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White Balance & Colour Temperature
Suggestion: Use the white balance "auto"
setting. If you get strange colour tints,
try to calibrate the white balance or change
to preset settings to suit the colour
temperature of the light source.
Colour temperature measures the
colour quality of a light source. The
concept of colour temperature is based on
the radiation emitted by a black-body and is
very technical and complicated. To the
photographer, the lighting is "warm" if
there is a yellowish hue, and "cool" if
there is a bluish hue.
Digital photography brings a whole
new dimension to the area of colour
temperature in photography. Previously, in
conventional photography, the photographer
had to use colour correction filters to
correct for the various colour temperatures.
There was also the choice of tungsten or
daylight-balanced film. For digital
photographers, things are less complicated
as colour temperature correction is usually
automatic.
White balance is quite a new term for
conventional photographers, although
videographers have long been using it.
Basically, white balance is what the camera
perceives as true white. A white object may
be yellowish-white under tungsten lights,
slightly greenish-white under fluorescent
lights, or slightly bluish-white on a cloudy
day. Basically, the camera tries to adjust
the colour balance to achieve a tonality of
white that is "correct".
In most cases, the white balance is quite
satisfactory. If the predominant light
source for a scene comes from a tungsten
light bulb, the image will appear yellowish.
Most digital cameras automatically correct
for it, and produce an image without the
yellow hue. Certain top-end models allow you
to calibrate the white balance by selecting
an area in the scene that is white. This
option gives you the highest accuracy.
On the other hand, there are times when we
do want to retain the yellow hue to
give an image more life. Play around with
the various white balance settings to attain
the most pleasing colour balance.
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LONG EXPOSURE
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