If you have been into photography for a while, you cannot have failed to come across the words “White Balance” on more than one occasion. For those of you who have no idea what this means, let me enlighten you (‘scuse the pun…).
When our eyes look at a scene, they take in the full spectrum of light and all it’s colors. But how do we know what a green “looks” like in contrast to a blue or a red? Well, our brain does that work for us in most of our cases, thankfully. But what about the eye of a camera lens? How can it tell what a color should look like? Well, the answer is simple. Once it know’s what the color white is, it can then determine all the rest of the colors in it’s gamut from this baseline.
In most of today’s compact and digital SRL cameras, this can be done automatically and usually produce excellent results. But if you want to understand more about photography and how you can manipulate your images manually, it is worth taking a look at manual white balancing your camera.
What is White Balance?
White balancing refers to the temperature of light. Daylight is a powerful source of light with a high color temperature, measured in degrees Kelvin (K), that can give a bluish cast to images, whereas artificial light tends to be warmer, giving more orang/yellow/green hues. So when your camera looks at an outdoor scene, it uses it’s pre-programmed reference to what white should “look” like and adjusts the colors accordingly – making them warmer to compensate for the cool blue tone. Inversely, when it looks at an indoor scene lit by a fluorescent overhead tube, it will add a cooler cast to render a natural looking image.
The best way to demonstrate this is to look at your camera’s menu and try to find a manual white balance option. Most cameras these days have this, and it should be fairly simple to find. Look for a symbol that resembles a tulip – this is the universal symbol for white balancing, as you can see from my little compact Canon camera here…
Have a look in your camera manu for the little "tulip" manual white balance option
As you can see, the default setting is “Auto”, where the camera does all of the work in determining what should be white. There are also options for outdoors, sunny days, cloudy days and indoor lighting that are all fairly self-explanatory. Try selecting one of these modes to suit your environment the next time you take your camera out and see what kind of results you come back with. You may find that the color representation and accuracy is better when you manually select the white balance mode instead of leaving it on automatic.
Another advantage to having manual control over your white balancing is you are given more room to move artistically. You can deliberately make a photo cooler or warmer to suit the mood of the scene you are shooting, giving more striking results.
What Does Manual White Balancing Do?
Take a look at the 3 photos below. The first was shot using the “Daylight” setting, which renders out a very natural scene. The little boy’s shirt looks white and all the colors look good. It is naturally a “warm” scene as I took this photo on a sunny day in Africa, and the color temperature is around 5500 K.
The second photo shows the same scene but with the white balance set to “Fluorescent” Now, fluorescent lights give off a greenish color at a lower temperature, so my camera has compensated by adding a magenta cast to the image in an attempt to balance the colors and create white. It doesn’t know that it isn’t shooting in daylight as I have told it manually that the scene is lit my fluorescent bulbs.
The third image is the result of telling the camera that the scene is now lit by tungsten light at around 2850 K, which naturally looks warmer with yellow/orange casts. So, true to form, the camera adds a strong blue tint to the image in an attempt to compensate for this and render an image where white looks white. You can easily see from the little boy’s shirt now that the white is no longer white and the red flip-flop on the little girl’s feet is now purple with the addition of the blue cast.
Adjusting the white balance manually for different conditions can render dramatic results
Have a go with the manual white balancing function on your camera the next time you are out shooting and you will soon be getting a better understanding of how your camera does what it does, as well as opening up new avenues for yourself creatively.
Making great prints from your photographs is by far one of the best ways we, as photographers, can really give ourselves a treat. In this day and age of “everything digital”, there has been a definite shift in the way we present the results of all our hard work. Back in the day – waaaay back oh, 4 years ago, when I emerged blinking into the light after graduating with a film and photography degree, I was proudly lugging my portfolio of printed photographs around with me to show to potential clients and employers my devastating talent (!) Now it seems that everything is web-based and online, with little or no tactile interaction with our photography. Instead of a lovingly crafted book of our best shots, we have a Facebook link or Flickr screen name. Now don’t get me wrong – I have both of the above and they are a fantastic way of showing off what we can do to a lot of people in a very short space of time. But these online galleries shouldn’t be the be-all and end-all of our photography.
Print it Out
If you feel like you are getting stuck in a bit of a rut with your photography, try printing out one or two of your favourite images. Go for it – as large as you can afford. It’s really not at expensive as you think and trust me, when it arrives at your door, you will feel like a kid at Christmas again! Opening it up and gently removing the plastic wrap and laying your eyes on an A3 size printed photograph of what you had previously only seen as a postcard-sized portion of your computer screen, will make you look at your photography in a whole new light.
Get Feedback
Put that print up on your wall and people will see it and – more importantly – comment on it. Granted, the comments are bound to be in your favor as they are guests in your house (!) but you know what? It’s nice to hear compliments about our photographs. It gives us a boost and added incentive to keep our love for photography alive and kicking.
Gift Your Photographic Prints
I discovered this last year when, being a tad “financially challenged”, someone mentioned that I could print out one of my photographs and give it to my brother as a wedding present. After rummaging around in my hard drive, I came across a shot of a scene near where we lived as kids and had it printed on a canvas for him and his bride to-be. They were over the moon at receiving such a unique gift and it is now gracing the wall of their new home.
The great thing about giving your prints as gifts is that they are totally unique – to you and the recipient! And that is hard to beat however you look at it.
So try it for yourself, have a look through your favourite photos, get a couple printed out big and prepare to experience your photography in a whole new light!
Well, in a nutshell, it refers to how sensitive the camera’s film or sensor is to light. If you look through your camera’s menu, you will most likely see options like 100, 200, 400, etc. up to 3200 or perhaps 6400 and higher. The rule of thumb is, the lower the number, the less sensitive to light the sensor will be. This means that in order to produce a well exposed image, the shutter speed will have to reduce and/or the aperture will have to be opened wider in order to let in enough light.
Why Should I Use a Low ISO?
It is worth knowing that the lower the ISO you shoot with, the better the quality of the resulting photograph. In both traditional film and digital photography, “noise” or the graininess in the image increases when the ISO increases. For landscape photography, for example, the camera can be mounted on a tripod and a slower shutter speed can be chosen as the subject is stationary. A smaller aperture can also be selected which will afford you a lovely deep depth of field, keeping everything from the foreground to the background in focus.
This means that the ISO rating can be set low – as low as you can in order to achieve the best quality image possible from your camera. As a guideline, a low ISO rating is in the region of 50-200.
Are There Benefits to Using a High ISO?
Absolutely! What if you are shooting sports or nature – subjects that move faster than a mountain range? Then a faster shutter speed is necessary to capture the action. In order to create a good exposure in the very short time the shutter is open, the sensor in your camera needs to be much more sensitive to the tiny amount of light hitting it. If you raise the sensitivity by increasing the ISO rating, this will “balance out” the exposure, so to speak. So, the higher the ISO rating you shoot with, the faster you can set your shutter speeds. Faster shutter speeds also means that you can hand hold your camera without getting blur from camera shake, so no need for a tripod.
The added sensitivity to light with a higher ISO also gives you better results in low light situations. But the advantage of being able to hand-hold a shot at dusk comes at a price – the noise in the photograph will become more noticeable.
“High” ISO’s are generally in the region of 500 and above.
The color reproduction, overall contrast and detail will be much better than the same scene shot at a much higher ISO. Take a look at the 2 photos below to see what I mean.
The fine detail of ISO 100 is in stark contrast to that of 6400, which displays noticable grain as well as reduced contrast and color detail. The one benefit of the image shot at 6400 was I could hand hold the camera in the realatively low-light scene. The 100 ISO shot needed the camera on a tripod to avoid camera shake.
They were both shot at an aperture setting of 5.6. The first one was set to ISO 100, meaning that the exposure time needed to be 1/3 second to achieve a well-exposed image. But the result is sharp, clear and with no real noticeable grain.
The second shot was again, 5.6, but this time I raised the ISO to 6400. The added sensitivity meant that I could use a faster shutter speed of 1/160th second – but look at the horrible grain when viewed at 100%.
Which One Should I Use?
Well, with today’s advances in digital camera technology, the images produced at even relatively high ISO levels are becoming better and better. In-camera processing can remove a lot of the noise produced at higher levels, so it is a matter of experimenting. My experience has shown me that a good place to start for general, all-purpose photography is ISO 400.
So getting to know how ISO ratings, shutter speeds and exposure times affect each other is an invaluable step in becoming a better photographer.
Graphic designers Sam Cox and Justin LaRosa are nerdy art geniuses. They made a letterpress printer out of Legos and are using it to create great retro-looking prints. Check it out their handmade Lego prints here.
This week we’ll be featuring the top 7 most popular photos in this little site’s history. Starting today and running through Sunday we will count down to the #1 photo yet to be featured on Wozofoto.
While I love my DSLR, there’s no reason you can’t take great photos with the average point and shoot camera. In fact, most SLR owners that I know also use a point and shoot camera because of their size and the fact that they can take great photos. “But don’t I need to know about all the different settings?” you ask. Helpful, but not as important as two things: using (or not using) the flash and improving your composition by using a very simple rule.
1. The Flash Is Not Always Your Friend
Your point and shoot probably has as good a lens as your friend’s SLR (if he hasn’t upgraded) and your photos can turn out even better than his if you use light and flash appropriately with your point and shoot. Whenever possible, turn off the flash – it creates harsh shadows as opposed to the natural looking shadows created by ambient light. Look for a button with a lightning bolt on your camera to turn off the flash.
While taking photos without a flash can give you much more natural looking photos, it can to lead to more blurry photos. Be careful to hold the your camera still when taking photos or use a tripod when convenient. It also helps to adjust the ISO on your camera to 400 or 800 for indoor, daytime photography.
2. The Rule of Thirds
Do you always center your subject? STOP! Your photos will be much more interesting if you use a compositional rule of thumb called the rule of thirds. To quote Wikipedia: “The rule states that an image should be imagined as divided into nine equal parts by two equally-spaced horizontal lines and two equally-spaced vertical lines, and that important compositional elements should be placed along these lines or their intersections.”
Do you see how the tree in this photo is not centered, but is placed at the intersection of two of the lines? Also, the horizon falls on one of the horizontal lines.
When photographing a single object, say a tree or a person, it is often best to align the subject with the left vertical line. Also, for a person, align the eyes along the top vertical line.
Your photo album software (such as iPhoto) will probably allow you to superimpose this grid on your photos to help you crop them. With some practice, this will become second nature and you’ll be on your way to taking much better photos.
Stacey Axelrod, today’s featured photographer, is generously donating her commission from all sales today to Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the global leader of the breast cancer movement. Stacey’s grandmother, a 50+ year breast cancer survivor passed away recently and Stacey will be making a personal memorial donation to fight breast cancer. Stacey’s grandmother was on a boat with her when she took today’s photograph. Wozofoto.com will match her donation. Click here if you would like to donate directly to Susan G. Komen for the Cure.
Digital cameras have improved dramatically in quality and price over the past few years, but what kind of camera should you buy?
Point and shoot cameras are small, cheap, and easy to use. If you don’t want to carry a camera bag or be bothered with fancy settings, a point in shoot is the way to go. A compact camera that takes nice photos that you always have with you can be much better than a fancy DSLR that is always left at home. However, there are some drawbacks. Many point and shoots take 10 mega-pixel photos or better, but mega-pixels don’t tell the whole story. A DSLR with 10 MP will take better looking photos than a point and shoot with 10 MP. The image sensor won’t be nearly as good, which reduces the quality of the image no matter how high the resolution, giving you grainier images than you’d see with a DSLR.
If you are an aspiring photographer, a point and shoot will not be good enough. My favorite thing about my DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) is that there is no lag, it takes photos as I press the shutter button. It’s so much easier to capture the moment! The superior image sensor (up to 25 times better than that of a point and shoot) allows the camera to take photos at a higher shutter speed, reducing your chances for getting a grainy image. My second favorite thing about a DSLR is your ability to control depth of field. You know how professional photographs often have a blurry background? You can do that with a DSRL and impress your friends. As you develop as a photographer you will appreciate being able to adjust the settings for different situations and you can use different lenses (wide angle, long range, etc.) and different flashes.
Cnet.com rates Nikon D5000($665) as the best entry level DSLR, but you can’t go wrong with the Canon Digital Rebel ($559).
($399) as the best point and shoot and the 
($120) as the best budget point and shoot.
($665) as the best entry level DSLR, but you can’t go wrong with the 
($559).