Nikon Skills

Ingenious recipes for stunning shots

- Matthew Richards

Back in the days of film you’d have to switch the roll in your camera between ‘daylight’ and ‘tungsten’, depending on whether you were shooting outdoors or inside. Now, cameras can adapt to almost any conditions with a range of white balance (WB) settings. But what is WB and how does it work?

Well, different light sources have a variety of colour temperatures. For example, tungsten (light bulb) lighting gives the lowest colour temperature that we’ll usually shoot under, at around 3000 K (degrees Kelvin). Ascending the scale are sunrise or sunset, followed by clear daylight, electronic flash and cloudy conditions, while shady daylight tops the list at around 8000 K.

To keep your whites white, and your greys neutral, the WB of your camera needs to react with the colour temperature of the light source. An area of confusion is that a light source with a colour temperature that’s low on the Kelvin scale, like candlelight, will produce a ‘warm’ colour balance with a more orange or yellow cast. Conversely, shady daylight with a

high colour temperature produces a ‘cool’ colour cast, with a shift to the blue end of the spectrum.

Human vision is very adept at reacting to ranging colour temperatures, but digital cameras need some help. The ‘Auto’ WB setting in your camera works by assuming that the brightest area of a scene is white or neutral grey. This works most of the time, but it can be fooled. Where the brightest area is strongly coloured, like the sky at sunset, it can counteract and drain the colour of a scene by trying to ‘correct’ it…

Project one: Core skills

What is white balance?

Matthew Richards explains colour temperature and shares a few tricks on how to use it to make shots pop

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