Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Calendar

Looking for a calendar? How about


... now available on Redbubble ! Keep track of the year 2012 swiftly passing by...



Happy New Year!

Cheers,
Sebastian

Saturday, December 10, 2011

White Balance

This time I would like to emphasize the importance of adjusting the color temperature of night pictures in order to create a special atmosphere. Artificial light tends to play tricks on your camera and the automatic white balance usually goes totally wrong. None the less, I do set the white balance to automatic for most of my pictures, since the RAW format allows for adjusting the color temperature during post-processing.

The picture below is a good example for the differences in color temperature of lamps. The foreground is lit up by the typical Dubai street lights with their orange glow. The construction site, however, is illuminated by industrial metal halide lights radiating a rather blueish glow. This diversity confuses a camera even more than city night lights already do. Here is what my camera gave me when I took a picture of the Dubai Pearl construction site:


4300K, Tint +5

In Lightroom I have then adjusted the white balance which resulted in the following image:

2700K, Tint +10

Note that adjusting the white balance is a powerful tool when it comes to adding that special touch to your city night photography. It's actually great fun to play around with and it is often quite surprising how the atmosphere of an image can change dramatically just by adjusting temperature and tint.