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Colour Temperature and White Balance |
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The human eye is an amazing instrument – it adapts to changing light levels easily and quickly, and it corrects for any changes in colour temperature by working seamlessly with our brain. What exactly is colour temperature then?
The easiest way to understand colour temperature is to look at the sun. A sunset or sunrise has warm orange or red hues, while a mid-day sun is neutral in colour. When it’s rainy or heavily overcast, you can see that the sky takes on a bluish hue. Similarly, candles give out a reddish warm light, while some street lamps give off a greenish hue. |
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The colour cast of the different light is known as the colour temperature. Different light sources give off different spectrum of the light band, and these differences may not be obvious to the eye (since they’re compensated by the mind) but they are very obvious to the digital sensor.
By choosing the white balance, we can correct for the difference in the colour temperature of various light sources and create neutral looking photos in various forms of light sources. The table below lists the most common types of light sources that a DSLR can compensate for. Always make sure you select the most appropriate form of white balance setting so that your photos do not take on an unintended colour cast. |
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| Using colour temperature creatively |
| You can use colour temperature creatively by deliberately using another colour temperature setting for the scene. For example, you might be shooting in the late evening and you’d like the dusk sky to be even bluer than it is. So you can set the colour temperature to tungsten even when you’re shooting in daylight, turning the sky even more blue than usual! |
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