Balance

This week I had the great opportunity to go into the Adirondacks on a school Residency trip. I took a photography class while there and while it was beautiful the weather was a little temperamental. We would have beautiful sunlight and clouds one minute and the next it would be snowing and very grey. This made it very important to use my cameras built in white balance system. Adjusting the white balance on a camera allows you to take photographs in different types of light and still get respectable and preferred results. There are many different styles of lighting in the world, everything from natural sunlight to the flame of a Bic lighter. Depending on the light source you always want the camera to read the right lighting, and color for your pictures. You can easily take pictures in different lighting situations, but knowing white balance is the way to make them look the best.

Most cameras give you the same options in white balance; Auto, Tungsten, Florescent, Cloudy, Daylight, Flash, and Shade. The different types of light can make your pictures look blue, warm, bright, orange, or green. Almost all digital cameras built in today’s consumer market have an option to change the white balance. You can check online before making a purchase or play with the camera in the store to check the camera you want. While I wouldn’t say it is the end all for purchasing or upgrading your camera, I would definitely recommend it if you’re looking for a new camera.

On my vacation, I had to use the cloudy setting a lot as you can tell from the pictures. The lake was very grey without the Auto white balance on. Also in the picture of the deer you can really see the difference in color and brightness. The second picture is much more vibrant then the first one is. Another option for changing your camera to match the white balance you want is to carry a white balance sheet with you. You place the sheet in front of your camera and take a picture with your camera in manual white balance mode. This tells your camera what white is supposed to look like and it matches your computer accordingly. All this information is covered in your cameras manual. I found being able to quickly change the white balance on my Canon Rebel t1i a great feature to get the composition and exposure I wanted.

 It definitely made my trip and pictures I was taking a lot easier. I wasn’t sure at first how it would work or what the results would be. However once I started playing with the options and got the white balance set correctly I got some incredible pictures. And yes you can do a lot of post editing on your pictures to adjust and fix the color. But when you’re taking 1200+ pictures it would be counter-productive to go through and edit them all when you can take the picture right the first time with such a quick change.