DPP-Part 2; Exercise 6

Exercise; Colour cast and white balance

There are two parts to this exercise, for the first part I have to choose a scene or a subject to photograph in different outdoor lighting situations and use my white balance function on my camera, to change the image by changing the white balance. The different outdoor lighting situations are as follows;-

·         Sunlight

·         Cloudy

·         Open shade on a sunny day

 

I then have to use the following white balances;-  

·         Auto

·         Sunny

·         Shade

·         Cloudy

1; Sunlight

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

          

 Auto                                                                                                                                                           Cloudy

                                                         

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shade                                                                                                                                                         Sunny

 

All taken with; 1/200 seconds at f/9.0

The notable difference in these images, is the brickwork colour of the building, with the Auto setting the church looks considerably ‘cooler’ than the other images. With the cloudy and shade images, there is much more of a ‘warmth’ to the building, however, it makes the sky look almost dirty, rather than the bright blue colour that it was.

Out of these images, I prefer the sunny white balance.  

 

2; Cloudy

 

Auto

Cloudy

Shade

Sunny

 

 

 

All taken with; 1/100 seconds at f/3.5

As with all of the images, in this part of the exercise, I think the cloudy and shade images look considerably different and that’s not to say that they look better or worse than any other setting, it’s merely a matter of preference.

With regards to the second set of images, as you can see, the white of the snow drops are the major difference here, although, the green areas are also affected but the whole image in the shade picture has more of a, what I would call, 70’s feel.

I think due to this reason; my favourite image is the shade image, although I do really like the Auto setting as well    

 

3; Open shade on a sunny day

 

Auto                                                                                                                                                                          Cloudy





















Shade                                                                                                                                                                          Sunny
 

All taken with; 1/125 seconds at f/9.0

With regards to these images, I had to pay this guy to stay still!, as they say, money talks!.

On comparison with the first two sets of images, I feel the best images are actually the cloud and shade images, the light is not as bright and overbearing, you can also see the detail of him and he looks a lot softer is those sets of white balance.

My favourite in these sets of images is the cloudy picture , as his skin doesn’t seem to change as much as it has in the shade image, but it still softens the light so it’s not as over exposed.

For the second part of this exercise, I have to shoot three versions of white balance, which are;-

·         Sunlight

·         Tungsten

·         Auto

But using the same image, indoors at dusk, by having the camera inside, looking out.

Auto

Sunny

Tungsten

 

It’s extremely interesting how the white balance in this set of images, drastically effect the picture and it is apparent how important the white balance function is on your camera. The sunny image is dreadfully orange due to the different Kelvin’s that it is trying to use to process the image.

The best image in this set is the Tungsten image, for obvious reasons!.

 
These exercises has taking me deeper in to using white balance, when and how with the different conditions that happen and will use it as part of my photographic process.