White balance control is to make white objects in the actual environment appear “real” white in the shot.
For example, your cat is white, but if you put it in the sunset, will it still be white? The white balance control can realize the real scene of the scene.
Light sources of different properties will produce different color trends in the picture. For example, the light of a candle will make the picture orange, while the light after dusk will cover the scene with a layer of blue cold tone. Our vision system will automatically compensate for different lights, so whether in a warm or cold light environment, a piece of white paper will always be white. But the camera is not. It will only directly record the color presented in front of it, which will cause the picture color to be warm or cold.
Each light source has its own color, or “color temperature”, which varies from red to blue. The light emitted by candles, sunsets and incandescent lamps is closer to red, and the light tone they present in the picture is “warm”; In contrast, the clear blue sky will make the picture appear blue “cold”.
The first step to solve the white balance: understand the color temperature
Color temperature is the color of light
Without too much principle, please remember some color temperature values of common environments:
1700 K: match light
1850 K: candlelight
3000 K: sunrise and sunset
3200 K: Incandescent lamp
5600 K: midday sunshine
7000 K: Cloudy sky
20000 K: clear blue sky (K is in Kelvin)
The warmer you feel, the redder the color, the lower the color temperature; The more “cold” colors, the bluer the color, the higher the color temperature.
What’s the use of remembering these color temperatures? You can adjust the white balance!
When the camera is set to color temperature=field color temperature, the camera will restore the most accurate color
When the color temperature set by the camera is>the scene color temperature, the picture will be orange red
When the color temperature set by the camera is less than the on-site color temperature, the picture will turn blue and blue
Step 2 of white balance: setting
The relationship between color temperature and white balance is understood. Next, you can set it on the camera in minutes. Generally speaking, there are four modes of white balance: K mode, scene mode, custom white balance, and automatic white balance.
1、K mode
Many camera white balance options have a letter K option. This mode is the one mentioned above. You can manually adjust the color temperature of the camera.
For example, if you want a picture to turn yellow, the camera color temperature value will be set higher than the ambient color temperature. The higher the color temperature is, the stronger the yellow color is. If you want a picture to turn blue, the camera value will be lower than the ambient color temperature, and the lower the color temperature is, the bluer it will be. If you want a normal color, set the values to be consistent
- Automatic white balance
It’s the most convenient, especially for those who can’t remember various color temperatures. In 90% of cases, Auto White Balance (AWB) is enough, and like Canon Nikon’s automatic white balance, it is very accurate. In addition, if you shoot in raw format in the early stage, you need to re adjust the white balance in the later stage, and the image quality will hardly be lost.
However, the automatic white balance is not absolutely accurate. When the color temperature is particularly high/low, the camera will be messy.
3、Scene mode
Because you know you don’t know the color temperature of the surrounding environment, many scenes are preset inside the camera. For example, the cloud icon represents cloudy, the house icon represents shadow, and the bulb icon represents incandescent light, etc.
For example, if you know that the scene is the light source of tungsten filament lamp and the photos taken will be yellow, you can shout to the camera: “tungsten filament lamp”! Then the picture will be in normal color.
4、Custom Mode
The most accurate thing is to customize the white balance. The icon is the two right angled triangles. The principle is to find a white object (white card, white shirt) on the scene and tell the camera, “You just take it as white and shoot me white!” When the camera took it white, the other problem colors were corrected.
To sum up:
Setting the color temperature is to set the white balance. The most recommended automatic white balance mode is fast, simple and relatively accurate.