Foto Friday: Framing And White Balance
Date: Thursday September 27, 2007Posted in: Foto Friday, Photography
Foto Friday is back by popular demand. Or by semi-popular demand. Or maybe I just have a dull and boring life and have nothing else to post about.
Ha!
(I know I’m posting Thursday night, but the hotel has spotty Internet service. In 2007! So I’m sitting in the lobby. I’m changing hotels tomorrow.)
I don’t know if you all saw the photo of the Vancouver library that I took at night from my hotel. (That hotel? HAD INTERNET SERVICE IN MY ROOM.) I had a bunch of emails wondering what settings I used to get it to turn out. Here it is again:
Going back to the post about aperture, I used a smaller f-stop number. In that post I told you that a smaller f-stop number means a smaller area of focus. This is true for photos taken in daylight.
I also gave you the technical lowdown about aperture. To quote my bad self, “Smaller f-stop numbers mean that the lens has a larger opening and that more light hits the sensor.”
Photos at night = not much light. So you want a smaller f-stop number to get that larger opening. I used an f-stop of 3.5.
I also changed the ISO (remember that post?) to 1600. I wanted as much light as possible to hit my camera’s sensor. It seemed to work, hey?
OK. On to this week’s “lesson”. I put in in quotes because I am not a photographer by trade. I AM AN ACCOUNTANT.
Now that we have that straight, let’s see what drivel I can share with you.
Composition: Framing
This is a really simple aspect of composition. If your subject is framed by an object/surrounding, fill the frame of your viewfinder so that the environmental “frame”, um, frames your subject.
Like this one I took of Emily on our jungle gym.
Or this one I also took of her in our jungle gym but on a different day.
Note that she’s playing outside in her jammies. She has learned well from her big brothers (and maybe her Mommy) that jammies are the way to go. She’s no slob though.
But do you see how the frame of the opening provides a good frame for the photo? At least I think it does. But what do I know?
White Balance (WB)
What in the heck is White Balance, you ask? I’ll try and explain it all simple-like.
Your camera uses the white that it “sees” in your frame to then decide how to allocate the colours (“colors” for you Americans) in the rest of the picture. Sometimes, your camera has a hard time seeing white like you do and has a hard time making the colours in your photo look like they should. Your camera needs your help because YOU ARE SMARTER THAN YOUR CAMERA.
Who knew?
We’re going to stay at the same dial setting as last week. Your camera should be set to Av (Aperture Priority) mode. I usually leave my f-stop at one of the lowest settings. I just switch it up when need be.
So. You have set the aperture on your camera. You have set your ISO. Now click the “WB” button on your camera. For most of your outside photography needs, the AWB (Auto While Balance – it’s the automatic setting for White Balance) setting is just fine. However. You can play a bit.
Here is a photo of our wild flowers taken with AWB.
Pretty yellow flower.
The flowers were in the shade so I scrolled through the WB settings and changed it to the “shade” setting. Here’s the same flower, mere seconds later.
See how the colours are warmer? Or maybe all of the Diet Coke I drink has skewed my vision. It’s entirely possible.
It is up to you what you do in situations like this. You can always take the photo using AWB and adjust it using a photo editing program.
I have found, however, that changing the WB settings for indoor shots have made a world of difference.
We are in the midst of renovating our laundry room. The laundry room is in the basement. There is no natural light. Zip. Zilch. Nada. And currently? The lighting consists of two fluorescent bulbs.
So? I set the WB on my camera to “fluorescent” lighting and instead of having to use a flash with nasty shadows, I took this.
Yes, it isn’t finished. It’s a PROGRESS SHOT. I bought some sweet shelving at IKEA last weekend for this room. Full photo set to come when c’est finis. Check back in 2010.
That’s a wrap.
Hope you garnered some useful information other than to MAKE SURE THE HOTEL YOU ARE STAYING AT HAS FULL INTERNET SERVICE.
Ahem.
I’m not sure if we should go fully manual next week, or if there are other questions you guys have that we should address first. Let me know.
And have a great weekend!
20 Comments
Another great tutorial!! I hate hotel rooms without internet! Grr!
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Comment by Hannah on September 28th, 2007 @ 2:35 amHey! I’m loving these posts and I’m actually learning stuff, so keep em coming!
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Comment by Randi on September 28th, 2007 @ 6:36 amThis really is helpful! Thanks for posting these Photo Fridays! I know you have probably posted about it before, but what kind of camera do you have? I’m in the market for a better one. (I currently have a Canon S21S, but I’m looking to upgrade to an SLR by Nikon or Canon most likely…)
Thanks
Dana
I have a Canon Rebel XT, but I hear that the Nikon is just as good. 
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Comment by Dana on September 28th, 2007 @ 6:56 amI’ll be experimenting tonight. THANK YOU.
(If you’re a whiz at Photoshop–or a similar program–I could use some REAL help there, too.)
(I’m a demanding student, aren’t I?)
(Fine, just come to Texas and take my photos for me, please.)
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Comment by Jennie on September 28th, 2007 @ 7:28 amYes, but AN ACCOUNTANT is the only person to be able to explain some of this stuff to me so that I actually, uh, understand it!
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Comment by Loralee on September 28th, 2007 @ 7:35 amNext time try a larger F-stop and a slower shutter speed on the city lights and you’ll get a really cool blurred effect of the cars driving. But, you’ll have to use a tripod. Trust me it’s way cool!
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Comment by christy on September 28th, 2007 @ 7:56 amEverything you said is totally right though!
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Comment by christy on September 28th, 2007 @ 7:57 amYou’d never know that you are just learning. Good job! I have gotten out of photography in the last few years. I still have my Pentax K100 from 10 years ago but that just doesn’t cut it anymore. I have to go bug my hubby to let me buy a D80! I can’t wait until Christmas – I need it today!!
By the way, the pics of Emily are cute! Great framing
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Comment by Sara on September 28th, 2007 @ 8:54 amYou are totally saving me money on a local photography class…
Thank you 
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Comment by LVGurl on September 28th, 2007 @ 9:06 amThank you so much! I love Foto Fridays, they are so very helpful. Now if only my child would sleep so I could actually play around with my camera after all your fine instruction.
Here’s a question I have. What are the best settings for taking pictures of my constantly in motion and very wiggly son? A LOT of my pictures turn out very very blurry, or with the non moving objects in the shot in focus and my son out of focus. Am I doing something wrong? If you already addressed this, or it’s not really something you can help me with, just ignore me, but this is the main thing I’m wondering about these days as I try to photograph a very wiggly seven month old!
I’ll see what I can do. But sometimes a flash is needed for those pesky kidlets
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Comment by Elizabeth on September 28th, 2007 @ 10:13 amI didn’t know camera’s had a setting for “fluorescent” wow I think I gotta get new camera!
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Comment by Suzie on September 28th, 2007 @ 12:30 pmI still love that shot of the library…. mine didn’t turn out probably because I have already forgotten all I learned in teh first 3 installments of Foto Friday
I have to learn to adjust the settings… right, when it’s not on automatic, I have to be “smarter than my camera”.
I’ll have to work on that one
Hope the new hotel is better.
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Comment by Kami on September 28th, 2007 @ 12:49 pmI’m thinking because of the “u” in colour (which is totally the way it should be spelled) that it was Vancouver, BC, and not Vancouver, Washington that you visited.
I so wanted to end that sentence with a question mark, eh?
Yep. That’s the public library in Vancouver, BC.
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Comment by witchypoo on September 28th, 2007 @ 12:58 pmI definately need a new camera…got an old one you wanna get rid of ?? LOL!!! Can’t wait til next weekend…and what shots you will get there!!
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Comment by Mel on September 28th, 2007 @ 7:10 pmYou don’t know how bad I want a new camera!!!!
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Comment by Michele on September 28th, 2007 @ 8:48 pmEnjoyable as always. I can’t believe that there’s a hotel with spotty service these days, (drip, drip goes the sarcasm). I think I will now go and search my couch cushions for loose change to add to the camera fund. I must have a good shot where the body is blurry but the foot focused of one of my kids while they are small, I must. Especially now that I know how to do it, in any environment–even a flourescent lit laundry room!
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Comment by Amanda Franks on September 28th, 2007 @ 10:43 pmOne thing you’ve taught me? I need a new camera so I can get pictures like this. You may be an accountant, but I love your knowledge of photography and look forward to using some real features instead of this automatic crap on mine.
Keep Foto Fridays coming!
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Comment by Jen on September 30th, 2007 @ 1:08 pmLine and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
now, I just need a new camera….
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Comment by Elizabeth on September 27th, 2007 @ 10:56 pm