I have to admit that white balance adjustment in a digital camera, in my
case the E-1, has always been a bit confusing. I think I finally have an
understanding of it and I thought I'd share my thoughts with the rest of you
and hopefully someone will indicate whether I'm on the correct path.
Color temperature never posed a problem... the lower the temperature in
degrees Kelvin, the warmer or more red and yellow the light. The higher the
temperature, the more blue the light source. High school chemistry.
Setting the correct white balance in the camera caused me many headaches.
For example, sunrises and sunsets have very warm colors as we all know and
thus have a color temperature, at least at sea level, at around 3000 to 4000
degrees Kelvin. That makes sense. Let's say 4000 degrees for example. Now
if I'm shooting a sunrise I certainly wouldn't want to set my camera's WB to
4000 degrees as it would appear too blue. I used to scratch my head at this
but then I just learned to ignore it though I always wondered why it
shouldn't be set to 4000, the color temperature of the scene. Now I think
the light bulb has finally lit and I understand. I need to think of my E-1
as being a film camera loaded with 5500K daylight film. If I shot a sunrise
with 5500K film or a 5500K WB in a digital camera it is going to appear very
warm in color balance, close to what it appears to the human eye though a
bit too warm. If I set the WB to 4000K, I would essentially be telling the
camera that I want that red and yellow light to be shown as white noon-type
5500K daylight. Don't want that. As another thought, daylight scenes with
this setting would be bluish. In reality, a WB setting of around 4800-5000
would produce a sunrise image closer to what I would want. Is this
something that has been obvious to other digital photographers in the list
while producing brain numbness in me? :)
Richard L
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