White Balance

MiKaLa119

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Boise, ID...Originally from So Cali
I'm trying to read some books on learning photography. One of the books mentioned the setting of white balance. Well, my question is: what do you usually have your white balance set to? Auto? Custom? Also, if i set it to custom, then would I normally have to switch it again (i.e. if I were shooting inside and then took some outdoor shots?)

The book also mentioned to achieve some warm tones I could set the K to a certain setting...any more tips on this?

Sorry if these are basic questions (or if I'm not making sense)... still trying to learn the ropes... baby steps

Thanks for the help
 
I leave mine set to Auto, but I also usually shoot in RAW format so the white balance setting isn't even applied till the conversion.

K is the temperature setting. Different lighting situations will make white not white, if that makes any sense. You set your white balance to make white actually appear white under the current lighting. For instance I think sunlight is 5500k. Flash, incandecent, filiements, etc, will all have temperatures and therefore different white balancing will be required.

Using a higher temperature than needed redens the image and unsing lower makes it more blueish, at least in my eperience, and that's what they mean by warming and cooling.

Does tha make any sense?
 
Just about every digital camera has white balance settings and Auto usually works. Some cameras have a more accurate auto selection than others. If shooting RAW is an option, thats the best because you can change or fine tune the WB after the shot is taken.

The custom setting is usually a good way to get accurate WB if you don't think the auto will be good enough. With all cameras I've seen, you take a shot of something white in the light you will be using...then use that image to calibrate the custom setting. Then YES you would have to change the WB setting if your lighting changed...going from inside to outside for example.
 

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