Setting white balance

If you have a digital camera you will most probably have seen the “white balance” or “WB” button, but what is it? In a nutshell if the human eye looks at a sheet of white paper in the morning it looks white because our eye adjusts to white automatically but the camera will see the paper as having a blue cast

 If the same bit of paper was held up in front of our eye at lunchtime and again at sunset our eye still compensates and sees the paper as white but not so with the camera. So you can set your camera at “auto white balance” which takes an average only and is most of the time incorrect.

You can change to the little icons for “sun” “shade” “incandescent” “fluro” or “night” all of these are ok but nowhere as good as setting the exact white balance for the light you are in. Go to set white balance if your camera has it – say yes, then aim your camera at a piece of white paper filling the whole frame (you may have to turn of the auto focus) press the shutter release (like taking a photo) and it will be “set” just for where you are now – if you move to another area you would have to change is again.

It is important to note that when you set your white balance all the colours in your photo will be correct and without colour cast even if your subject is standing right next to a yellow wall.