Krishnan Photography

The Blue Wall White Balance Test

March 17th,2009

This is why manual White Balance on the camera helps at times.

Both  identically exposed Nikon D3, ISO200, 1/250th @ F4. Out of the camera jpeg, resized with no other processing.

First shot with Auto White Balance or Auto WB. Since I was shooting in relative shade. I would estimate the WB ( what I can make out with my eyes)  to be between  6000-7000K if , I should put a value on the Auto WB.

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Second shot with White Balance manually set to 4000K

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Note the histograms in both these shots. The 4000K setting moved the red down while keeping blue to the right thus giving us more saturation on the blue. Typically, the Blue channel is notorious to get underexposed.

I wanted a velvia type, well  saturated blue look and hence,  set an extreme low value like 4000K.

The D3 has wonderful WB on Auto.  I have no complaints. But, its good to know how one can use the tools at hand when you have a particular “rendering intent”.

Summary

To add Blue and subtract Red – Reduce WB values

To add Red and subtract Blue – Increase WB values

Use manual WB to get more done “In Camera”

Equipment / Image Processing

3 responses to “The Blue Wall White Balance Test”

    • To my eyes, on the camera LCD, at that instant, on a quick look, it looked pretty close to the manual WB image.

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