Got the blues!

[Mike McCarty]

I recently posted some baby pictures across the hall. As part of my preparation before the subject showed up, I was fiddling with different ways to augment the window light in my bedroom. The room is pretty dark because the walls are painted a very dark green. One thing I tried was to add a little common bulb light to the ambient light side. I then remembered that the camera has different white balance settings for different lighting set ups. So, on my menu I found the incandescent bulb setting and thought that I might be sooo clever to use this setting.

Well, the little red headed, blue eyed beauty showed up and we got underway. After having shot about twenty shots (I still can't get over the fact that I can preview my work instantly) I then remembered to look at the results. Everything I had done was blue! So, without trying to remain soooo clever, I just switched it back to what I was used to, which was auto white balance.

I discussed my lack of cleverness with my fellow at the camera shop and he confirmed that what the camera had done, because of the incandescent setting, is take all the natural (predominant) window light and made it blue. I would show an example but I deleted them all. I may have to invest in one of those bulbs which matches the natural light temperature. Then a little duck tape and a chair back and I'd be in business.

In the auto setting, the camera interpreted the natural light pretty well and made the bulb light a bit golden red, which didn't seem to hurt that much since she was a red head anyway. I suppose you can deduce from this that you cannot use specific white balance settings with mixed light sources. At least without doing your research.

One might also conclude that if you were using any of these specific white balance settings, and, there is the presence of natural sunlight, you could be getting some unpredictable (blue) results. And, next time I think I'll take a close look at my first attempt and not my twentieth.

These are the musings of someone still stumbling along with his new digital machine.