Colour Cast and White Balance

Natural Outdoor Lighting

To familiarise myself with the white balance setting on my camera I am going to shoot three outdoor scenes with different lighting conditions (Cloud, Sun and Shade). For each condition I will take four shots using a different White Balance setting each time (Auto, Daylight, Cloud and Shade).

First of all I chose a scene with some Red Dear being the main subject. This scene is in the cloudy condition.

Cloudy

Using the cloudy white balance setting, the colour of the dear appears perfect but I feel that the white clouds between the trees appear slightly pink or red.

Auto

The Auto balance setting has removed the pinky/red haze from the background but it seems to have dulled the tones of the dear's fur.

Daylight

Daylight has had a very similar effect, it has dulled the fur and also given the background a very blue haze.

Shade

Finally, the shade balance has kept the dear a nice colour but the background is now far too pinky/red.

From all the settings above, the Cloudy setting has definitely given the best result but I would prefer there to be less of a pinky haze in the background. I would be inclined to edit this shot using Photoshop to see if I could put it's colour somewhere between that of cloudy and auto.

Sunlight

Daylight

Auto

In the Auto shot, the colour of the lighthouse has turned slightly orange and could be mistaken for a shot taken as the sun is rising or setting. The sea is also very dark in this version.

Cloudy

Similar to the daylight shot, however it appears to lack as much depth and could do with more contrast.

Shade

The shade shot seems to have made the sea appear black. There is also still a slight yellow/orange tone to the white paint of the lighthouse.

The daylight white balance setting has definitely produced the best results in this sunny scene.

Shade

Shade

The shade setting has made a very good attempt at balancing this shot, it may be slightly too orangey though.

Auto

The auto setting clearly didn't know what to do here, this version is far too blue.

Daylight

This setting isn't actually that bad however it's sightly too blue which is most noticeable when looking at the highlighted areas on the red leaves. Saying that, I feel this shot is acceptable.

Cloudy

Cloudy has done a very good job at balancing the colour here, it's very similar to the shade shot, but still appears too blue.

After reviewing all of the shots from the shadey condition, the shade balance has definitely done the best job at balancing the images colour. I still feel that it's slightly orange but when viewed side by side with another it's obviously the more accurate representation of the scene.

In the three conditions above, the best results have been produced when shooting with the white balance setting that corresponds to the condition. If a specific effect/colour cast is desired, then choosing an opposing setting can give very nice results. Also, if shooting in RAW format, it is possible to change the White Balance setting after the time of shooting using RAW processing software such as Adobe Camera RAW. This is extremely useful for those times when you just forget to change your camera's white balance. With Adobe Camera RAW it is not only possible to alter an images white balance setting, there is a temperature slider that can be used to customise the white balance to give a very specific colour tone.

Mixed Lighting (Indoor and Outdoor)

Next I will look at white balance settings for a mixed lighting condition. I shall shoot one photo from inside the house looking out and one from outside looking in, experimenting with the Sunlight, Tungsten and auto balance settings as I go.

Auto

Using the Auto White balance setting, my camera has performed quite well in calculating the tone for the inside of the house, however overall the image appears to have a blue haze with the outside area in particular being very blue.

 

Daylight

Using the Daylight setting, the outside area now has the correct colour tone but the inside area appears quite orange due to the tungsten lamps.

 

Tungsten

Finally, using the Tungsten setting has turned the outside area extremely blue but has done a nice job with correcting the tones for the inside area. A lot of light from outside was spilling in through the patio doors (seen in the shot) and widows (to the right of the shot) and therefore even the tungsten light areas have a slight blueish haze when using this white balance setting.

Out of the three images above, I feel that the Daylight balanced image is the most accurate and aesthetic representation of the scene because the outside area has the most accurate colour tones; with it being the main focal point of the shot this is more important than the inside area having the correct colour tones.