The colour of light around us is changing all the time
from the reds of sunrise and sunset
through to direct sunlight which tends to be yellowing on a day like today when
it's a bit overcast
we've got blue light because the sunlight's being filtered through blue
grey clouds hence getting it a bluey colour cast
these shifting colours are measured in degrees kelvin.
which strangely is a measure of temperature not color.
it was invented by chap called William kelvin in the nineteenth century
who set the original absolute zero
at minus 273 degree centigrade
But how does all this relate to photography?
She nearly cooked yet geoff? nearly a couple more pumps. Have you ever noticed when you heat up a piece of
steel it changes color
it's what jezz is doing right now
look at that it's glowing white hot, that's about nine or ten thousand degrees
Kelvin
the kind of colour you get in the middle of the day through clouds.
As it's cooling you get a sort of sunlight a yellowy colour
and is it cool still further we're going into oranges at either into the day you
have sunrise and sunset when the
degrees Kelvin fall to around 3,000 or so I think it's brilliant
that something is traditional as a blacksmith forge has been taken and
blended in with digital photography.
So why does all this hot metal, degrees kelvin, colour balance stuff matter?
this piece a white paper on a day like today
we got cloudy sky and we're in shade therefore
this isn't actually piece of white paper because the light that's landing on it
is a bit of a blue colour,
however we still see it as white because our brains colour correct it
same sort of thing indoors. If you've got this white piece of paper in your living
room
under a tungsten lamp it'll be yellow but our brains still see
white you cannot trust your eyes with this stuff because they always color
correct everything for you.
if you've taken a picture in your living room and the flash hasn't gone off
chances are it's gone yellow hasn't it.
In your camera you've got white balance settings.
Mine are accessed through this little button here, look in your menu
yours might not be quite the same as mine.
so we have an auto setting, the A,
what that is is the camera will automatically choose what it thinks is the
approriate white balance for where you are.
I don't recommend you use it all the time, they're not bad
but they're never that accurate, they can be confused so
I suggest you set yourself. If i flick across we've got a picture of
a little light bulb that's for your living room, that will make your picture really
blue
if you use it anywhere other than in tungsten light.
the reason is the yellow tungsten light needs to be counteracted
to counteract it it has to add the opposite colour,
blue. So if you're shooting in a living room use the tungsten setting
your pictures will be the right colou but for goodness sake remmeber to put it .
back
because if you don't and you take a picture down here
in the woods what we'll end up with is a very
very blue looking picture. Now
moving on across there are fluorescent settings,
there are different colored fluorescent so it's well worth your while to do a
little bit of a test if you're shooting under fluorescent.
There's a picture of the Sun that is for sunshine if you're shooting someone in
sunlight
or even a scene, a landscape but this is about the scene
not about you if you're standing in the sunshine
but your subject is in the shade you need the shadey white balance.
Use the sunny one, when your subject is lit by sunshine.
You've got a little fork of lightening,
that's for flash that's color balance to work with flash
this little picture of a cloud, doesn't take a genius to work out,
that's for a cloudy day your subject is lit under the clouds.
In shade, little picture of a house with a shadow next to it.
And lastly, you've got kelvin presets.
Well on this camera you have. I can choose how many degrees kelvin
I want the color temperature to be low degrees Kelvin is a red color
high degrees Kelvin is a kind of cold blue white color
daylight is reckoned to be around six thousand five hundred degrees kelvin
So now you know all about white balance and why you need to set it yourself,
if you enjoy fiddling around in the computer you could colour correct stuff
yourself there
but i don't know about you but i prefer being out here and taking pictures.
So use your white balance for perfectly coloured pictures every time.