Things are still a bit messy on the blog as it is imported from my old website. If you’ve ever done this, you know that these transitions never go as smoothly as they claim. A few links may still be broken. Thanks for your patience.
Lumix G9 – Auto White Balance
My very un-scientific white balance card comparison
Being able to set your white balance in the camera is one of the greatest advantages of shooting digitally over shooting with film. If you are still struggling with how to get good colour in your photos, a white balance card, or digital grey card is one tool that can help you with this.
Get better color in your photos
Most people keep their digital cameras and their camera phones set on Auto White Balance (AWB), which works okay most of the time. But to get the best colour you need to set your white balance to capture the colour temperature of the light falling on the subject. If you set your camera on Auto White Balance, the camera wants to make the colour neutral. If there is predominant amount of one colour, such as orange, like in a sunset or wild storm, then the camera thinks, "Whoa, too much orange, we need to neutralize that." The camera doesn't know what type of light you are shooting in, it just sees orange.
The importance of calibrating your computer screen color
You've been going through all the exercises in my photo lessons. You've spent time getting the perfect lighting, perfect white balance, perfect exposure, and best composition, and you are now ready to have a look at the photos on your computer. You load up your photos and open a couple up in your favorite image editing program. Your heart sinks. Um . . . What happened?Your photos look nothing like the way they were in your scene. Now it's true, your mind can probably fill in the blanks and recreate that magical place for you in true colour, but really deep down you know something isn't quite right.