Practical Artistry: Light & Exposure for Digital Photographers

128 Using Light

Working with White Balance

Working with White Balance

White balance probably intimidates more photogra-

phers than any other digital camera setting, so I am

happy right here and now to make white balance sim-

p

le for you: The white balance setting in your camera

doesn’t much matter.

“

Wait!” you cry. “How can this be? There’s so much

fuss made about white balance, and now you’re telling

me it doesn’t matter?”

Well, OK, white balance itself does matter. But your ini-

tial white balance settings aren’t really a big deal (at least

if you are shooting RAW). Let’s start at the beginning.

Setting the white balance tells your camera the color

temperature (explained on pages 126–127) of the light

source for your photo. If the white balance is correctly

set, theoretically the photo should appear to be neu

-

t

rally lit without a color cast.

You set the white balance in a camera to a specific Kel-

v

in value or a pre-set, like tungsten (2850K) or sun-

lig

ht (5500K).

Most digital cameras also have an auto white balance

setting, in which the camera analyzes pixels to do a rea-

s

onably good job of coming up with the color tempera-

t

ure of the light source. I’m usually not a great fan of

automatic settings, but if you leave your camera on auto

Using a Neutral Gray Card

If you are taking photos in lighting than can be controlled (it’s

very important that the light is constant), ...