Exercise 30 : judging colour temperature (2)

Here I needed to repeat what was done for Exercise 29 except that the requirement was to shoot sunlit, side lit and shaded images of the subject with the camera set to daylight, cloudy and auto white balance (AWB).  So, a matrix of 9 shots was required.

Let me introduce the imaginatively named Norman, or maybe it should have been Gnorman ..  A nice photographic target because of his red, green and brown colouration and because of his white areas and coarse surface texture … but you can’t say much else for him as he is truly horrid!  Different camera makes and models handle white balance adjustments slightly differently and the photographs here were taken with the Canon 5DMkII and 24-105mm f/4 L IS lens.  No post-production changes were made to the images.

The first set of images was taken under shaded midday conditions.  The images with the camera set to daylight and AWB were very similar, but with a slightly enhanced colour saturation in the green and red derived from the daylight setting.  The shade setting under these shade conditions produced a slightly darker image with greater colour saturation than for AWB or daylight and a much richer tone in the wooden table.  It also introduced a little more contrast into the image and added an unwelcome green tint to the whites.  If I had been shooting this image for myself, I would have remained with AWB and added a little more contrast plus adjusting the colour temperature and tint to taste.

 

Shaded - AWB

Shaded - daylight

Shaded - cloudy

The second series was taken with the sun as low to the horizon as was possible under the circumstances and achieved a strong side light as was the intention. Again, no post-production changes were made and the images were compared.  It was obvious that the horizontal light was going to give an intensely lit side and a shaded side as can be seen.  The shade setting gave a more richly toned image but appeared to introduce a green tint.  Auto introduced a slight blue tint, as the 5DMkII tends to do in auto under intense lighting conditions, and the daylight setting gave the best overall colour and tone.

Horizontal - AWB

Horizontal - daylight

Horizontal - cloudy

The final set was taken in full sun and the differences between the three camera setting were less obvious here although the shade setting again introduced a slight green tint. 

Sunny - AWB

Sunny - daylight

Sunny - cloudy

This was an interesting exercise to see exactly what the differences between the camera settings under conditions of at least some control as I routinely shoot in auto white balance and make any adjustments required in the post-production phase.