Happy Dussehra

The Fourth Element.- White Balance.

White Balance is an aspect of photography that many digital camera owners don’t understand or use but it’s something well worth learning about as it can have a real impact upon the shots you take.

 I say it as fourth element because the first 3 are Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO. These 3 are already being discussed in my earlier blog.

White Balance is considered as one of the most important settings of a digital camera. White Balance doesnt really affect you exposure, just the appearance of colour in the image.

Different light sources cast their own colours which cannot usually be noticed with the naked eye. White Balance is essentially the camera compensating for the colour cast of the light in order to reproduce the correct colour. In short the reason we adjust white balance is to get the colours in your images as accurate as possible.

You might have noticed when examining shots after taking them that at times images can come out with an orange, blue, yellow etc look to them despite the fact that to the naked eye the scene looked quite normal. The reason for this is that images different sources of light have a different ‘colour’ (or temperature) to them. A digital camera can measure the colour in the red, green, and blue light of the spectrum, as reflected to its sensors. In a photo taken under the midday sun there is the whole spectrum of light (which makes up “white” sunlight). Under these conditions, the colours in an image appear nearest to the “true” colours. An image taken under tungsten bulb (a normal household incandescent bulb) without adjusting the digital camera for white balance produces the dull orange shade as it spreads the biased light. Similarly, an image taken under the fluorescent lighting produces a brighter bluish cast.

We don’t generally notice this difference in temperature because our eyes adjust automatically for it. So unless the temperature of the light is very extreme a white sheet of paper will generally look white to us. However a digital camera doesn’t have the smarts to make these adjustments automatically and sometimes will need us to tell it how to treat different light. So for cooler (blue or green) light you’ll tell the camera to warm things up and in warm light you’ll tell it to cool down.

To understand the concept of White Balance, you need to first understand the concept of colour temperature. Colour temperature is a characteristic of visible light. It provides a method of describing these characteristics and is measured in Kelvin (K). A light having higher colour temperature will have more blue light or larger Kelvin value as compared to lower light, which has a smaller Kelvin value. The following table shows the colour temperature of various sources of light.

Colour Temperature	Light Source
1000-2000 K	Candlelight
2500-3500 K	Tungsten Bulb (household variety)
3000-4000 K	Sunrise/Sunset (clear sky)
4000-5000 K	Fluorescent Lamps
5000-5500 K	Electronic Flash
5500-6500 K	Daylight with Clear Sky (sun overhead)
6500-8000 K	Moderately Overcast Sky
8000-10000 K	Shade or Heavily Overcast Sky

Here are some of the basic White Balance settings you’ll find on cameras:

Auto – this is where the camera makes a best guess on a shot by shot basis. The Auto setting helps in adjusting the white balance automatically according to the different lighting conditions. You’ll find it works in many situations but it’s worth venturing out of it for trickier lighting.

Tungsten – This mode is used for light under a little bulb like tungsten, and it is often used while shooting indoors. The tungsten setting of the digital camera cools down the color temperature in photos.

Fluorescent – This mode is used for getting brighter and warmer shots while compensating for cool shade of fluorescent light.

Daylight/Sunny – This mode is for the normal day light setting, while shooting outdoors.

Cloudy – This mode is ideal for while shooting on a cloudy day. this setting generally warms things up a touch more than ‘daylight’ mode. and allows you to capture better shots.

Flash – the flash of a camera can be quite a cool light so in Flash WB mode you’ll find it warms up your shots. The flash mode is required when there is inadequate lighting available. This mode helps pick the right White Balance under low light conditions.

Shade – the light in shade is generally cooler (bluer) than shooting in direct sunlight so this mode will warm things up a little.

Manual White Balance.

In most cases you can get a pretty accurate result using the above preset white balance modes – but some digital cameras (most DSLRs and higher end point and shoots) allow for manual white balance adjustments also.

The way this is used varies a little between models but in essence what you do is to tell your camera what white looks like in a shot so that it has something as a reference point for deciding how other colours should look. You can do this by buying yourself a grey card which is specifically designed for this task – or you can find some other appropriately coloured object around you to do the job.

To manually set the white balance in your image, first set your WB to custom then point your camera at the grey card and make sure all the lights you’re using fall on it, and hit the shutter button for your test shot. (frame should cover most of the card) The camera sees the difference between the result and the neutral hue and determines the balance from that.

Shooting Raw.

The alternative is to shoot raw files rather than JPEGs. With JPEGs, the camera will discard ‘unwanted’ colour data according to your White Balance setting. You can’t get it back, even if you realise you’ve made a mistake.

Raw files, however, retain all the colour data captured by the sensor. The camera will embed your White Balance setting in the file as a default, but it’s purely advisory, you can choose a different setting on your computer later.

It’s still useful to set the White Balance on the camera. It will save time later if your RAW files have the best White Balance setting applied, and by choosing a consistent White Balance during your shoot, you ensure that the colour rendition will be consistent across all your shots.

Original Photograph

After Correcting WB

Small Wonder

I would like to highlight a particular prime lens that I feel is a must use for everyone at least for the beginners. I am talking about the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II  or the nifty fifty as it is rightly called. At this focal length, these lenses show the same view that you see through your eyes, and so are also referred to as normal lenses. This small, versatile, and exceptionally lightweight lens is for Canon DSLR cameras. The first lens you’ll want to grab as it is affordable and small, and takes incredible images in low light. This year, the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II, also called the “Nifty Fifty” celebrates its 25th birthday. This lens was released back in December 1990 and is still in production. It still dominates the list of the most popular Canon lenses. You should definitely consider this lens if you own a Canon DSLR and currently shoots with kit zooms. It has an overall image quality that is very impressive and the fast maximum aperture provides creative functions which are worth checking out. This lens is cheap, fast, small and lightweight. You will find that this is hard to beat when it comes to the performance to price ratio this makes it the first prime lens for most Canon owners. 

Why 50mm is a small wounder?

Great Optics and Sharpness:  The best optical quality is delivered by prime lenses and this lens is no different. The optics are superb. You get sharp images. Prime lenses are usually inherently sharper than zoom lenses, partly due to there being less moving parts inside the lens, and less lens elements. Also because they use a smaller number of glass elements inside the lens, which means lesser loss of quality, and hence better and sharp picture.

Shooting in low light: The wide aperture of f1.8 lets in more light, allowing you to shoot without flash in low light. This lens is great for shooting indoors where a flash sort of ruins the feel. Of course the wide aperture also means that you’ll have a very shallow depth of field, and hence you need to compose your shot such that you get the subject completely in focus. Also wide aperture allows you to use either a faster shutter speed and avoid camera shake, or a lower ISO and avoid the noise you get from higher ISOs, or a combination of both.

Light Weight: The nifty fifty is light, small and very convenient to carry around, whether in your bag, or on your camera. There is no reason to leave this lens at home. That means even when you have bag full of stuff to carry, you can easily grab your camera and the Nifty Fifty and go.

Nice Bokeh: Prime lenses typically produce nice bokeh than most zoom lenses and with the f1.8 aperture you can make some really nice bokeh. Bright lights, off in the background, twinkle with this little lens.

Fast Lens: Primes in general, are fast lenses i.e. they have bigger apertures that allow you to shoot at high shutter speeds even in low light, one major aspect where most zooms lack.

Very Cheap: This lens is very cheap and an easy buy for the hobbyist with a budget. Also for people hoping to get sharper results than those which can be provided by the kit lens bundled with camera body. Its also a potential potion for those seeking a near disposable lens to use in adverse conditions.

Improves Skills: With a fixed frame of view, the only zoom you have at your disposal is your feet. With this ‘restriction’ one ends up being very careful, and also very creative, with their compositions, and also more involved in the whole photographic process.

Versatile : Its quite versatile and you can shoot just about anything you want with 50mm – landscapes, portraits, close-ups, macros, candids, street photography (all to a certain level). Mentioned below are some points that show just how versatile this little wonder is:

1) The Reversed Macro: Not all of us can afford a dedicated macro lens. And the good news is that you can use this 50mm as a macro lens by reversing it. You’ll need a reversal ring for that. You lose autofocus, but that’s not all that bad when you’re getting a macro lens at this price. You also need to preset you aperture. ie set the aperture first and then reverse the lens.

2) The Wide effect: You might not get as wide an angle as with a dedicated lens, but you can still get a wide angle look by moving farther from your subject, and using a smaller aperture (larger f number). This covers a wider area and gives a larger zone of sharpness, just like a wide angle lens.

3) The Telephoto effect: Just like above, you can also simulate a telephoto effect by getting close to your subject and opening up the aperture. This gives a nicely blurred background which is a characteristic of telephotos. 

4) Candid Camera: The lens’s small size makes it a great lens for getting candid shots without getting noticed. Also 50mm means you don’t need to go too close to click.

5) DOF: The large aperture offers extremely shallow depth of field which is another creativity stimulator. One can get some very nice looking photos with imaginative use of the shallow DOF.

6) Portraits and Streets: This lens is by far most used for portraiture and street photography and gives some great results in both fields.

This is not only true for Canon but for other brands as well. ie you may be pleasantly surprised to find your camera brand offers something similar like this little wonder as well. I wrote here about Canon because I am a Canon user.

Recently Canon have launched a new 50mm 1.8 STM lens. It is similar to the old lens with sight changes.

1)    STM stands for stepping motor, or the motor that drives the autofocus. In the EF 50mm f/1.8 STM it’s not as loud as the old focusing motor in the older version, but the sound of the AF motor is clearly noticeable.

2)    The new STM lens has overall better build quality. It has less plastic feel. It feels more like the polycarbonate material.

3)    The new STM version offers a robust metal mount as compared to plastic mount for older version.

4)    You can attach a dedicated lens hood for the new STM lens. The old EF 50mm II was never designed to work with a lens hood. There are a few third-party offerings, however you have to screw these hoods into the filter thread. However you can argue how useful a lens hood is in combination with the Nifty Fifties, as the front glass element is already deeper inside the lens body, but it offers an additional level of protection..

5)    At narrower apertures the outline of the 5 aperture blades are clearly visible in the older version. The newer STM version offers 7 blades with an improved design that allows nearly round bokeh lights even when stepping down the aperture leading to a more pleasant bokeh.

6)    The minimum focusing distance has been reduced from 45cm (1.5ft) to 35cm (1.1ft). This means you can get closer to your subject while keeping it in focus, and therefore small objects can be pictured larger.

7)    New STM lens has a broader focusing ring compared to the older version.

Which Is The Best Camera Brand.

Who makes the best DSLRs, Canon or Nikon? or somebody else? It’s the impossible question. But both Canon and Nikon have been developing very high quality products over many decades. Canon and Nikon remain the two biggest players in the DSLR market, having launched a veritable feast of new cameras over the past few years. Both are obvious leaders in camera technology. Sony is also catching up fast. There are some other brands such as Pentax, Olympus, Panasonic and Fuji that have also been doing well in the market.

The age-old question of which brand to side with can be a tricky one to answer, A feature that a rival DSLR offers today will appear in some form in the other camera system tomorrow. The fact is, Canon and Nikon offer some of the best cameras, lenses, flash systems and accessories – and they have done for years.

In my opinion the truth is neither is better than the other. This is often confusing for someone about to buy their first DSLR camera. Choosing the brand is very important because it will affect your future purchases. This is because all brands make their tools proprietary. You cannot mount a Nikon lens on a Canon body and vice versa the same goes for almost all other brands.  The same applies to pretty much all other proprietary tools such as external flash units, body grips, batteries, etc. Once you choose a brand, it is extremely hard to switch to another one, because you would basically have to get rid of everything that is incompatible and replace it with the brand you are switching to, which will cost you big time. Therefore, choose your brand very carefully. And whichever company you choose, you’re investing in an extensive, well-supported system that caters for everyone, from beginners to experts, from wild life photographers to fashion photographer.

Every company has its own advantages and disadvantages. I am mentioning few points below which I feel I should share with you. But remember this is solely my opinion. 

Canon places all the main settings and knobs around the LCD screen like white balance, auto focus etc  where they are easily found. Whereas Nikon requires photographers to take a couple more steps when changing settings. However, as far as changing your camera settings are concerned, it doesn’t really matter when you get used to. But some find Nikon easier to navigate.

Canon offer a larger choice of lenses to suit all budgets and needs, from general purpose, EF-S lenses, and professional L series lenses. Nikon on the other hand doesn't have a naming label or a lens tier system. All Nikon lenses are built to a high standard. You can be assured that the lens that is packaged in your camera kit when purchasing a Nikon is of a higher standard than those packaged with a Canon kit. If you are looking to purchase a camera and won't be investing in extra lenses any time in future then Nikon is the way to go.

All Canon digital SLR cameras come with photo editing software. Nikon does not come with any such software and will need to be purchased separately. But most of the photographers today use photoshop or lightroom.

The colours from Canon cameras are different from Nikon cameras. My personal feeling is that you get nice skin tone from Canon camera. ie. skin tones from canon Camera looks better and natural as compared to Nikon cameras. But in Nikon cameras the colour nicely pop out ie the blue sky looks more blue, the green trees looks greener, the red balloon looks very red and so on as compared to Canon Cameras.

The focusing points in Canon cameras are smaller compared to Nikons. Small focusing points means its just a dot and in Nikon it’s a small box. This could be an advantage as well as a disadvantage. This happens mostly for entry level dslrs where there are only 9-11 focusing points. With canons you can exactly focus on your tiny subject but for that you will have to compromise on the image composition as you have to place the focusing point exactly on the subject. In Nikons while focusing on your tiny subject sometimes the background also could be in focus as the focusing point is bigger (small box) than the subject or slight movement can cause to shift the focus on the background. Here you wont have to compromise on the image composition as the focusing points are bigger and even when any corner of the box of focusing points falls on the subject it gets focused.

For Nikon In entry level cameras, the low light performance is decent compared to Canons.                    

Even the entry level cameras of Nikon have higher Dynamic Range which is not so in Canons.

Auto Exposure Bracketing is available on all or most of the models on Canon which is not so in Nikons.

Now if you look at Sony E mount cameras then :

They are mirror less and much smaller and lighter.

Exists from entry level to semi-pro.

Using an adapter, virtually any lens can be used on the E-mount.

The lens are not very impressive. Especially if you are looking into the full frame lenses, but this is compensated by the for other ability to use adapters brands.

Entry level cameras have got the best low light performance.

Has got similar performance in the Dynamic Range as the Nikons.

If you ask for my opinion on what brand to go for, my answer is “either Canon or Nikon”. So go for whichever brand between these that has the better price deal at the time of purchase.

Despite the tremendous growth in DSLR market and new emerging players such as Sony, both Canon and Nikon sell more DSLRs than any other brand in the market, have solid records of outstanding performance, spend lots of money on R&D, provide the most choice of lenses & other accessories and have excellent customer service. You would not go wrong with either of the brands, because they compete head to head and continuously release pioneering products.

In fact, it’s quite common to find photographers swapping systems, moving from Canon to Nikon or from Nikon to Canon. This is largely dependent on which manufacturer has just leapfrogged the other in technology, whether that’s a new lens the other lacks or a camera body that set the new benchmark in auto focus or high ISO performance.

No matter what camera system you pick or use today, you most likely pay a lot of attention to other brands. If you own a Nikon camera, you look at Canon cameras and compare. The thing is, the grass is always greener on the other side when it comes to cameras and lenses.

Finally, you have to remember that a camera is just a tool in a photographer’s bag. Without the photographer’s skill set, patience, vision, creativity, planning, timing, lighting and post-processing, even the best camera in the world will not be able to create a good picture.