Exposure and White balance

Exposure and White Balance

Hello everyone! I hope you all are holding up during bad times like these!

In my last blog, I shared my experience on ISO, Aperture, and Shutter Speed, and also their roles in photography. I am back here today to share what  I learned on Exposure and White Balance and how these elements are a key part of photography.

Exposure Triangle

Let us start by Exposure Triangle. The Exposure Triangle explains how the amount of exposure, which is how bright or dark something is, affects a photo. ISO, Aperture, and Shutter Speed collectively work together to form the Exposure triangle.

Now I might sound a bit crazy here, but using the Exposure Triangle is no different than making a cup of tea! You need to have a perfect balance between three things, the combination of Milk and Water, the number of tea leaves, and the most important thing, time! All these elements together make for a perfect cup of tea. Similarly, ISO, Aperture, and Shutter Speed together with a perfect balance make up for a great photo. Therefore, understanding Exposure Triangle, if you want that awesome photographer inside of you to come out, is a must! If you are taking photos and they are too bright, you are over-exposing and if they are too dark, you are under-exposing. Now, it is very easy to know if you are overexposing or underexposing. All you have to do is take a look at the Light meter which is present in all cameras, and it will automatically tell you if the photo is perfectly exposed or not!

Here is an image to tell you what a light meter basically looks like in a camera.



You can see that on the left side, there is 1 and 2 that go into the minus side, showing underexposure, (you can tell it is in minus as there is one on top of the two, same with the plus on the right side) and on the right side, there are 1 and 2 that are positive, showing Over Exposure. The marker underneath shows whether it is Over or Under Exposed. So basically, if the marker is on the left, that means it is Under Exposed, and if it is on the right, it means that it is Over Exposed.

Also, be careful while fixing your exposure, as all three ends of the Exposure Triangle can affect the amount of exposure. I know it is all a little confusing, but we will get it as we keep practicing (I guess 🧐)!!

White Balance

Next up, and the last one for today, is White Balance. White Balancing any camera essentially means that you are telling your camera what white looks like under different circumstances. As humans, our eyes compensate for the different lighting conditions and make us feel like white is, well, white. But the same can't be said for the camera. So we need to help, and once the camera gets the basis of white, it can easily set all the other colors to get that amazing photo.

Measurement of White Balance

White Balance is measured in temperature - no not the one we use to measure whether we have a fever - but by a unit called Kelvin, in short form, K.
The lower the Kelvin, the more bluish the picture comes out, and the higher the Kelvin, the more shades of orange, yellow and reddish colors. Going into the details of the more bluish colors, like tungsten are somewhere at about 3000K, and the ones like shade are at about 7000-7500K range. The ones like Flash are the normal point of about 5000K, which is the balance between the two types of colors.

There is also an Auto mode, which personally for me, doesn't really cut it, so I will always recommend to take many shots and try out the different presets that are given in the camera, or if you like, you can also play around with the custom mode, suit yourself!!



Well, that's all I got for today, (It took a lot of research and time, so don't judge me!!)

I post every Sunday to make sure to keep tuned in for some more exciting blogs!!