White Balance

[Rahb]

....ok, I think I understand white balance : tells the camera what hue the brightest color should be? IE...on a bright sunny day..there may be allot of blue glare, but setting your whitebalance to more of a white color can decrease this? or making it an antique white can give that aged photo glow?

Anyways, how is this done exactly on a canon rebel x (35mm) does anyone know? I can't find my book and i'm trying to find all of the adjustments for the camera....that way i can explore a little. If anyone knows where a good source for operating instructions for a canon eos rebel (xs) are (IE a link) that would be greatly appreciated and i'm sure keep you from answering allot of beginner questions.

 

[Big Mike]

White Balance is usually a term used for digital cameras...which have a WB adjustment. This is because different light sources have different light temperatures...which would otherwise give the images a color cast.

Film is made with a certain light temperature in mind. Regular film is balanced for sunlight and also flash (same temp). If you are shooting with tungsten lights, you can buy tungsten balanced film.

Or, you can use filters to compensate for the lighting, if your film does not match the light that you are shooting in.

 

[Rahb]

IC

 

[ksmattfish]

Besides white balance, seach for the term "color temperature", and you'll find more info.

 

[MyCameraEye]

From the master of WB, Me

AUTO WB: Leaving your camera on auto the camera will try to figure out which tones are supposed to look naturral and what ones are to be strongly colors. Unless you shoot RAW where this does not matter a whole bunch, I highly reccomend never leaving your camera on auto WB.

Leaving your camera set to Daylight or sunny: This pretty much shoots the images as they appear with out changing them at all. If shooting JPG, you are better off leaving your camera on this setting then auto IMHO. if your shooting landscapes or nature, this setting will to the job as well.

Cloudy: This is probably about the 2nd most useful WB setting. This will correct the light blue tones you get outside on overcast days.

Shade: This is basically a stronger warming filer then cloudy. I often use this setting indoors when shooting a party of a wedding at +2. It will warming your shots just right if your shooting in JPG mode.

Tungsten / Incandescent: To compansate for the strong yellow glow of standard light bulbs you can use this setting. This is very simular to using a 80 serise color correction filter with film.

And of course, last but not least, Fluorescent: This will redunt green color cast you get when shooting under a light strip. I find it much more productive to shoot these shots in RAW and edit later. Fluorescent light strips seem to cast all sorts of funky colors.

I hope this helps.

Scott