Hi all-
This
Reefkeeping Magazine article discusses white balance and some techniques for getting truer colors in your photos.
Light color, or color temperature as it can be referred to, is measured in degrees Kelvin and to give you a couple reference points-- a standard lightbulb like those you use in a reading lamp are about 3200 degrees Kelvin- a very warm [yellow] light. Daylight is much bluer and runs from around 5600 to upwards of 8000 degrees Kelvin. On the low end of the scale is very warm light and on the high end is very cool/blue light.
8000 degrees Kelvin is about as high a color temp as a camera would expect to see in normal circumstances, but some aquarium lights are far bluer than that even and that's where the trouble starts
Anyways- what a white balance does is give a reference point to the camera. Show the camera a white object and the camera measures the color temp of the light hitting the white object and then it's [theoretically] able to determine the correct overall color balance accurately.
In normal circumstances the camera can figure out the correct color balance automatically but with extreme lighting it may be beyond the range of what the white balance system is programmed to expect-- this is when you need to do a manual wb. Unless...
Unless you have a camera that has a RAW format. Shooting in RAW format (as opposed to jpeg where you cannot change the color temp-- you can adjust colors on a jpeg in photoshop but it's not nearly as good) allows you to set the wb point [color temp] on the computer- that is a great feature to have when shooting in tricky lighting situations.
Directions on how to set the wb for specific models are going to be in your cameras manual, but there are some tips in that article, as well as
in this thread.
