2

CHAPTER
NIGHT AND LOW-LIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY / All About Light and Exposure

■   Fluorescent. The fluorescent white balance,

as shown in Figure 2-22, starts to push blues
into the photo because the color of fluores-
cent light is usually warmer to start with. This
setting is also used to counteract the warmer
fluorescent bulbs. Fluorescent lighting can
cover a wider range of colors depending on
the bulbs, the power consumption, and the
shutter speed. The wide variety of fluorescent
bulbs makes this setting more of an educated
guess than anything else, and when shooting
under these lighting conditions, I would
rather use a custom white balance setting.

■   Incandescent/tungsten. The incandescent or

tungsten white balance setting is used in
lighting situations where the light is much
warmer than sunlight. This setting counter-
acts the red color in a scene, but can make
shots taken indoors look like they were taken
in pure white light, which may not actually be
a good thing. People’s expectations are that
photos taken indoors will look warm; if they
are too white, then the image will look wrong,
as shown in Figure 2-23. I prefer the fluores-
cent setting, which removes some of the
warmth, but not all of it.

■   Custom white balance. The custom white

balance setting, shown in Figure 2-24, allows
the photographer to set the white balance for
the exact color of light present in the scene
and adds blue or red as needed to even out the
light in the scene. Most cameras allow you to
take a test photograph to use as a basis for the
white balance setting.

ABOUT THIS PHOTO David photographed with an off-camera

flash using fluorescent white balance. Taken at 1/250 second, f/5.6, and

ISO 200.

2-22

ABOUT THIS PHOTO David photographed with an off-camera

flash using incandescent white balance. Taken at 1/250 second, f/5.6,

and ISO 200.

2-23

ABOUT THIS PHOTO David photographed with an off-camera

flash using a custom white balance. Taken at 1/250 second, f/5.6, and

ISO 200.

2-24

The white balance can also be used

to change the color of your image, in

some cases pretty drastically, in postproduction. There

is more on that in Chapter 11.

x-ref