White balance techniques 99
Most digital SLRs have a Flash setting, but when using
either on-camera or studio fl ash units, Joe has found that this
setting may be too warm or too cool, depending on the brand
of camera you’re using. He seldom uses it, preferring to
employ the Daylight setting for most fl ash shots. But don’t
just take his word for it. Do a few tests. Shoot a neutral-colored
concrete fl oor with fl ash using Flash, Daylight, and Auto settings
and you’ll see your particular camera color bias with the
Flash setting.
On location
Of the many impacts that digital imaging can have on the kind
of pictures you make, the biggest must be on low-light photog-
raphy. Unlike shooting fi lm, the LCD screen on the camera’s
back provides instant feedback, allowing you not only to make
exposure changes, but also to tweak depth of fi eld to get just
what you want, as well as Color Balance, with no fi lters
required.
When working under low-light conditions, some things won’t
change. Slow shutter speeds mean that you need a sturdy tripod,
and more often than not, shooting in little or no light means an
increase in ISO speeds. With CMOS or CCD imaging sensors,
a combination of slow shutter speeds and high ISO spells N-O-
I-S-E. Traditional photographers have to cope with grain from
higher ISO fi lm, so the trade-off between working with the two
media ain’t all that different.
Some digital SLRs also let you set specifi c color temperature in
degrees Kelvin. At a fi re truck factory in Colorado where Joe
was shooting, the color temperature would vary 500–1000 K,
depending on where he was standing. The large, colorful vehi-
cles parked all around tossed additional color pollution into the
mix just to make it more interesting. Who ya gonna call? Gossen
Color-Pro 3F, that’s who.
You place the Gossen Color-Pro 3F color-temperature meter in
the same position that you would for making an incident light
meter reading, push the button, and it displays the color tem-
perature in degrees Kelvin. No translation necessary; it doesn’t
get much simpler than that. In the fi lm days, Joe would need to
have translated that into a color-correction cfi lter, screwed it onto
the camera (lost exposure due to the inevitable fi lter factor), and
then hoped for the best. With a digital SLR, you can see it
now, and the camera even makes tweaks to Color Balance if
the camera has built-in Color Balance bracketing, which is a
trend today with many SLRs from Canon, Nikon, Olympus,
and Pentax.
