white balance

Let’s begin.

I am going to take a stab in the dark and say that most of you will find a white balance setting on your camera. Look for where it says “WB.” That stands for white balance. Ingenious, no?

Here are the white balance settings:

Sunlight setting–image of a sun
Cloudy setting–image of a cloud
Auto White Balance setting–AWB
Fluorescent setting–image of a long, rectangular fluorescent light
Custom White Balance setting–the word “custom” or CWB…not all cameras may have this setting
Tungsten setting–image of a tungsten….just kidding! Did I have you there for a second? Thinking, “What the heck is a tungsten!?” Okay, this setting is denoted by an image of a regular light bulb

Your camera is possibly just set to AWB, which is fine! But, to turn things up a notch, try playing around with the different settings.

“Whoahhh! Wait a minute, MckMama. What in tarnation is white balance, anyway!?”

Oh, sorry. Good question. Let me back up a bit.

Without getting too boring technical, let me explain it like this: All light, no matter where it comes from, has a temperature–a color–to it. Early morning and late afternoon light outdoors causes everything in sight to have a golden glow. An normal old indoor house light or lamp often causes photographs taken indoors to have a sickly orange glow. Light at and around noon is usually the closest to pure white light, highlighting existing colors but not adding much of its own. However, during the middle of a sunny day is a very difficult time to take pictures because dramatic and unflattering shadows often fall on faces.

At the end of the day, it’s a preference thing. I, for one, happen to love very late afternoon light. Yum!

The trick is (in my fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants opinion) is to play around–without using your flash–with light at different times of day, in different locations, and with different white balance settings.

If you are not able to get the light looking the way you want with the available light you have, just twist the dial on your camera to a new white balance setting.

There is no right or wrong in my photography book. It is a subjective art form…as all forms of art are. That’s one of the most glorious things about art in the first place! So, just play around with your white balance settings until you are creating photos that you like.

Have fun!