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posted by Steph @ 2:42 PM 5 comments

White Balance.

Ready to figure out White balance, what it means and why we want to set it? Good!

The white balance settings tell the camera what kind of light you are shooting in and what color the pictures you are taking should come out. Basically, Light is red as either warm (reds) or cool (blue tones) You know the snapshots you have at indoor birthday partys where everyone looks like they have used way too much orangey self tanner? Yeah, that is the light and the way the camera is reading it.

The Rebel generally does a good job of reading the light on the auto White Balance setting, it gathers up the data in the lens and evaluates it and finds a good medium tone. Normally your pictures will be fine, and it will balance just fine, unless your picture is dominated by one or two colors, the camera won't get a good 'range' to measure and your color will be jacked. You will need to tell your camera what kind of light is available and in turn what to do to give you the captures you want.

The digital Rebel offers 8 different white balance settings. 1. AWB (auto white balance) 2. Daylight 3. Shade 4. Cloudy 5. Tungsten 6. White Flourescent 7. Flash 8. Custom

First things first-
To change White balance on the Rebel
1. Press WB on back of camera (the down arrow)
2. turn dial to selected White balance option.
3. Push 'set' (middle of arrows)
4. Take your picture.

If you're not sure what white balance is correct, the Rebel offers White Balance Bracketing. When bracketing is set, the camera will capture three images. The first is at the white balance setting, the second is 3 stops warmer (more red) and the third is 3 stops cooler (more blue)

To set bracketing-
1. Press menu
2. Press down arrow until WBSHIFT/BKT is selected
3. press set
4. Scroll left (magenta/green tones) or right (blue/amber tones) to set bracketing, up to 3 points each way.
5. Press set.
6. Press shutter half down, compose and shoot.

Custom White balance-
When it HAS to be right and/or your light is mixed and you're just not sure what setting to use, you can set a custom exposure.
to set a custom White balance-
1. Take a picture of a plain white piece of paper (make sure it fills your screen)
2. press menu.
3. press down arrow, choose custom WB
4. press set (you should see the pic of the paper, if not scroll until you do)
5. press set.
6. press menu.
7. Press WB on back of camera
8. Choose Custom WB Setting.
9. Shoot.

The disadvantage is that you will have to set the custom WB using the sheet of paper each time your lighting conditions change. As long as your lighting will be the same, your WB will stay. I tend to stay on the cloudy setting (I like my pics a bit warmer) unless it's something that just isn't coming out right.

A huge advantage of shooting in RAW format is the ability to change the white balance AFTER you take the pictures. I'm still shooting in JPG, so i'll discuss RAW after I give it a fair chance and fall in love.

Here is a sample of the same basic shot (in my kitchen) using each of the white balance settings so you can see the difference.

posted by Steph @ 1:53 PM 0 comments