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BALANCE:
Not a racial concept...
A sleepy butterfly
photographed in warm sunrise
light in the Texas hill country.
Hence, Aunt Martha’s face photographed at sunset, instead of appearing pale and rather
sickly white, as you and I know it truly is, will appear ruddy orange. Under fluorescent
lighting, she may very well have a greenish tinge. Since Aunt Martha is known to be very
vain and quite capable of holding a grudge for 30 years (just ask Uncle Fred), we must make
sure that, if the color cast cannot be not downright flattering, it is at least accurate. Then we
can fall back on, “well, you know that the camera doesn’t lie…” and hope to be off the hook
and not cut out of the will. How do we accomplish this? Well, we used to do it with filters
and different types of film. In the digital age, we spin the wheels, push the buttons, and
follow the blinking lights until we find the “WHITE BALANCE” menu.
Generally, most digital cameras will give you a menu of choices for White Balance, usually including:
DAYLIGHT CLOUDY
FLASH SHADE
TUNGSTEN FLUORESCENT
AUTO CUSTOM
The greatest advantage of digital capture over traditional film-based photography in almost
all aspects is the increase in process control. Instead of placing more slabs of glass over the
lens and between the subject and the recording medium (and theoretically degrading
resolution with each…), we can make adjustments to eliminate many color casts right in-
camera. In fact, we must do so to avoid color aberrations, which may be quite unpleasant.
(Think of Aunt Martha’s green face).
These are self-explanatory and work fairly well at least 85% of the time. Simply judge the
type of light in which you are working and change the settings accordingly. “Well”, you say,
“What if the sky is cloudy-bright? What if it is very dark, (because I like to photograph
tornados)? What if I am photographing underwater?” What if…?
You’re absolutely correct. The generic settings cannot cover all contingencies. But don’t panic
yet. Your camera manufacturer has not abandoned you, and you still have other options.
If your approach is to be totally uninvolved with the photographic process, there is usually an
AUTO setting that works surprisingly well in most situations. The camera uses logarithms
based upon meter readings to choose what it considers to be an “appropriate” white balance
setting. You will notice, however, that many of the better (more expensive) cameras will also
provide you with a CUSTOM setting. This allows you to tweak the preset color balance
numbers provided by the manufacturers of your camera. Each camera is a bit different in the
mechanism by which it accomplishes this, but basically, you are asked to photograph a subject
that you know is neutral (a white or gray card that supposedly has no color cast) under the
lighting conditions in which you are shooting. The camera will then calculate a setting for you,
which neutralizes whichever color cast happens to be present.
Right: Warmer
rendition.
In addition, some more advanced cameras will even show you an actual Kelvin scale that you
can then tweak by the numbers. (As if you could tell the difference between 5600K and 5850K,
right?) The downside of having this degree of control is, of course, that you had better
remember to reset the white balance when you move to a different set of lighting conditions.
“Hey, you just said that the AUTO setting works well,” you whine, “why not just use it all the
time and avoid all the aggravation?” “Well”, I reply calmly, “suppose you WANT a color cast?
After all, the purpose of photographing the sand dunes at sunset is to capture that golden light
flowing over the sand ripples, right?” You don’t really want to neutralize all color casts. In
those situations, many photographers simply use the LCD preview and bracket WB (White
Balance) adjustments.
There is a way you can avoid all the hassle of white balance selection and maintain optimal
quality and control. We will deal with that in the next blog, “Shooting in the RAW”.