Everyone wants to take pictures that look when printed like they did in the viewfinder, but getting such accuracy isn’t as easy as point and shoot. The broader problem at issue here is colour temperature, and you can understand and use colour temperature to your advantage by turning to your camera manual. But if you don’t have your manual handy, the following are some tips and tricks to keep your colour temperature in check.

If you take digital images with the light from a tungsten light, then your image will turn orange. If you take pictures under fluorescent light, your image will have a greenish cast to it. With conventional film, the use of a colour temperature meter tells you what filters to use. After putting on a filter, though, you will have to increase the exposure to compensate.

If you’re using digital rather than film, as most of us are, you’ll instead want to set the camera’s white balance to the light you’re in. You can usually choose between Auto, White preset, daylight, incandescent (tungsten), and flash; some cameras have even more choices—just check your manual.

Since my camera has auto white balance, I set the camera to auto, place an 18 per cent grey card over the entire viewing area, and press the white balance button—the camera does the rest. If you use a flash, there may be white balance settings for it as well.

Shooting under fluorescent light will likely give you the most white balance choices as there are many different types of tubes on the market. If there are many different types of tubes in a given area, such as White, Daylight, and Daylight White or Neutral, your camera may be confused as to the proper balance. When different tubes are present, you as the photographer must decide which type of light is predominant and adjust your white balance accordingly.

And, of course, when you switch to a different lighting situation you will have to change the white balance to the conditions in which you are shooting, otherwise the balance will be off. If you’re shooting in RAW and forget to change the balance, it won’t be as big a deal. But if not, then you will have to try to colour correct the image in an imaging program.

Even once you’ve taken the colour temperature of your scene, there are still issues which may pop up as you try for the greatest verisimilitude possible in your photos.White articles of clothing—such as dresses and shirts—or objects made from white cloth often have whitener added to them as part of their manufacture. When you wash such articles, the detergent itself may also have a whitener added, which will make the dress or shirt iridesce. “Iridescing” simply means that the objects will have a magenta or blue cast once the flash on the camera hits the material.
You can correct white iridescence by putting a UV cutoff filter—easily obtainable from major camera stores—over the flash. I have this filter permanently mounted on my flash head. A polyester filter is my choice, since fingerprints can be cleaned off with a cloth. If you shoot with more than one flash then all the flashes have to have this filter over the flashes.

I get around the problem of multiple flashes by having a compendium lens shade that goes in and out to cover the different lenses that I have. I have one filter that fits into the lens shade that works with my entire lens. The other remedy is to affix the filter over the camera lens. Affixing the filter over the lens means that you will need either a separate filter for each lens size or a filter that fits the largest lens and adapters to step down to the smaller lenses. Don’t attempt to step up a smaller filter to fit a larger lens, as you will vingette the image and see arcs (pieces of the filter) in the corners of your image.

And one final tip—most people do not use a lens shade. This shade protects the lens from sidelight and stops lens flare, otherwise known as the bright marks that are caused by the sun hitting the lens.

It’s hard to get white right, but understanding your colour temperatures and adjusting for different types of light and the particular problems of white clothing will go a long way towards making your pictures look just like the real thing.

Alex B. Wright, professional photographer