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Saturday, December 27, 2008

Overview of Color Temperature and WB Settings


With a wide array of preset White Balance settings on the Nikon D90, I find myself spoilt with choices to carve the light spectrum reaching my subject. In most instances, the Automatic mode seems just fine. But in my quest to hone in on color accuracy, I begin to trust my eye judgment in setting the Kelvin temperature scale instead.

Often color temperature is measured as "MIRED Value" which stands for MIcroREciprocal Degree. This can be calculated as 1,000,000 / Color Temperature

source      Color Temp (K)  MIRED Value
Candlelight 1,930 518
75 Watt 2,800 357
100 Watt 2,900 345
200 Watt 3,000 333
Sunrise/set 3,100 323
Tungsten 3,200 312
Photolamp 3,400 294
Dawn/dusk 3,600 278
predawn/dusk 4,000 250
"Daylight" 4,500 222
fluorescent
Carbon arc 5,200 192
Daylight 5,500 182
Camera flash 6,000 167
Overcast sky 7,000 143
Hazy sky 10,000 100
sunless blue 11,000 91
sky
clear sky in 20,000 50
mountains
Try your next shoot with the above guide and you'll be surprise our human metering can bring out surprisingly refreshing difference!