Playing With White Balance

All the photos taken for this White Balance exercise were shot with an ISO of 100, an aperture of 4.5, and a shutter speed of 1/80. The only variable was the camera's White Balance Presets. The woman putting on her shoes is on a shady porch on a bright sunny day in Portsmouth NH.

This first photo was taken with the White Balance set to "Automatic".

The "Daylight" setting produced a cooler and slightly darker image.

The flesh has a distinctly blue/green tone.

The "Shade" setting produced an image just slightly warmer then the "Automatic" setting. I like the skin tone in this photo better. This setting most accurately reflects the actual conditions.

The "Cloudy" setting produced an image a tiny bit cooler then the "Automatic" setting.

I probably would not have noticed without the "Shade" image to compare to.

With a setting of "Tungsten" used on a sunny day, the woman putting on her shoes has been transformed into an alien. An obvious blue cast dominates the image.

The "Florescent" setting is not as wrong as the tungsten setting but the colors are still not reproduced accurately. There is a cool blue tint to everything. This kind of color shift is hardly appropriate for a summertime photo, the model looks like she would freeze.