Digital Camera question

Joined: 25 Jan 2007 Posts: 2

I purchased a Digital camera Olympus Stylus 300 Digital

I try to improve my knowledge of this camera but notice that
the Basic Manual I got with it,is not compehensive at all.

One of many questions is:

White balance.What is it used for ? The manual describes 4
icons,one looks like a sun,the other one like clouds,another
one like a light bulb and the fourth one is hard to describe.

What are these settings for I wonder.

Thanks

RobertCoprim

Posted: Thu Jan 25, 2007 10:15 am

Your eyes are remarkably good at telling what colour things are supposed to be regardless of lighting conditions. This is a combination of the way your retinas work and the way your brain processes information based on previous experience (you expect a sheet of paper to be white, so it is).

Your new digital camera is not so clever and needs to be told what kind of light it is working with.

You can see the effect by setting your camera to daylight mode (the sun) and taking a picture indoors under tungsten light (standard light bulbs). It will come out with a strong orange cast. Do the reverse (set camera to the bulb and take a shot outside in daylight) and it will come out violently blue.

Most digital cameras also have an auto white ballance setting which trys to decide on its own. These are usually pretty good though be prepared for the odd funny coloured pic.

There may also be a manual WB setting. This idea of this is that you take a shot of something mid grey (ideally a grey card but all sorts of things work, some people use a pringle lid held over the lens) and the camera sorts out the white ballance from that.

hope this helps

Joined: 25 Jan 2007 Posts: 2

Thanks for the info