Where: Gifford Church on the main corner of the village of Gifford, East Lothian
When: Between 11:00 and 11:30 on a bright, but cold winters morning.
How: First of all I had find a good position that I could set up on and where the light was not too bright on the outer wall of the church. The wall is south facing and the sun is low on the horizon.
I was expecting to see that the actual hue of the whole image would be affected by the white balance of the camera.
I decided that I would go beyond just the first couple of white balance settings and I went right through the full set available on the camera. When I returned home I uploaded the images from the camera and did a straight conversion of the RAW image into a JPEG without changing any of the settings from the camera.
AWB - Auto White Balance
I expected this shot to come out with a white balance which was well balanced. I expected to see white whites and blue blues.
D80,Aperture f/18, Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70 lens.
The Auto White Balance of the can have a mild affect on the image as the white was slightly golden with the low yellow sunlight. However the camera worked out the correct hue to apply to the image to stop it being too red or too blue.
Tungsten White Balance
D80,Aperture f/18, Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Tungsten White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70 lens.
From the notes I was expecting a very blue tinted image, and in this image the hue has been affected by the white balance setting.
I was surprised to see how the hue of the grass was affected and how the blue made the colour darker and slightly more saturated. I can see from the white of the church how far the hue has been affected and how the blue of the door appears to be more saturated.
Fluorescent White Balance
D80,Aperture f/18, Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Fluorescent White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70 lens.
I was expecting from this shot an image which had a red hue to it. I was surprised to see that this white balance did not make the final image redder. I was expecting the white to be affected in the same way as the Tungsten White Balance and it to have a deeper red hue to the image. On deeper inspection I would see a red tingle to the white of the church.
Flicking between these first three images I was very surprised to see;
that the AWB had a slightly green hue to it
that the Tungsten White Balance had a blue hue to it and
that the Fluorescent White Balance had a red hue to it.
This is effect was the camera using one of the three primary planes of colour within the sensor (RBG) when influencing the image from the point of the selected white balance.
Fine Weather White Balance
D80,Aperture f/18, Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Fine White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70 lens.
This white balance is almost the same hue and affect in white balance as the Auto White Balance.
Flash White Balance
D80,Aperture f/18, Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Flash White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70 lens.
As the flash did not fire this white balance is purely based on the sunlight coming into the lens. Again this has a slight red hue to it, but not as much as the Fluorescent White Balance.
Cloudy Weather White Balance
D80,Aperture f/18, Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Cloudy White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70 lens.
I found it had to see a difference in hue to the Flash White Balance, if anything the hue was slightly red.
Shade White Balance
D80,Aperture f/18, Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Shade White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70 lens.
This white balance is affected by a slightly yellow hue to the image; this is caused by the Shade White Balance. I can clearly see in the branches of the trees that there is a yellow/red hue to the final image.
5000k White Balance
D80,Aperture f/18, Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), Pattern Metering Mode, 5000k White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70 lens.
I was surprised to see that this White Balance had a slight blue hue to it. Having never used this White Balance setting before I was unsure what the final effect would be. The final image is again similar to the Auto White Balance
PRE (set) White Balance
D80,Aperture f/18, Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), Pattern Metering Mode, PRE White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70 lens.
Having used a bridge camera before and used the PRE setting for white balance I knew that this would have little effect on the final image. It is mainly used in conjunction with a white or grey card to set the White Balance which is out with the preset White Balance available. It is used instead of the Auto White Balance to better control the colours and hues for the final images.
Looking at the thumbnails of the images after uploading them, I could see subtle differences in the hues between some of the White Balance Settings. Some were easier to spot while others were quite subtle.
All in all I was surprised to how far the hue of an image could be pushed by the settings on the camera, again this has shown that the colours can be controlled through and by the camera.
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