White balance is a camera setting that adjusts the color balance of light the you’re shooting in so that it appears a neutral white, and it’s used to counteract the orange/yellow color of artificial light, for example, or the cold light of deep shadow under a blue sky so that portrait shots taken in shade look more natural
White balance preset are usually described according to the conditions you’re shooting in, so cameras will typically offer ‘daylight’, ‘cloudy’, ‘shade’, ‘incandescent’ and other presets. In professional studio photography, though, it’s more common to measure white balance in ‘color temperature’, which is measured in degrees Kelvin
For example, daylight is reckoned to have a color temperature of around 5200-5500 degrees Kelvin, artificial tungsten light is around 2400-2600 degrees Kelvin, while open shade under a blue sky can be as high as 7500-9500 degrees Kelvin. Studio lighting is generally calibrated in degrees Kelvin so that photographers can more easily match the camera’s white balance to the light source.
The description and symbol for the above white balances are just rough estimates for the actual lighting they work best under. In fact, cloudy could be used in place of daylight depending on the time of day, elevation, or degree of haziness. In general, if your image appears too cool on your LCD screen preview (regardless of the setting), you can quickly increase the color temperature by selecting a symbol farther down on the list above. If the image is still too cool (or warm if going the other direction), you can resort to manually entering a temperature in the Kelvin setting.
(information taken from the internet.)
White balance preset are usually described according to the conditions you’re shooting in, so cameras will typically offer ‘daylight’, ‘cloudy’, ‘shade’, ‘incandescent’ and other presets. In professional studio photography, though, it’s more common to measure white balance in ‘color temperature’, which is measured in degrees Kelvin
For example, daylight is reckoned to have a color temperature of around 5200-5500 degrees Kelvin, artificial tungsten light is around 2400-2600 degrees Kelvin, while open shade under a blue sky can be as high as 7500-9500 degrees Kelvin. Studio lighting is generally calibrated in degrees Kelvin so that photographers can more easily match the camera’s white balance to the light source.
The description and symbol for the above white balances are just rough estimates for the actual lighting they work best under. In fact, cloudy could be used in place of daylight depending on the time of day, elevation, or degree of haziness. In general, if your image appears too cool on your LCD screen preview (regardless of the setting), you can quickly increase the color temperature by selecting a symbol farther down on the list above. If the image is still too cool (or warm if going the other direction), you can resort to manually entering a temperature in the Kelvin setting.
(information taken from the internet.)
My examples of white balance
Auto white balance Daylight Shade Cloudy
Tungsten light White fluorescent light Flash Custom
worst |
best |