Part One
After the last exercise on higher and lower sensitivity , which I really enjoyed, the next topic is colour temperature. Again before I set off to capture a set of images I read the course notes and set off to do a little more research. With the following points to look at:-
- Why is it called colour temperature?
- How important is it?
- What can you do to correct any problems?
- Are there set rules or, as in the case of the “rule of thirds” can this rule be broken.
Look at the following four images taken with one of the different settings.
As you can clearly see the same image looks totally different, depending on what setting was used, especially the green and yellow colours.
(Both of the above images copyright of , http://www.One Slide Photography.com , there website is excellent by the way with great information and tips.)
Well the above are the professional images here are mine.
I have taken three different images of each subject on each of the following settings
- Auto White Balance.
- Sun Setting.
- Shade setting.
I wasn’t sure at the time if there would be a big difference but as you can see there is a big difference to the end results.
Images 1-3
Images 4-6
Images 7-9
When you look at each image on its own they look ok, it is only when you put each one side by side that you can see the big difference between each one.
In all three pictures the setting I would choose is different.
In images 1-3 I would choose the image set to sun as I think the leaves stand out better.
In images 4-6 it is a choice between the auto and sun setting, for me the shade setting has made the bricks too red. I think that the difference between auto and sun is too close to call. I would have o get the images printed to make my final decision.
In Images 7-9 I had to go back to the building to see what colour the walls / window frames were. After review the building I prefer image 2 with the sun setting.
As you can se rather mixed results. I thought that the auto setting would come out better but clearly the camera tries to get the best quality image that it can but it goes to show that no matter how good cameras get the human eye is better! The auto setting does produce great results but in each set of images a manually selected imaged look, in my view, better.
Michael Freeman Photo School ISBN 0333342895.