What is white balance? What are the common white balance settings?

White balance is also called white balance and white balance adjustment. The function of a digital camera to correct the color cast (color distortion) based on white to make the image truly reproduce the color of the subject. The white balance system of a digital camera is a built-in color temperature meter to measure the temperature of the reflected light from the subject.

The white in the scene is the most sensitive. As long as the white is restored normally, the three electrical signal circuits of the three primary colors rarely cause errors. The color changes with the light, and there are thousands of colors in the scenery. White balance is to separate, amplify, transmit, and synthesize colored light to maintain the same magnification of the three electrical signal circuits of red, green, and blue, thereby restoring the color of the scene.

First of all, to set the white balance is to set the color temperature of the camera to be consistent with the color temperature of the scene to correct the color cast and restore the inherent color of the scene. Second, deliberately pursue color cast to meet special artistic needs.

White balance settings mainly include automatic white balance, manual white balance, custom white balance, and white balance correction.

• Automatic white balance. The digital camera automatically adapts to the mixing ratio of the three primary colors of red, green and blue according to different light to correct the color cast. When the shutter is pressed halfway, the color temperature measurement system automatically measures the light color temperature of the scene being shot, and automatically adjusts the white balance circuit to make the camera color temperature consistent with the color temperature of the scene to truly reproduce the color of the scene. The automatic white balance uses the weighted average method, which faces all the ever-changing lights. It has a wide range of use and is easy and convenient, but it lacks pertinence.

• Manual white balance. The digital camera presets the white balance function according to the specific light source of several common scenes. Mainly daylight, shadow, cloudy, tungsten light, fluorescent light, flash, custom, color temperature K value, etc., when shooting, only select for one scene, which is more targeted and accurate. Setting the color temperature K number directly has the most initiative, the key is to memorize the color temperature K number of several common light sources. For example, it is 2000K at sunrise and sunset, 2400K half an hour after sunrise and sunset, 3800K after sunrise and 1 hour before sunset, 4700K after sunrise and 2 hours before sunset, and the color temperature at 10 am and 2 pm is 5500K. 6000K at noon, the color temperature is generally 6500-7000K in cloudy days.

• Custom white balance. The photographer shoots a white object with a standard exposure at the shooting site as a benchmark for setting white balance, and inputs its data into the camera as a self-defined white balance setting.

• White balance correction. The photographer makes a temporary change to the white balance setting of the digital camera.