( Todays Photography )

So your photos are in focus and you have started to take some really good shots, though something is still not right.

Within the next couple of blogs I will explain the difference between white balance and exposure. As it’s easier to learn while practicing, I have included some really helpful exercises. White balance and exposure is easy to read about although as I found out myself, it’s very easily confused. If you do the exercises below I think you will find, as I did that the little light will come on in your head and everything will become clear.

I welcome comments so please write what you found while doing the exercises and whether you found any difference with your photos.

These things are very important if you want to turn a good photo into a great photo.

White Balance

Basically all light has a color blue, green or orange. When you take a photo and it turns out orange you can change that from within your camera so that the camera sees the orange light as white hence taking the photo the way you see it.

I have been taught a wonderful exercise to help make this a little clearer.
(I have tailored this exercise for Nickos and I have a Nikon D90, you are still able to complete the exercise with you Cannon or other brand of camera though you may be a little limited in the variations of options you can find ready to use in camera)

White Balance Tutorial

1. Your camera will need to be on M – manual mode
2. Press your menu button on the left side of your camera
3. Go to White balance
4. To do this exercise setup your subject somewhere in natural light this will give you a good control setting to test your white balance settings
5. Take a series of photos going down your settings within white balance of the same object and see how the setting affect the photo you are taking.

I have put a series of example photos below to show the variations. There are so many different options on your camera I suggest that after you do this exercise save the photos to a separate file on your computer and put notes in so you can remember what you achieved.


This photo is obviously too blue as the light coming through the lens is blue this is why we white balance.

This picture is still slightly blue, just after this the picture would be correct. If you go too far in this direction you end up with…

Orange light tainting the picture, as you can see this is a feature of your camera that is definitely worth mastering.

Play away…

Tags: how to set white balance, White Balance