On a recent Camera Samurai Photo Tour, I led some folks through a section of Washington, DC to take pictures of monuments. We had a great time experimenting with different setting for various effects. One setting I found particularly fun to play with was the white balance.
As the sun was setting, I had my white balance set to cloudy, as I usually do, and this offered a very nice warm, amber glow, showing the true color of the lamps. I advised the folks on the tour to experiment with their camera settings, including white balance. This provided a great source of entertainment as we all played with different settings and compared results.
Here are a couple of mine. Notice how the amber light gives a warm, inviting glow, compared to the stark coldness of the white, almost bluish light. For the first one I set the white balance to cloudy and for the second one I had it set to incandescent light. Check out the results on these photos I did of the Lincoln Memorial:
Go play with the white balance on your camera to get a sense of the different colors of light and how you can alter the color of whatever you are shooting by simply changing these settings. A simple change like this can greatly affect the mood of a picture.
Post your results to the Camera Samurai Flickr Group!
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