White Balance

Most modern digital cameras give you the ability to alter the White Balance setting on your camera. Why is this important? Because it tells the camera what combination of red, green and blue is pure white. The wrong setting can produce unwanted colour casts in your image.

Much of the time the Auto white balance setting will do a good job of rendering accurate colours - but there are many situations where altering your white balance will result in an improved images. Ordinary household lights are incandescent bulbs - and the camera will do a better job if you change the setting to Incandescent.

Most common options:

Sunny/Daylight

Cloudy/overcast

Shade

Fluorescent/Office lighting

Incandescent/house bulbs

Flash

Dig out your camera manual - and find out how to change the white balance setting. It will be normally be a straightforward process.

And finally... Don't forget to check your white balance before every shoot or you will end up with some odd looking shots!

For a more in-depth discussion of white balance and colour temperature - click on title of this post.

More soon

Rick