White balance is the process of removing unrealistic colour casts in an image, so that the exact colour on the objects are the same way in the photo. A proper white balance in camera accounts for the “colour temperature” of a light source, which refers to the relative warmth or coolness of white light. Our eyes are very good at judging what is white under different light sources, but digital cameras often have great difficulty doing this, especially when set with auto white balance (AWB) and can create various colour cast that come off as blue, orange, green or magenta.
Understanding digital white balance can help you avoid these colour casts, thereby improving your photos under a wider range of lighting conditions.
- COLOUR TEMPERATURE
Color Temperature is an important aspect of understanding white balance. It is calculated in Kelvins and helps the camera get closest to an exact representation of white or in other cases, helps the photographer achieve a certain warm or cold look in an image. Most digital cameras contain a variety of preset white balances, so you do not have to deal with colour temperature and green-magenta shift during the critical shot. Commonly used names for each of these are:
- Auto white balance
- Tungsten
- Fluorescent
- Daylight
- Flash
- Cloudy
- Shade
Each of the above listed setting is calibrated to meet a certain light form and help the camera get closest to white as possible. In higher end cameras, there’s the option to set a custom white balance based on an image (most times of a grey card/wall) or to adjust the Kelvin scale which usually scales from 2600K to 8000K.
There’s always the option to correct white balance in post-production on your preferred application but if you’re particular about nailing it in camera, the video below is for you.
__
This article was written by Adekunle Ibukunoluwa. He is a contributor to the BOPNetworks Community, a Poet and Intern Photographer with SORB Pictures. Follow him on Instagram here
