White Balance (WB) and WB Presets
September 19, 2008
Human eye has the power to differentiate the white under different light sources. However, camera has the difficulty to identify the colour temperature of the light source that refers to the relative coolness or warmth of the light source. White Balance is a term, which is used to balance the RGB signals from the camera to identify true white under various lighting conditions. White balance is the process of measuring the light source of colour temperature based on various lighting condition and using those information to balance the white. When a camera shot a picture without white balance, the picture will present unrealistic colour casts on the image and will appear slightly blue, orange, or green.
This happens because images different light source have different colour temperature. The ranges of colours in different colour temperature vary from cool light of blue sky to warm light of candle. A high colour temperature shifts light towards the blue and a low colour temperature shifts light towards the red. Therefore, without white balance setting the camera miss match the white and hence the unrealistic colour cast of blue, orange and green on the image making it unrealistic picture.
Digital Camera comes with auto detect WB. Using auto detect the digital camera try to get reference point in the image that represent white and determines the colour spectrum of all other colours based on the white point reference. The information found is then run by many times to come to an equation to agree on a white balance setting. There are certain restrictions on using auto setting of white balance in a digital camera. You cannot use it under the following conditions such as when the colour accuracy is unavoidable, when the scene is heavily filled with one colour and when you are shooting a particular cool and warm scenes. Auto white balance is a good choice for fast photography and for a scene in which colour changes over time.
White Balance Presets
Most advanced digital camera comes with preset options for white balance like Auto White Balance (AWB), Tungsten, Daylight, cloudy, flash, shade and fluorescent.
Auto White Balance (AWB): This setting let the camera to judge the correct colour temperature shot by shot and works well in flash in both indoor and outdoor.
Tungsten: This setting is suitable for indoor shooting under tungsten lighting and generally it cool down the colour in photos.
Daylight/Sunny: This setting is suitable for shooting under direct sunlight and set the subject in normal white balance.
Cloudy: This setting is warmer then the direct sunlight and best to use in outdoor shooting under direct sunlight.
Flash: Flash setting delivers the cool light so you find the shot with warms up a little.
Shade: The light in shade setting will be bluer i.e cooler when compared with direct sunlight so this mode warms up the scene a little.
Fluorescent: This mode will balance the cool fluorescent light and give you a warmer shot.
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