White Balance

What's so important about white balance? Everything. The above picture is the finished composition. How's that look compared to the orange cast below. Strobist info: SB-24 bounced off ceiling at about 1/4 power, 1/80 sec. exposure, f/5.6. White balance set to Incandescent. Well that is the end result, but what did we start with? Here's the first picture with the flash setting right where we want it.


This one the white balance is set to Auto, the default. The problem is that the ambient light in the room is incandescent and the studio lights are a mix of daylight CFL and incandescent floods. The camera couldn't compensate for all the yellow/orange light. When the White Balance Setting is manually changed to match the majority of the ambient light and then use the flash for fill, the result is picture perfect. I tried to correct this is post production, but the results don't measure up to nailing the exposure in the first place. Here's the color corrected Auto White Balance:


The color is washed out. The skin tones are wrong. It's doesn't pop! So the quick tip for today is to set the white balance when one type of light out powers the rest, or there's only one kind of light. Remember if the color is wrong on the review screen, check the white balance and see if the colors come out right.

Happy shooting until next time.