I’m still playing around and discovering new things with my camera. And it keeps getting better. Or maybe I keep getting better? Anyway, I loved the shots I got the other day, but as I’ve said before, the lighting in our house is not great. It’s better than it used to be (losing a bunch of trees will do that) but it’s a long way from being as bright and sunny as I would like. Also, it’s been gloomy and overcast which also doesn’t help.

Anyway, I’m lobbying for track lighting throughout the entire house to alleviate the lighting issue. I may need more people to sign my petition as I am meeting some opposition.

While I am waiting for track lighting petition to go through, I’m learning how to make my own light. Or, you know, changing the white balance setting to create the lighting I want.

Auto White Balance

I was so busy trying to figure out aperture and shutter speed and messing with the ISO that it never really occurred to me to also play with the white balance. That would be why all my photos have a yellowish tint to them. Kind of like a modern sepia? No. I don’t know that you could really call it anything other than horrible lighting.

Auto White Balance EV1

I tried messing with the exposure value and while that helped cut some of the yellow, it’s still not quite what I’m trying to achieve. I want the blue to pop (and the other colors too) and for my whites to really be white.

Flash EV1

I finally tried changing the white balance from automatic. I started with changing it to the flash setting and kept he exposure value to 1. It went in the opposite direction I was trying to go. Completely opposite way. In fact, this is even worse than just the automatic setting.

Fluorescent EV1

The flash setting results were discouraging and even a little embarrassing, but I decided not to let it get me down so I moved on to the fluorescent white balance setting since we actually use a lot of the newer fluorescent lights in our house since they last longer and cost less long-term. This is how I have been slowly converting B into a hippie. “Look, babe! It’s more cost efficient! We should do this.”

Anyway, this was closer to what I’ve always wanted the lighting in my house to look like, but still wasn’t quite right. I mean, I really don’t care for the pink tinge to the ceiling at all.

Tungsten EV1

Even thought I’m shooting these shots under a fluorescent light, the fluorescent white balance setting wasn’t achieving the final result I was looking for in this photo. I wanted crisp whites and colors that pop. And when I changed the white balance setting to tungsten? I finally got the result I was looking for color-wise in this photo. The colors are true to life and the whites really are white.

So what life lesson can we learn from this? Don’t be afraid to try something new to find your white balance. Or just your balance in general. But if we’re talking photography, then you definitely want to find the white balance that works best for your shot.