Vol 5 - Histograms and White Balance

Histowhat?

Before I “recreate the wheel” allow me to point you to an excellent article about histograms: Photography Pro - Histogram Article.

The histogram in photography is used to tell when a photograph’s exposure is too light, too dark, or just right. Like goldilocks! The goal is to have an even distribution of light in your image from light to dark. This is usually viewable on the back of your camera after you take a picture. It’s another good way to validate how your shooting is going.

White Balance - Do you ever look at a picture and think that it looks really yellow or really blue or really green? This is because the white balance is off. This is another setting on your camera that you can adjust to make your images better. You can use preset settings in your camera based on your environment:

• Auto

• Incandescent

• Fluorescent

• Direct sunlight

• Flash

• Cloudy

• Shade

To be perfectly honest, I leave mine on auto 99% of the time, I think it does a pretty good job of judging white balance and in situations where it doesn’t, I will adjust in-camera or in editing software. But it is another way that you can manipulate the way your images come out with camera settings.