MomShots

I was playing with my kids on my bed and taking some random shots this morning. They were making faces and showing me their newest Lego spaceship creations. While I was quickly snapping away, I had my White Balance on Auto.

Maybe I should back up a little bit. Do you know what White Balance is? A simple way of explaining might be to say that White Balance is the basis for how your camera judges the colors that it “sees”. If the color white has a blue tint, then all the other colors it sees is going to be biased towards blue. Same goes for red. If your camera sees white and thinks it has a red or pink tint then all the other colors will lean towards the red side of the color wheel.

You may have noticed taking photos inside and think that they look too orange or even too blue. I always get photos that are heavy on the oranges when I take photos in my living room and kitchen. This photo below is a prime example of what I am talking about, my niece is sitting in an orange basket, but what we are concerned with is the overall warmth of the photo. See how her skin tones are very yellow?

EXAMPLE of heavy on the orange.

White Balance on Auto. No Flash. ISO: 1600, Shutter Speed: 1/30, Aperture: f/4.8, Focal Length: 48mm

The point of the White Balance is to tell your camera exactly how you want it to see white. Your camera probably has a a few options that you can choose from. They usually have Auto, Sun, Shade, Incandescent (or Tungsten), Fluorescent, and Flash. Those are the pretty much the basics but some cameras have an additional Custom setting - and there are varying degrees of how custom you can get that depend on your camera.

I generally keep my White Balance on Auto because I can pick up my camera and snap some shots quickly (good for kids) and then if I find that my Auto setting isn’t meeting my needs I adjust to the kind of light that is present.

Back to my original inspiration for this post. I was snapping a few shots of my kids while we were wresting and playing on my bed. The first few shots were kind of grey-blue looking.

EXAMPLE of White Balance on Auto. No Flash.

ISO: 800, Shutter Speed: 1/60, Aperture: f/4.5, Focal Length: 35mm

I turned on the flash because it was just a bit too dark. This is my result. You can see the difference, I’m sure. Much warmer looking. His skin has that nice creamy, pink appearance that is much more accurate to how he really looks. Not all sallow and grey looking.

EXAMPLE of White Balance on Auto using on camera Flash.

ISO: 800, Shutter Speed: 1/60, Aperture: f/6.3, Focal Length: 105mm

Then I decided that I didn’t want to take shots with the flash because I wasn’t liking the dark shadows that show up. I opened the window blinds a bit to let in some more light. My problem was that my camera was still on Auto. Auto just wasn’t making the correct reading. It was still too grey looking.

EXAMPLE of White Balance on Auto with a little more sunlight coming in.

No Flash. ISO: 800, Shutter Speed: 1/60, Aperture: f/7.1, Focal Length: 92mm

So my next step was to adjust my White Balance. Since I decided to adjust the White Balance I had to determine what kind of light was available to my camera. I didn’t have the ceiling light on in my room and so the light was coming in through the window, but even though it is sunshine I decided to put my White Balance on the Shade setting because we were not in full sunlight.

EXAMPLE of White Balance on Shade.

No Flash. ISO: 800, Shutter Speed: 1/60, Aperture: f/7.1, Focal Length: 92mm

See how much better and more realistic the colors are in this photo? It has nice pink tones, soft shadows and generally just looks better.

So as not to play favorites between my boys, I am adding one more photo example of the White Balance set on Shade with my youngest son. You can see how the colors on this photo are far superior to the first two photos at the top of the page.

EXAMPLE of White Balance on Shade.

No Flash. ISO: 800, Shutter Speed: 1/60, Aperture: f/7.1, Focal Length: 52mm

Next time your photos are showing up with a goofy tint, try thinking about the type of light that is available and adjust the setting on your White Balance. You can also play with it to create an effect to further your artistic expression. For example, a photo with a blue tint might give the impression of cold.

I have a photo that I took at the end of summer 2008. It was a very chilly day and my son was outside barefoot playing in the yard. I took this photo and didn’t adjust my White Balance. My camera was seeing the light as having a slight blue tint. I actually really like that tint because it shows me how cold it really was. On first impression, one might look at this shot and say, “Oh, too bad you didn’t adjust the White Balance.” But I like it that way, it’s part of my artistic expression on this particular shot.

EXAMPLE of White Balance setting to create a mood.

No Flash. Shutter Speed: 1/200, Aperture: f/1.8, Focal Length: 50mm

In the future we should discuss White Balance even further. A lot of cameras will let you tell your camera what white is. You can set a Custom White Balance and tell it exactly who the boss is. But that’s for another day. Have some fun playing with your White Balance settings and see what you think.