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3CT In Focus Website: www.3ct.org Camera Club Council Email to: [email protected] of Tennessee Volume 8, Issue 7 Save the date! July 31, 2019 3CT Fall Event - See Page 7-8 The Photographic Society of Chattanooga 3CT Governing Board will host the event President: Jeff Roush October 4, 5, and 6 Vice President: Tommy Azbill Secretary: Sally Edwards https://www.chattanoogafun.com/ Treasurer: Pat Gordy Webmaster: Dave Reasons Education Director: Jeff Roush Social Media Director: Kay Crick Activities Director: Sally Edwards Newsletter Editor: Renee Day Inside this Issue Chattanooga Downtown Skyline Pg. 1 Issue Contents/Photos Pg. 2-4 Education Article Pg. 5-6 Tech Notes Instagram Pg. 7 Member Club News Our 3CT Instagram account is maintained by Kay Crick, 3CT Pg. 8-9 3CT Fall Event Social Media Director. Pg. 10 PSA Councils Challenge On Instagram, go to “3ctorg” to see Kay’s Instagram posts. Pg. 11-12 Workshops, Expo, Etc. Pg. 13-14 Member Clubs She shares the Facebook posts on your club page to the 3CT Facebook page. From there, she posts to the 3CT Instagram Pg. 15-17 Photo Locations account. Pg. 18 Contacts, Extras If you have any questions or comments, please send an email to [email protected]. Color Temperature and White Balance Jeff Roush—Education Director Camera Council of Tennessee In digital photography, the hues and tones of the captured image are significantly influenced by the color of the incident light. Incident light is the light that is currently present in the scene. This incident light can be described by its "color temperature", which represents a composite of the wavelengths of visible radiation of which it is composed. For photographic purposes, the most important sources of light commonly used and their color temperatures are shown below. The white balance settings on your camera will cover most of the lighting types commonly experienced. These settings are usually indicated by symbols or icons. A representative set of such icons used by Nikon cameras are shown above and below, along with the white balances they represent. Other camera icons will often be the same or very similar, with some alternative symbols mentioned in the figure. Many cameras also have additional white balance controls, which allow the photographer to set specific color temperatures in degrees Kelvin (see footnote for additional information on the Kelvin temperature scale). For example, if you wanted to use that capability, you could set your camera at the specific color temperature of 5500 °K rather than at "Daylight," and you should obtain approximately the same result. The advantage of using this control is that if you would like your images to be just a little bit warmer or cooler, you can set your white balance to, say 200 °K higher or lower than the icon setting. As indicated in Figure 1, a higher temperature shifts the color towards the blue ("cooler") tones, while a lower color temperature shifts the color towards the red ("warmer") tones. However, keep in mind that the camera control should be set at what the light is, to obtain neutral or non-tinted images. So, therefore, if I were to photograph something at night in the living room of my home with no supplementary light, just the incandescent light in household lamps, I would generally start with an Incandescent light icon setting. This corrects for approximately 3200 °K, which is the color temperature of photofloods and quartz/halogen photographic lighting. Probably the image would still be too "warm" (orange colored) because the color temperature of a 100-watt incandescent light is about 2850 °K. So, if I use the color temperature control on the camera and set the color balance setting to 2800 °K, I should be OK. 2 Color Temperature and White Balance—Continued To test that, shoot a white piece of paper and see if it now looks white, rather than yellow or orange. If you are using 60-watt or 75-watt incandescent lights, you will likely need to go down to perhaps 2500 °K in your setting because lower-wattage incandescent lights are more red in their color output. You should set the color temperature in the camera to what the lighting temperature is, for a first approximation and then modify the color temperature setting until it looks right. Of course, you can also look in your camera manual for the method to set your custom white balance for any color lighting situation. Mixed lighting (e.g., both incandescent lighting plus outdoor window light) will usually require a compromise, making you choose which lighting to correct for. Often setting the camera to daylight (or perhaps a little bluer) for the window lighting, and letting the incandescent light be somewhat orange, would be the preferred compromise. Different brands of cameras may have slightly different color balance settings for each icon, and different people may have different preferences for their images. For example, with my Nikon D3 camera when using Norman studio flash units, I prefer to set my white balance to the Daylight icon rather than the Flash icon because I like the slightly warmer image quality I get from that setting. Generally, flash units tend to be a little cooler than sunlight. Fluorescent light is a different animal than both daylight and incandescent lighting. Both daylight and incandescent light are composed of continuous wavelength spectra, differing only in their actual wave- lengths which produce their very different color temperatures. Without going into too much technology here, let me just say that fluorescent light is composed of a number of specific wavelength spikes, due to the light being produced by particular atomic transitions between different energy levels of the mercury vapor and phosphor components of the fluorescent tube. The color temperature of the most common fluorescent lights has been a greenish tint, which used to be corrected with a magenta filter on film cameras before modern digital cameras had white balance correction capabilities. Other fluorescent lights can sometimes have a reddish tint, and more recently they are often labeled as "daylight fluorescent" because they use several different phosphor components in the tubes to make the average light output close to 5500 °K, even though they are still wave- length spikes and not continuous wavelength sources of light. Some of the compact fluorescent lightings that I have seen can come pretty close to daylight lighting, although usually somewhat cooler or warmer. In general, when photographing important subjects with fluorescent lighting, the best solution is to use a custom white balance setting made using the specific lighting to be used for the final photographs. So, there you have it, a concise summary of color temperature and white balance settings, and how to use them for your photography. I hope that this is helpful to your understanding of lighting and color in your photography work and adventures. 3 Color Temperature and White Balance—Continued (Note: The Kelvin temperature scale is also known as the Absolute temperature scale, with 0 °K being the temperature at which all thermal motion of atoms ceases (= -273.16 °C and -459.67 °F), and 273 °K the freezing point of water. As a material (such as the tungsten metal in a light bulb filament) is heated it starts as a dull red, then a bright red, then orange, yellow and even white as it gets to very high temperatures. The visible wavelengths of light emitted from such a filament become shorter (more energetic) as its temperature rises, even going to blue-white and above.) As always – comments and questions are welcome! [email protected] 4 July 2019 Dave Reasons, 3CT Webmaster Have you ever wished you could take better images? If you have, I'm going to make 10 suggestions on how you can best improve your images without buying new equipment. 1. First and foremost, the best thing you can do is go out and take photographs of something you like to capture. Just get out and go somewhere with your camera and take photographs. You've always heard "Practice makes perfect!" Well, it's true. 2. Think about what you are taking an image of a. What are you trying to photograph? b. Decide what you want to achieve. c. Don't rush yourself, take a deep breath and look around. d. Remember it's Quality over Quantity. 3. Survey the location before taking your camera out of the bag or off of your shoulder a. DO NOT set up your camera and tripod when first arriving at a sight. b. Give yourself a moment to survey the area, so don't start shooting right away c. Be cognizant of your surroundings, the view, the sights, the sounds, and the smells. 4. Use the camera you carry everywhere first a. If you're like most photographers, you are never without a camera. The most used camera is your cellphone, so use it. b. Following the advice in item 3 above, as you survey the site, frame up interesting sights with your cellphone a take a couple of shots of each prospective scene. c. Then take a few minutes to go through the images you just shot on your phone and pick out a couple of the most interesting ones. d. Now get your big camera out and take a shot of the two views you selected. 5. When possible, always use a tripod. a. Using a tripod makes you slow down and consider the scene and the shot. b. Using a tripod will also allow you to take fewer photos that you'll have to delete later. c.

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