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Challenge 21-playing with white balance
RocketMan
Registered Users Posts: 236 Major grins
Notes on White Balance
Not having a camera that supports RAW files (I am currently using an Olympus C740) nor having access to a high end post processing software package that supports direct manipulation of color temperatures, I needed to find some way of affecting the white balance during the actual picture taking process. So I decided to see what other options I had available to me using the C740. Looking over the manual for the C740 I saw that it does have several options for changing the WB, beside the auto setting it has 4 different lighting setting, bright sun, clouds, incandescent light, three types of florescent plus three or using a white card to set the WB according to ambient lighting conditions as well as a fine adjustment of the WB in seven steps toward either the blue (warmer) or red (cooler) end. One thing to note here that blue being warmer (Kelvin temperature wise) and red being cooler seems in direct contradiction to how we often think of these colors and temperature, i.e. red is hot (as in a flame) and blue is cold (as in “he was so cold his face turned blue”)! But for lighting it’s just the opposite, so one has to think “inversely” so to speak, when dealing with white balance.:1drink
Since I knew essentially nothing about white balance I did some reading on the subject and discovered it’s relation to light temperatures and the Kelvin scale, which I did know something about as I have been an avid science buff all my life. After discovering this relationship I set out to try and discover the best alternative to using RAW files.
I headed down to Old Town Alexandria in Virginia yesterday before work arriving an hour or so before sunrise where I hoped to find some good photo ops. I got down to the waterfront area. I set up the camera on my tripod and the first picture I took was using the auto setting on camera, f5.6 and a four second exposure to have a baseline for comparison. This is the result.
Like my other attempts at nighttime photographs it has a very obvious brownish-tan tint to the white areas.
Since most of the street lighting down there uses what appear to be incandescent lights I set the camera’s WB to that setting and then pushed the fine adjustment three steps toward the blue range. From the charts on WB I has seen I assumed that using the incandescent setting and a shift toward blue (or warmer) light would result in a Kelvin number approximating the street and building lights.
This is the second attempt.
Quite a difference! The white of the doorway and stone is much closer to it’s actual color and the whole scene does not have that brownish tint. Both these pictures are without any post processing.
So what I discovered is that even without the ability to use RAW data or access to a high-end graphics program that can manipulate color temperature directly, it is possible to get fairly accurate white balance without much todo. Hopefully others who are, like me, digitally challenged, will find this info both useful and it will encourage them to get out and try some night shots as well. Bottom line is that it doesn’t take a lot of fancy equipment, it simply requires some understanding of the factors involved ( a card showing how the Kelvin scale relates to colors and types lighting is handy to take along for reference) and a willingness to experiment with what you have at hand!
I’ll post some of my other pictures for the challenge in another thread, out of 30 some photos taken that morning I found three or four that I actually think are pretty good, and didn’t require a lot of post processing.
RM
Not having a camera that supports RAW files (I am currently using an Olympus C740) nor having access to a high end post processing software package that supports direct manipulation of color temperatures, I needed to find some way of affecting the white balance during the actual picture taking process. So I decided to see what other options I had available to me using the C740. Looking over the manual for the C740 I saw that it does have several options for changing the WB, beside the auto setting it has 4 different lighting setting, bright sun, clouds, incandescent light, three types of florescent plus three or using a white card to set the WB according to ambient lighting conditions as well as a fine adjustment of the WB in seven steps toward either the blue (warmer) or red (cooler) end. One thing to note here that blue being warmer (Kelvin temperature wise) and red being cooler seems in direct contradiction to how we often think of these colors and temperature, i.e. red is hot (as in a flame) and blue is cold (as in “he was so cold his face turned blue”)! But for lighting it’s just the opposite, so one has to think “inversely” so to speak, when dealing with white balance.:1drink
Since I knew essentially nothing about white balance I did some reading on the subject and discovered it’s relation to light temperatures and the Kelvin scale, which I did know something about as I have been an avid science buff all my life. After discovering this relationship I set out to try and discover the best alternative to using RAW files.
I headed down to Old Town Alexandria in Virginia yesterday before work arriving an hour or so before sunrise where I hoped to find some good photo ops. I got down to the waterfront area. I set up the camera on my tripod and the first picture I took was using the auto setting on camera, f5.6 and a four second exposure to have a baseline for comparison. This is the result.
Like my other attempts at nighttime photographs it has a very obvious brownish-tan tint to the white areas.
Since most of the street lighting down there uses what appear to be incandescent lights I set the camera’s WB to that setting and then pushed the fine adjustment three steps toward the blue range. From the charts on WB I has seen I assumed that using the incandescent setting and a shift toward blue (or warmer) light would result in a Kelvin number approximating the street and building lights.
This is the second attempt.
Quite a difference! The white of the doorway and stone is much closer to it’s actual color and the whole scene does not have that brownish tint. Both these pictures are without any post processing.
So what I discovered is that even without the ability to use RAW data or access to a high-end graphics program that can manipulate color temperature directly, it is possible to get fairly accurate white balance without much todo. Hopefully others who are, like me, digitally challenged, will find this info both useful and it will encourage them to get out and try some night shots as well. Bottom line is that it doesn’t take a lot of fancy equipment, it simply requires some understanding of the factors involved ( a card showing how the Kelvin scale relates to colors and types lighting is handy to take along for reference) and a willingness to experiment with what you have at hand!
I’ll post some of my other pictures for the challenge in another thread, out of 30 some photos taken that morning I found three or four that I actually think are pretty good, and didn’t require a lot of post processing.
RM
http://roadrunes.com
"It's better to bite the hand that feeds you, than to feed the hand that bites you" - Me
"It's better to bite the hand that feeds you, than to feed the hand that bites you" - Me
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Now that's using the old noggin! Yes, lets try using the equipment we have to it's full potential. If all else fails, get out the manual and start experimenting. Your efforts inspire me. Thanks.
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