Camera & Craft

Try This at Home

Chapter One: Prerequisite—Photo 101

Make the Wrong WB Choice

Gear: Camera

Prop or Subject: A friend—or an object that has white or gray tones in it

Location A: Indoors, under a real 1 tungsten light bulb

Location B: Outside, during daylight hours

    What to Expect

    You’re about to demonstrate the creative power of making a 100 percent wrong WB decision on purpose. You’ll take two photographs and choose the opposite WB setting for each of them.

    Take a look at Figure 1.25 to see two portraits shot at the “wrong” setting. The image on top has a sense of warmth, because it was shot with the Daylight setting in tungsten light. Since we associate warmth with late-afternoon sunlight, warm firelight and the glow of a house at night, it might be the look you’re after. The image on the bottom is very cool, because it was shot at the Tungsten setting in daylight. This color choice lends a slightly more ominous feeling to the image. Both images tell stories that are different than the ones they would tell if the WB were neutral. You might select either as you creative choice. 2

    Planning

    1. Ask your friend to sit for you again, this time wearing a white or gray shirt. (That way you’ll get good skin tones and a white reference.) Optionally, you can do this as a still life image with an object that has neutral tones.
    2. You’ll need two places in which to shoot: The first location is an indoor one that’s lit with tungsten light. To make sure you have only tungsten light, close the drapes on the windows or shoot this image at night. You can use as many lamps as you’d like to increase the exposure values. Your second location is an outdoor one on a sunny or overcast day. Find locations that interest you and work with your subject. We always encourage you to make the most interesting, creative images possible, even when you’re only experimenting. It’s a great thing to engage your creative side while doing technical exercises!

    Photographing (Either Location)

    1. Frame up your shot, paying attention to composition and framing. This as an opportunity to be deliberate with your skills.
    2. With your camera on Manual mode (is this starting to sound familiar?), set the F-stop, shutter speed and ISO to get a good, normal exposure on your in-camera light meter. Stay above 1/60th, unless you want to add some motion blur to your images.
    3. Open up the WB menu on your camera and choose the opposite icon than the lighting in your scene: For the daylight location, choose the light bulb icon (incandescent light). For the tungsten location, choose the sun icon. 1
    4. Take a short series of images, trying different options: exposure combinations, subject poses, camera angles or framing choices.
    5. Repeat these steps for your second location.

    Back at Your Digital Darkroom

    Download your images and import them into Lightroom (or Photo Ninja, Aperture, Capture 1, etc.). Organize them all into a Collection and select a favorite image from each location. Put the favorites into their own collection. Using the Compare tool in Lightroom, put them side-by-side so you can see the differences.

    Experiment

    If you’re using Lightroom, you can create a copy of each image by using the “Create Virtual Copy” command (Photo > Pull-Down Menu > Create Virtual Copy). Other applications have a similar tool. You should now have four images in your collection.

      Steps

      1. Open up the Develop Tab in Lightroom and find the WB palette (Figure 1.26).
      2. For the two virtual copies you just created, switch the WB setting to the “correct” ones. (Just match the WB name in the pull-down menu to the type of light in the image.)
      3. Now compare the correct version against the “wrong” version.
      4. Make two more virtual copies and try the WB “Auto” preset. Compare them to the other versions.

      Technical Notes

      • Take a look at the histograms of the images, noting how they change when the WB setting changes.
      • Underneath the WB presets, there’s a color adjustment slider and a numeric setting. These refer to Kelvin temperatures (you’ll hear more about these in Chapter 7) and change when you choose different presets.

      Questions

      • Which image version do you prefer for each location—the “wrong” setting, the “right” setting or the “Auto” setting? Why?
      • How does the color shift change the story of the photo?
      • These are dramatic color shifts; what happens when you choose subtler variations by adjusting the color temperature slider?

      1 Warm-balanced compact fluorescent lights don’t behave in the same way as real tungsten bulbs, and your results might vary wildly if you use one of them. For about $8, you can buy a clip light and a 100-Watt bulb from the hardware store, and they’ll work perfectly.

      2 Another concept at work here is that colors in proximity to one another affect your perception. To see this in action, grab a sheet of white paper and cover up the image on top. After a minute the right image should appear more neutral. (This works in the other direction as well.) If you want to impress your friends, tell them this effect is known as simultaneous contrast.

      3 Other options are to use the Cloud or House/Shade icons—or to shoot all three—to see the results.