Tuesday, 13 March 2012

Exercise: Judging Colour Temperature 1.

For this exercise you need a subject that you can move around and that does not have a strong colour. My sister has kindly volunteered. You must take three photographs, one in full sunlight during the middle of the day, on in shade during the middle of the day and one in sunlight when the sun is close to the horizon. The camera's white balance must be set to 'daylight'.

All three images where taken on the same day with lovely clear, bright weather.

Sunlight.


1/200 f5 ISO 200 52mm.

Shade.



1/200 f5 ISO 200 25mm.

Sun close to the horizon.


1/200 f5 ISO 200 40mm.

The image in the direct sunlight is actually the one that is closest in colour even though the face appears washed out. The day was very bright and I wanted a strong contrast between each of the images, so for the final photo I waited until the sun was very close to the horizon.
As the day has gone on each image has taken on quite a blue tone.  The image in the shade is in fact lighter than I was expecting as at the time it seemed so much darker in the shade, having moved round the garden from the particularly bright sun. The photo taken when the sun was close to the horizon is actually much darker than I remember as there seemed to be a lot more sunlight coming through the trees at the time.

Conclusion.

I have to say that when thinking about light I think more in terms of the weather.....bright, dull, gloomy etc and had not thought about light being colourless. I do always think of really bright sunlight washing out/ over exposing photographs so have always avoided shooting when the weather is like this.
This exercise has been really beneficial as I have gone over white balance again and even got my manual out to properly go through all of its white balance settings (my camera has 9). I am now fairly confident what all of the symbols mean and which setting is most appropriate depending on the situation......although a little more practise won't hurt.



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