http://www.digitalcameraworld.com MARCH 2020 DIGITAL CAMERA^59
How to avoid
Auto WB
Manually adjust the white balance
to get consistent colours in a shootCAMERA COLLEGEWe’ve previously explained in Camera College that
there are occasions when you might want to switch off
the Auto white balance setting (often abbreviated to AWB on
the camera). With AWB, the camera will remove colour casts
from your pictures automatically. While this is really useful,
it does mean that there may be subtle or significant
variations in colours between images.
Imagine you’re doing a fashion shoot, and you take a
picture of one person in a blue T-shirt, followed by someone
in a red T-shirt. The camera would probably see these as
strong colour casts that need to be toned down, but it
would treat each image differently.
You can manually change the white balance to one of
the presets, or even create your own custom white balance.
This will give you consistent results as long as the light
doesn’t change. It can be worth doing this even if you shoot
raw files. If every image from a shoot has the same exposure
and white balance, it’s much easier to batch-process them
later (that is, apply the same image processing to the entire
set rather than having to tweak them all individually).
Consistency is important if you are combining images later,
whether in a panorama, an HDR image or a timelapse clip.Camera skills Manual flash
Take full control over a flash exposureIt can sometimes be useful
to leave the ISO set to Auto
when you shoot in Manual
exposure mode. It allows
you to set a specific
combination of aperture
and shutter speed – such
as fast shutter speed to
freeze movement and a
small aperture to increase
the depth of field. The
camera will increase or
decrease the ISO to ensure
the image is exposed
‘correctly’ as the lighting
changes. You can set the
minimum and maximum
range of ISOs it can choose
from in your camera menu.
Of course, this does give
the camera some control
over the brightness of the
image, and it may decidethat the image should
be brighter or darker
when it doesn’t need to be.
Some cameras allow you to
use exposure compensation
even in Manual mode, so
you can fix this problem.Camera skills Auto ISO
How Auto can be useful in Manual mode
If you set a flashgun to
Manual control, you have
to choose the correct flash
power to reach the subject.
You do this by adjusting
the power in fractional
increments. 1/1 means
that the flash will fire at fullpower, but you can reduce
the exposure by selecting
1/2 power, 1/4 power and
so on. WIth Manual flash,
you know the camera
won’t make any
adjustments, so there
should be no surprises!Power up If you fire the flashgun at 1/1 (full power), you
may have to wait some time before you can shoot again.Auto whiteShade manual