White Balance

What is white balance? White balance is a tool in your camera that helps you capture the colors of a shot and make them as real as possible. Basically, what white balance does is that it recognizes the "whites" in the image. It is said that all the colors are derived from the white color. For example, sunlight is white in color but when it hits the prism it splits into a rainbow. Therefore, if you can get the white color correct it will give balance to all the other colors. You don't need to know about the prism or how light works you just need to know how white balance in your camera works. If you are under a yellow light all the whites around you will have a yellow cast on them. This means that there is an extra of essential yellow color. Same can be said for other colors. Now, if you want your image to have true colors you need to tell the camera which color to consider white. This could be manually adjusted in your DSLR camera through white balance. Every DSLR camera has its own settings for adjusting white balance so I will not go into details. Just look in your manual if you are not familiar with it. Most of the DSLR cameras come with presets for white balance to make your life a little easier. I'll explain what they mean and what they do.

Auto - In the mode the camera detects the light and makes adjustments itself leaving the user out of control. Most of the time Auto mode will work just fine but sometimes it may not produce desirable results.

Flash -Flash mode is used when you are using a flash unit to take pictures. This mode compensates for cool light of flash by introducing warming effect in pictures.

Tungsten - Tungsten refers to a light bulb and it is usually represented by the symbol that looks like a little light bulb. Since we use bulbs in our houses to provide light, this mode is mostly used for indoor photography. Light bulbs usually produce warm light (pale yellow) and in this mode the camera introduces a cooling (slight blue) effect.

Fluorescent - Florescent refers to the new energy saving bulbs that produce light which is bluish in color as compared to tungsten light bulbs. Like Tungsten mode this mode is also used indoors. Fluorescent mode compensates for the cool effect of florescent light by introducing little warmth in images.

Daylight - This mode is represented with a symbol that looks like the sun. Sunlight is considered the true light and is used as a reference to create other modes. This mode is useful in taking shots in sun.

Shade- This mode is useful in taking shots outdoors but in a shady area. These shady areas can be a side of a building, under a porch, or under a tree. True source of light in this case is sun but not direct sunlight. As the shade is little cooler than the direct sunlight this mode will compensates by introducing a little warmth in pictures.

Cloudy - As the name suggests, this mode is usually used on cloudy or overcast days when sunlight is not direct and is blocked by the clouds. This mode creates a slight warming effect in images.

You can use any of the preset white balance modes in your camera to give different tastes to your photos. Just play around with the settings and you'll master the techniques.

Hope the above white balance tutorial was helpful.